The Coffee House | Politics and News Discussion Forum

Newsnight education debate shows the potency of parent power

James Forsyth — , 11 Mar 2010 00:13:59 GMT

The winner of the education debate on Newsnight was a woman called Lesley from Yorkshire. Her local school is being closed and so she, along with other parents, want to set one up themselves. Her case for why she should be allowed to do this left Ed Balls floundering, wittering on about he sympathised but she needed to get agreement from various bureaucracies. If parents like Lesley get more time on TV, people will begin to understand how transformative the Tory policy of letting parents and teachers set up their own state funded schools

Brown risks being over-prepared for the debates

James Forsyth — , 10 Mar 2010 22:30:44 GMT

PMQ’s today bolstered my view that David Cameron will outperform Gordon Brown in the three TV debates. Cameron is simply more confident about thinking on his feet than Brown. When Ronnie Campbell and chums started suggesting that the generals who had criticised Brown’s record on defence were doing so because they were Tories, Cameron changed tack and demanded that the Prime Minister disassociate himself from the heckles of his colleagues. He was happy to move away from his planned six questions and go with something else. By contrast, Brown is much more determined to

Hague and Cameron are vindicated for leaving the EPP

David Blackburn — , 10 Mar 2010 17:35:20 GMT

Daniel Hannan breaks the, sadly, not very surprising news that MEPs have voted overwhelmingly in favour of an EU Tobin tax. The margin: 536 to 80. Only the European Conservatives and Reformist group and a handful of radicals opposed the motion. The EPP, which describes itself as ‘centrist’, voted uniformly in favour. Cameron was right to withdraw from a grouping whose interests are at odds not only with British Conservatives but with Britain itself: a tax on all financial transactions would castrate the City.

What does this division mean for Britain? On the

Clegg: Heir to Thatcher?

Fraser Nelson — , 10 Mar 2010 15:20:25 GMT

Nick Clegg has a blue rose in his mouth in tomorrow's Spectator, serenading readers - and showing his hidden Tory side. I have to say, he puts his heart into it.

Not only does the Lib Dem leader say he'll end the structural deficit with 100 percent spending cuts (not the 20 percent tax rises, 80 percent cuts combo that the Tories advocate), but he even heaps praise in Lady Thatcher. More, he describes her as something of an inspiration: just as she took on vested interests in the 1980s, so he will

Tornado in the chamber

Lloyd Evans — , 10 Mar 2010 15:04:18 GMT

It was like a volcano going off. At PMQs today Cameron was calmly dissecting the prime minister’s underfunding of the Afghan war when he quoted two former defence chiefs who’d called Brown ‘disingenuous’ and ‘a dissembler’. Then someone shouted, ‘they’re Tories!’ Cameron lost control. Instantly, completely. His temper just went. White in the face, he leaned his flexed torso across the dispatch box, hammering at it so hard that it nearly disintegrated. ‘Is that it?’ he yelled. ‘Is that what this tribalist and divisive government thinks of those who serve this country!?’

Rippling

The Tories will have waves of dirt thrown at them

James Forsyth — , 10 Mar 2010 13:01:05 GMT

If you want a flavour of what is going to be thrown at the Tories between now and May 6th, read Jonathan Freedland’s column today. Freedland has a fair point about how Michael Ashcroft should pay tax in this country, in my view no one should be eligible for an honour let alone a seat in the legislature if they are not fully domiciled in this country for tax purpose, but it is all dressed up in the language of the class war.

I’ve never met Richard Drax, Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax to give

PMQs live blog

David Blackburn — , 10 Mar 2010 11:48:56 GMT

Stay tuned for live coverage from 12:00

Memory for Michael Foot and the four servicemen who have been killed in the last week.

12:03: And we're off. Tory backbencher Richard Benyon wants assurances that soldiers serving overseas receive a postal vote. Brown gives him such.

12:05: Here's Cameron. He starts with the examination into the deaths of soldiers in Afghanistan which suggests that inadquately strong motorised equipment was responsible for their deaths. Prepare for Brown's Chilcot evidence, contradicted by Lord Guthrie among others, to come under sustained attack. Brown is at his most vulnerable on defence. That said, Brown apologises

The Tories’ problems have more to do with branding

David Blackburn — , 10 Mar 2010 10:43:00 GMT

Two weeks ago, David Cameron delivered a brilliant speech. It keyed into exactly what Michael Wolff means by the phrase, 'Cameron is a politician who quells, smooths, conflates, reassures.' It offered hope and optimism, a future free of the current morass. In that case, why are the Tories still faltering?

Cameron rode on the wake of Brown’s incompetence for eighteen months. It was never an exclusively positive endorsement, something of which Cameron was aware. Mandelson, Campbell et al have brought Labour back into the race with a series of well aimed jibes that the

The Budget will be on 24 March

Peter Hoskin — , 10 Mar 2010 09:04:07 GMT

So now we know. Gordon Brown has just announced that the Budget will be on 24 March – which strongly implies an election date of 6 May. Brown could dissolve Parliament on 6 April, the manifestos would be published on 12 April, and then we'd be into the campaign proper. Which means even more speeches, polls and dread speculation than we're getting now.

As for the Budget's general flavour, we'll probably get an idea of that today, too. Brown's currently giving a speech in which he's brushing over recent tremors in the