For Fox Sake, Call This Politics? That's Scandalous

Neither the idiot-abroad UK defence secretary nor scandal-mongering critics seem able to separate important public issues from personal sleaze.

There are, apparently, still a lot of ‘unanswered questions’ about the precise details of the Fox affair, involving UK defence secretary Liam Fox, his man-friend Adam Werritty and some murky meetings at the ministry and with foreign dignitaries. So, here are a few more to add to the list.










How could an allegedly senior Tory statesman be so unworldly and moronic as to imagine that it would be alright to take his bestest friend along on diplomatic jaunts pretending to be an official adviser, as if they were two little boys playing ministers and aides? And then to imagine, rather like that rugby-playing royal lackey, that if he simply denied it all, the video evidence would just go away?

On the other hand, the question is: how could the Labour opposition be so pathetic as to imagine that the way to criticise the Tory defence secretary is not to attack the international policies he is pursuing, but to trawl through his diary and Google photos for evidence of meetings with his chum at the MoD and elsewhere? Don’t they know there’s a directionless, disastrous war on – in fact two, in Afghanistan and Libya – with Fox as defence secretary in the political frontline? Did it never occur to the spineless Labour Fox-hunters that attacking the conduct of those foreign adventures might be more important than tracking his jollies around the world?

One possible answer for all these questions emerged when Fox, having insisted that he had done nothing wrong, came forward over the weekend to issue a half-hearted apology for, umm, doing nothing wrong but allowing others to imagine that he might have done. The defence secretary’s statement began by acknowledging that he had mistakenly allowed ‘distinctions to be blurred’ between his professional and personal affairs. Or as Conservative prime minister David Cameron put it, in attempting to defend his defence secretary on the TV news yesterday morning, ‘the personal and the political had become too entwined’.

Truer than they imagine, those statements describe not just Fox and his shenanigans with Werritty, but the entire British political class and its conduct today. Across the board, the line has become blurred between the proper public-political sphere and the sphere where things are private and personal, with damaging effects for both. This can help to explain both Fox’s bizarre antics and the opposition’s shrill reactions to them.

Spiked has often commented on the trend for public bodies and authorities to interfere in private matters, most recently through the politics of ‘nudge’. The flipside of this is the way that private and personal concerns have often come to dominate public debate.

As the horizons of political vision and debate have shrunk, public figures have come to stand not on their beliefs, but on their personal behaviour, PR image and ‘character’. Sleaze and scandal have replaced politics, with politicians more likely to be judged on their expense returns and mortgage applications than election manifestoes. The slogan ‘the personal is political’, once the preserve of the feminist fringe, has gone mainstream. All parties and leaders now try to give the personal touch (whether we want it or not) and sell themselves on their alleged integrity rather than their ideas.

The Tories are far from immune from this erosion of the distinction between the public and the private. Even the death of Cameron’s disabled young son in 2009, a personal tragedy, was turned into a public event with political consequences. Parliamentary democracy was suspended for the day, some Tory commentators claimed that this experience would give opposition leader Cameron a special insight into running the health service, and the New Labour government worried over whether the media coverage of his bereavement might boost the Tories.

So perhaps it is not surprising that even somebody like Fox, supposedly a traditional Tory right-winger, should apparently have lost his bearings and all sense of where the public stops and the personal starts. His admitted failure to distinguish between his personal relationships and professional responsibilities is symptomatic of a wider loss of a proper sense of statesmanship in Whitehall, where British leaders these days seem to have trouble understanding that they are supposed to be serving a greater cause than their own advancement.

Of course past statesmen and diplomats have been involved in far bigger scandals than Fox’s mundane meetings with his best man, but they still tended to retain more of a sense of who and where they were in the world. In 1963 John Profumo, the Tory secretary of state for war (the equivalent of Fox’s post today), was infamously forced to resign after he was revealed to have lied about his relationship with a call girl who also had an affair with a Russian attaché. But one cannot quite imagine Profumo thinking it was reasonable to carry on his private liaisons over his desk at the ministry. Yet Fox imagined it would be okay for his chum to drop in at the MoD without security clearance when he liked, and tag along to meetings with foreign dignitaries and businessmen at home and abroad, as if the secretary of state were a parish councillor visiting old dears in draughty church halls.

So Fox looks like an idiot abroad who apparently does not know the difference between a former flatmate and a serving official. However, the way that this less-than-earth-shattering idiocy has been turned into the biggest story in politics is a sign that the opposition has little more idea of the proper relationship between the public and the personal.

Ever since Tony Blair launched New Labour on a crusade against Tory government sleaze in the mid-1990s, scandals and issues of personal probity have become the basic stuff of opposition politics in the UK. Lacking any political alternatives, opposition parties have retreated to personalised scandals. This culminated in the all-consuming scandal over MPs’ expenses, which benefited no party and should have taught them all that democratic politics will be the loser when debate is reduced to the swapping of scandalous and sordid allegations.

Yet here is Labour, having learnt nothing, trying to make allegations of personal sleaze a main plank of its attack on the Lib-Con coalition government. If the left wants to get Fox – widely seen as a standard-bearer for Thatcherism – there is no shortage of weapons to use against the defence secretary. Apart from the mishandling of the defence cuts, there is the small matter of two wars that should be opposed. Afghanistan has been a 10-year disaster, going nowhere slowly. Libya, despite the government’s recent bravado over its ‘triumph’, is a misguided mission that should never have been started and the end result of which remains unclear (see The barbarism of buffoons).

Yet this week, on the tenth anniversary of the launch of the failed US-UK Afghan invasion, Fox was having to dodge questions, not about all of the spurious justifications governments have offered for the war, but about his pal’s bogus business cards.

Of course Afghanistan was New Labour’s war in the first place. And in opposition the party has backed Cameron over Libya, sharing the government’s delusions in the ability of Western intervention to save the world. With a stale consensus on such big issues, political conflict can be reduced to the relatively petty public-personal morass.

Hence for the Fox-hunters, it’s a case of ‘Don’t mention the wars – take aim at his appointment books and wedding photos’.

The end game for Fox remains uncertain, and who cares either way? In proper political terms it does not matter much whether he stays or goes. The more important damage has been done by the elevation of this petty scandal into a national furore, reducing the scope and scale of public debate still further, and further blurring the political line between important public issues and inconsequential personal affairs.

This sort of thing can no longer be seen as a distraction from parliamentary politics. In the absence of anything of more substantial, scandals and scandal-mongering have become the real stuff of British political life. If this is allowed to carry on, the writing is surely on the fake business card for the future of meaningful democratic debate. Shoot the Fox if you want, but haven’t we got bigger wars to fight?

Lid Dem Conference: Portait Of A Party In Denial

Facing disastrous polls, stuck with an unpopular leader and short of star names, the Lib Dems should be panicking at their conference. So why does it feel like a holiday camp?












Nick Clegg on stage at the party conference.

Arriving at the Liberal Democrat conference at Birmingham's ICC on Monday, I'm confronted with a strange, becalmed atmosphere. At first I think everyone present is still in a state of shock, reeling from the double-pronged assault on the senses presented over the weekend by Hugh Grant's appearance and the minister of state for children and families' attempt at standup comedy, but it appears to be something else, a sort of blithe cheeriness.

I've never been to a party conference before and I've come expecting dissent. But apparently I've missed the boat: I should have been at the spring conference in Sheffield, when there were "a lot of angry people inside the conference and out", the latter group including 4,000 people marching in protest at the cuts. Now, the delegates at least are all pacified, convinced that a corner has been turned, that a line has been drawn under the tuition fees debacle, that public anger at the cuts is due to subside. The spirit of the party who in 1981 leapt to their feet, fleetingly convinced by David Steel's line about going home to their constituencies and preparing for government, is very much abroad.

The moment when a lone voice shouts: "Rubbish!" as Danny Alexander suggests Gordon Brown spent too much money turns out to be a dizzying pinnacle of insurrectionary excitement that the conference will never scale again. It's all glossy optimism, and woe betide anyone who attempts to suggest that said glossy optimism might be bordering on the delusional. A man from the BBC quotes a few poll figures at a Guardian Q&A panel, but no one wants to know. Someone bellows: "Did Miliband send you?" A woman seated behind me starts pretending to snore. "You're a miserable sod," snaps Lynne Featherstone, the equalities minister. Everyone cheers. The BBC man leaves.

My own search for dissent is equally fruitless. You would think that somewhere within the ICC lurked hand-wringing angst at the ongoing state of affairs, desperate to unburden itself to a representative of the press, but if it's there, I can't find it. I try Liberal Youth, surely at the sharp end of public displeasure thanks to the the spectre of tuition fees, something they continue to oppose. Nothing but visions of a bright future, in which Britain suddenly wakes up to the brakes put on Tory policy by the presence of the Lib Dems in the coalition and flocks to their bonded side.

So I try the people who look like party traditionalists, who are substantially easier to spot than some reports have suggested. One idea posited in the papers is that the very fabric of the party has changed, that the traditional beards-and-sandals Lib Dems have been displaced by the hard-nosed political operators in Heston Blumenthal specs. If you wanted to prove it, you could certainly get a shot of the delegates that doesn't feature anyone who looks like a Daily Telegraph cartoonist's idea of what a Lib Dems looks like, but you couldn't take it with a wide-angle lens, and you might have to crop it in Photoshop later. They're everywhere, the beards ranging from 50s jazz enthusiast to competitor in The Great Egg Race. Perhaps somewhere behind them lurks the simmering discontent conspicuous by its absence elsewhere. Perhaps not. They clearly like power – "before, you'd debate a policy at conference and think, well, the absolute best that's going to happen is that another party's going to nick that idea," offers one local councillor – and its trappings, or at least some of them. "There are a lot more lobbyists around conference these days," shudders one delegate, principles being something that are noticeably easier to keep when no one's interested in buying them. But for most part, even the lobbyists' baleful presence seems to be cancelled out by the positives, high among which ranks the preponderance of TV cameras and microphones. You can't walk far without overhearing someone expressing astonished delight at being canvassed for their opinions by the media: "I've been waylaid by Anglia TV!" cries one elderly gentleman.

The mood even seems to surprise Nick Clegg. "Heavens! What docility!" he says during a Q&A on Monday afternoon. "It's like a North Korean party conference." One theory is that it's all evidence of the redoubtable Lib Dem character, forged in endless adversity. You hear a lot about the time under Paddy Ashdown when Lib Dems were represented by an asterisk in the opinion polls: after taking into account the 3% margin of error, they were unable to say that the party had any discernible support at all. However bad the polls get, they've seen worse, even when the polls strongly suggest they haven't. Another is that they realise power is a temporary blip in a life of opposition and they're trying their best to relish it, which necessarily involves ignoring what's going to happen in three-and-a-half years' time.

The most prosaic answer is that a lot of delegates seem to view the conference as a kind of holiday. Like holidaymakers who've paid a lot of money to get away from it all – "more than £1,000, less than £2,000", suggests one delegate when I ask him how much it's cost him to be here; "more than a week in the south of France", offers another – they don't really care to be reminded of what's going on back home. "Do I wish that there was more robust debate?" frowns one local councillor. "No. I get enough of that on the doorstep."

And, if you wanted to relax, there are worse places to come than the Lib Dem conference, where it's frequently hard not to be lulled into a torpor by what's going on onstage. Part of the problem is that the Lib Dems are evidently in desperately short supply of stars. On Monday night, Vince Cable is booked to speak at three fringe meetings at exactly the same time. Outside, a jovial Brummie police officer approaches a gaggle of press photographers, apparently baffled at how they prosecute their business: "Have you lot got a Who's Who or something? I haven't got a clue who any of them are." His theory seems to be borne out when you visit the Liberal Image stall, where a Lib Dem hi-visibility jacket – something a cautious man might think twice about wearing in public – will set you back £14.50. There's a selection of badges available featuring the faces of the party's MPs: they seem to be doing a brisk trade in Welsh Lib Dem leader Kirsty Williams – "we've sold about 12" – but you'd defy anyone other than a party wonk to recognise most of the others.

But the real problem is that what stars they have are hopeless at public speaking. It's hard not to feel that party president Tim Farron's rise is predicated on possessing an identifiable personality, something almost everyone else who gets in front of a microphone seems to have been surgically deprived of. You can mock Nick Clegg's closing speech all you like, but it's like Alexander the Great's address at the battle of Issus next to the orations of Chris Huhne, a man who sounds like he's reading out the building's fire regulations even when he's quoting John Donne (he gives a speech quoting John Donne for the specific purpose of proving this). He gets a standing ovation at the end of it, which makes you marvel afresh at the dogged resilience of your average Lib Dem delegate. They're determined to be roused regardless of whether what's on offer is rousing or lethal.

Given the climate, you start to find yourself baffled as to why Sarah Teather's standup routine went down so badly. In fairness, her awful jokes were no more awful than anyone else's, and everybody else's seem to be greeted with widespread hysteria. Vince Cable tells one about bankers having their pants around their ankles, "showing us their assets – if they've got any". A woman two rows in front of me nearly dies laughing. Perhaps what Teather should have done was mention the bankers, which it quickly becomes apparent is the Lib Dem politician's equivalent of Peter Kaye saying "GARLIC BREAD?": no matter how many times you hear it, it always seems to get a round of applause.

The reliable arrival of banker gags aside nothing really seems to be happening. Journalists looking for something to report are reduced to making headlines out of the fact that Huhne is sorry about the effect that his affair had on his wife. But even at a Lib Dem conference where nothing appears to be happening, there's always the Glee Club, the ritual last night of conference knees-up. It's existence is – at last! – a matter of some controversy within the party. There are those who think it's part of a rich, glorious and idiosyncratic tribal tradition. There are those who clearly view its existence with profound embarrassment: "Lembit often MCs," says one local councillor, darkly. To the impartial observer, however, it simply represents an opportunity to have your mind repeatedly blown: if you thought the general air of positivity at the conference was a bit unreal, then the Glee Club is on hand to teach you that "unreal" is very much a relative concept. You don't even have to go to get the effect of being subject to an intense hallucinogenic experience. You just have to pick up the songbook, which is the best £3.50 you could spend at the Lib Dem conference, Liberal Image's enticing selection of badges featuring MPs notwithstanding.

For some reason, I'd expected it to largely consist of 19th-century political songs: The Land, stirring stuff about free trade and Gladstone. They're certainly present, but they're pretty much dealt with by page six. It's what's in the remaining 52 pages that knocks you sideways, not least when you get to the song about the coalition set to the tune of Making Your Mind Up by Bucks Fizz: "You gotta Lib it up and then you gotta Con it down, coz if you believe that our coalition can hit the top you've gotta play around."

By the time I arrive, Lembit Opik is very much in evidence, playing his mouth organ to a less dismayed reaction than you might expect. Some Welsh delegates favour the room with a rendition of Cwn Rhondda: if nothing else, it permanently punctures the myth of Wales as the land of song. Paddy Ashdown does a little standup routine. Tim Farron takes the stage and performs a comical version of That's Not My Name by the Ting Tings: "They call me Shirley, but I'm not a girlie." There has been some discussion at conference about the necessity for the Liberal Democrats to convince the British public that they're different from the other parties. If all else fails, they could always show them this. In the corner, a lobbyist looks on, wearing the kind of frozen, aghast expression that makes me think of the first-night audience at Springtime for Hitler in The Producers.

The next day, at a fringe meeting just before Nick Clegg's speech, the guy from Ipsos Mori lets them have it with both barrels. His Powerpoint presentation opens with a slide reading HOW DEEP IS THE HOLE?, but not all of it is as upbeat as that: if his news was any worse, he'd be wreathed in smoke and glowing green. Fifty-eight per cent of people who voted Liberal Democrat at the last election wouldn't again. A quarter of former supporters have swung to Labour. The Lib Dem voters that are left admire Margaret Thatcher. And, for the benefit of anyone who tends to the view that they've had worse, Nick Clegg is the least popular Lib Dem leader ever, beating a record David Steel has held since 1988 by 4%.

On and on it goes, until you wonder what Clegg can possibly say to lift their spirits – what price a new summer schools initiative and a few swings at Labour against the news that more than half your voters have deserted? – but they go bananas. Afterwards, I see one of the Liberal Youth activists, who's eager to tell me how encouraged he feels. The councillor who had more than enough robust debate on the doorstep is bucked, ready to face as much robust debate as the world can throw at her. Off they go, boundless optimism and Lembit's harmonica ringing in their ears.

Liberal Democrat Leaders Say Fair Taxation Is Key To Cutting Deficit

Danny Alexander outlines plans to kickstart economy by ensuring money hoarded by Labour is spent on infrastructure.












Liberal Democrats should fight the next election by aspiring to lift those earning less than £12,500 out of paying income tax, says Danny Alexander.

The Liberal Democrats should fight the next general election by aspiring to lift anyone earning less than £12,500 out of paying income tax, Danny Alexander said.

The chief secretary to the Treasury, a close ally of Nick Clegg, also set out the "next steps in our plan for growth", including a pot of £500m drawn from "unallocated funds" across Whitehall. Later, in an interview with the BBC's Andrew Neil, Alexander said these funds had been taken from savings found across government and did not amount to a stimulus.

Although this money comes from within the "spending plans", he said, the cash will now be disbursed with more urgency to kickstart infrastructure projects currently struggling for credit, with the hope of galvanising private spending.

It is the third indication from the Lib Dems in the past week that they intend to concentrate efforts on accelerating capital projects, which marks a subtle shift in emphasis towards greater public spending, without busting the headline deficit reduction plan.

Clegg made a speech on the subject last week, announcing that Alexander was now in charge of 40 projects across Whitehall, ensuring they are implemented rather than delayed.

They are pressing because they believe that if government funds already allocated can be spent rather than hoarded – which they believe was the case under the last Labour government – modest upfront sums "gear" up to become substantial amounts of fresh capital.

The business secretary, Vince Cable, also evoked the policies of Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1930s when he called for a "New Deal-style stimulus" for capital investment in an interview on Saturday with the Guardian. In his Q&A with Neil on Sunday evening at the party conference, Alexander refused to back Cable's language, but said he preferred to express it as the government "straining every sinew" to get the economy growing more.

As well as further schemes to drive capital investment, and the aspiration of the party going further in its bid to take the low paid out of tax, Alexander also set out measures to increase tax revenues.

He repeated a pledge made in last year's conference speech that there would be a clampdown on tax evasion, with 2,250 HMRC staff working on evasion and avoidance. He said the government was already raising £2bn in this way this year, which he pledged would rise to £7bn annually by the end of the parliament.

In one month's time, an "affluent team" will begin looking at the 350,000 wealthiest taxpayers who each earn more than £2.5m a year, in addition to the 5,000 who are already monitored: "These are the people who pay or should pay the 50p rate of tax," he said in his speech on the first morning of conference.

"My message to the small minority who don't pay what they owe is simple – I agree with the chancellor. We will find you and your money and you will pay your fair share," he said.

He was sanguine about the 50p rate of tax – which Tory colleagues expect will be dismantled if a review winding up in January shows it yields little revenue. Once Alexander had said he believed it was "cloud cuckoo land" the rate would be discarded despite Tory colleagues regarding him to agree he was not ideologically committed to it should it emerge to be unlucrative.

Tories say the debate behind the scenes is turning not on whether the 50p tax rate stays or goes but rather on what amount the replacement levy raises – the sum the previous Labour government intended it to raise when they introduced the tax; or the amount the 50p rate has actually brought in. The question then becomes what tax on the wealthy be brought in its stead.

Alexander said: "Fair taxation of the wealthiest is key to our deficit reduction plan. Of course, if a better way can be found to raise the money from this group, I will be willing to consider it."

Later in his interview with Neil, Alexander talked about ensuring the "tax burden" on the wealthy remained high.

Earlier in the day, Clegg also made it clear the party's negotiations on the 50p rate would not see them martial an ideological commitment to it, but rather they would accept its replacement by some other form of levy on the well-off.

He told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme: "It stays unless we can first make more progress on lowering the tax burden on people on low and middle incomes, and secondly making sure as the chancellor himself has said we can find other ways the wealthiest can pay their fair share."

In Birmingham, Alexander's speech was remarkable for placing an emphasis on how to push ahead with another aspect of the Lib Dem income tax policy, at the other end of the scale.

He told the conference hall: "In the next parliament, I want us to go further; our aspiration should be that someone working full time on the minimum wage should pay no income tax at all. An income tax threshold of £12,500 – think what that would do to work incentives, think what it would mean for basic fairness. Let's put that on the front page of our next manifesto."

The coalition agreement pledges that both parties in government will raise the income tax threshold to £10,000 by the end of the parliament and it is one of the policies the party is proudest of.

The policy has received support on the centre-right of the political spectrum with Tories sympathetic to its aims of cutting tax for the less well paid, but it has been criticised for being poorly targeted; in its original form this was a tax cut enjoyed by all, regardless of income.

The policy also has its Tory critics within the cabinet who fear a policy that removes people from paying tax would sever the relationship between government and the people.

Now the Lib Dems have committed themselves to raising the tax threshold still further, putting on the record an early indication of how they might seek to differentiate themselves from the Conservatives towards the end of the parliament.

Alexander's speech was occasionally heckled by one audience member with a shout of "rubbish" when Alexander criticised the Labour policies of Gordon Brown – a reminder that some delegates in the hall do not agree with the party leadership's decision to back plans to eliminate the structural deficit by the end of the parliament.

The coalition is currently trying hard to devise policies that will stimulate the British economy without busting either of the two targets they hope to hit at the end of the parliament – eliminating the structural deficit by 2014-2015 and bringing down the debt-to-GDP ratio.

While insistent they will not resile from the so-called "plan A" both on and off the record, the new imperative is to find ways of using existing capital spending commitment to encourage the private sector to part with their capital and increase the amount of capital in the economy.

On Friday, the business secretary Vince Cable, published a pamphlet for the CentreForum thinktank in which he suggested that alongside a new round of quantitative easing, he also believed new infrastructure projects were necessary including new roads built as toll roads.

This would have the advantage of encouraging the private sector to embark on a capital investment with a certain revenue stream not coming from the public purse.

Insisting his proposals amounted to a radical Keynesian package – using language and ideology not associated with the Conservative chancellor, George Osborne – Cable said that in the face of a stagnating economy ministers had to "pull all the levers available to government. We are not powerless."

Cable said: "It was four years after the Great Crash that Roosevelt came in and several years before they could do anything. Dams started being built 10 years after the Great Crash. What I have set out is a Keynesian approach to a demand crisis, but operating in a new world in which governments are highly constrained by these very febrile international financial markets. We constantly have to pay attention to them."

Now Alexander will disburse a "Growing Places fund", which he hopes enable the creation of local infrastructure across England.

"£500m to deliver key infrastructure and unlock development and create jobs. Providing a one-off upfront capital investment to kickstart developments that are stalled due to cash flow problems or lack of confidence.

"Putting local areas in the driving seat, enabling local government to invest in the key strategic infrastructure projects that they have identified as priorities and getting people into work."

Alexander said: "As Liberal Democrats, our judgments about what needs to be done should be driven by the liberal economy we want to build – sustainable, balanced, competitive, fair. To get there we must break down the vested interests – the enemies of growth that stand in the way of future prosperity."

"Too many businesses are being held back by congested roads, slow railways, inadequate broadband. Now more than ever, we need to get on with this work."

Hugh Grant: style watch

OK, so Italian politics has its problems, but at least they know how to dress. Hugh Grant, on the other hand, here lends weight to the old style adage that British men can't do casual.

When it comes to rocking a three-piece suit with a pocket square, the Savile Row gent still leads the world, but a certain type of British man still flounders as soon as let off the strictest dress code leash.

The trouble with this outfit is that the messages are mixed: was he trying to look smart but didn't have time to pull himself together and tuck his shirt in, or was he aiming for casual and put a suit jacket on as an afterthought? I suspect he was aiming for the kind of rakish dishevelment that Bill Nighy has made his own. But to pull that off takes effort.

Only the most perfectly fitted jacket looks good rumpled. Lucky for Hugh he's only addressing the Lib Dem conference. He'd never make it at London fashion week.

Top 50 Most Influential Liberal Democrats 2011: The Rise Of The Left

The battle to succeed Clegg and left-wing dissent over the party's role in the Coalition is reflected in this year's list of most influencial Liberal Democrats.












Establishment rebel: Lib Dem president comes in at number three.












Rebellion in the air: for how long will Nick Clegg remain Britain's most powerful Liberal Democrat?












Sticking power: Chris Huhne has been dogged be accusations over his driving - but keeps his top five slot.

If the opinion polls prove accurate - the last three showed the Liberal Democrats on 10% - this might be the last time we can find enough elected Liberal Democrats to form a viable top 50. The stark reality they face, and the internal debate that is now raging, is reflected in the top ten.

There is the whiff of succession planning in the air. The resilience of Chris Huhne is also hanging around – down just one place despite a difficult year in his personal life. Those in, or close, to the Clegg Operation (as Liberal Democrats a little self-consciously call it) remain powerful - his Chief of Staff stays at five. There have been recent changes reflected here, but the conflict between the government and the internal opposition has become much more of an equal one over the year.

As one MP put it, the year has been “about the rise of the left”. Confidence in the party outside Westminster has grown even as polling numbers remained minimal. Liberal Democrats seem to have discovered that even in government the world does not end if you disagree. And this has given rise to a new breed of rebel, personified in Tim Fallon, Lib Dem President and the leading establishment rebel (up 31 places to number three).

The Liberal Democrats have learnt a great deal about coalition politics this year. It is unclear sometimes which are the sanctioned and which the unsanctioned rebellions. If Nick Clegg is eyeing an eventual move to Brussels - to replace Baroness Ashton - then this is informing the positioning that is taking place now.

The experience of government has also lead to a rather different set of discussions this year. There was much more talk about the hidden wiring of the political game. Names like Ben Williams, a fixer from the Whips Office were discussed - and while he did not make the cut, James Gurling, who is modernising the party’s electoral machine, comes in at 46. Also in at 35 comes James McGrory, the leader’s favourite spin doctor. Described by some as a cockney thug he is not your typical Liberal Democrat, but he has also been described as the best press officer in the business. The highest new entry at 26 is also from the inside of the machine: Julian Astle comes in to the Clegg machine and into the heart of government as the newly minted Deputy Head of Number 10 Policy Unit.

The Liberal Democrats who hold Cabinet positions and can therefore, in theory, shape policy have had a mixed record this year. The sharpest debate surrounds Danny Alexander. He survives at number two because of his status as part of the mixed doubles Quad – Cameron and Clegg, Osborne and Alexander. But he has also been described as being dead in the party. Vince Cable, still hugely popular in the party, also slips down a little (three places to seven) and opinion is sharply divided on the extent to which he is a busted flush. Further down the food chain, junior ministers have struggled to make a mark and some have slipped back – for example Michael Moore but others have done obviously better, like Steve Webb, up two as Minister of State for Pensions. It depends on the extent to which they have delivered what is grandly referred as the Liberal Democratic Agenda in Government.

The discussion on Ministers vs the Party is reflected over and over again in this list. Does the party hate Danny Alexander because he is competent? Would they love him if he held the same post – they love to have Cabinet Ministers after all - but was utterly incompetent and ineffective in fulfilling his brief? One gets the impression that many of them would feel better, a little more like themselves, in these circumstances.

In the past when Liberals have formed coalition governments with the Conservatives, the ministers have tended to go native and be absorbed into the Conservative Party. Alexander matters while he holds office. The impression is that when the government ends so does his career in the Liberal Democrats. Any safe Tory seats going?

The big gainers, overall, have been from the left and it is here that the succession planning is really going on. Simon Hughes stays securely at sixth and Evan Harris is up 14 places to ten. Shirley Williams has campaigned across the board but especially on the NHS and is up 13 places to twelve. Brian Paddick pops in on the strength of the nomination to contest for Mayor of London and Caroline Pidgeon, Leader of the Greater London Assembly Liberals, squeaks in at 49 - one of a very few local government people to make it in on to the list. The party in the country, where it has clung on to power at local level, has had a quiet year.

Even though the left has made noise, the Liberal Democrats remain too fond of being in power to walk away from Clegg’s great gamble just yet. But the sound that we can hear this year from Liberal Democratic left, even up to the President of the Party, on the back benches and in the council groups that survive, is the sound of burying weapons for the battle of succession to come. The trouble is at 10% there might not be much left for Tim Fallon or A. N. Other, to inherit from the Cleggster.

Liberal Democrats Vow To Fight Rightwing Policies Of 'Ruthless' Tories

Nick Clegg signals combative approach to coalition describing PM's party as political enemies who must be taken on.












Nick Clegg speaking at the Liberal Democrat party conference.

Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats have vowed to face down "ruthless" and "extreme" forces in the Tory party to protect the British people from right-wing policies that would widen inequality and benefit the rich.

At a rally on Saturday night to open his party's annual conference in Birmingham, Clegg underlined the Lib Dems' newly combative approach to the coalition, describing David Cameron's party as "political enemies" who must be taken on when necessary in the national interest. After a traumatic year during which the Lib Dems' popularity has plummeted and their leader has been accused of abandoning his party's principles, Clegg struck a markedly more assertive note.

While trumpeting his party's successes so far in influencing health and tax policies, he said it was more prepared than ever to "fight tooth and nail" for what was right. "We are prepared to be awkward," he said. "We are not here to make things easy. We're here to put things right."

In an interview with the Observer, his deputy Simon Hughes goes further, telling the Conservatives they have no mandate to drive through a rightwing agenda. Hughes says the Tories have shown themselves to be "ruthless" operators in the first 16 months of the coalition over the referendum on electoral reform and boundary changes and says the resurgent right of the party is "extreme" on issues such as Europe and tax.

He says Tories must come to their senses and realise that they did not win the last election – and that they rely on the Lib Dems for power.

"Not only did they not win but they got a third of those who voted," he said. "The Tory party is not the dominant party in British politics that it used to be. It is absolutely not the dominant force in Scotland and Wales that it used to be. The Tory right have forgotten that."

In a rebuff to Conservative hardliners he adds: "There is absolutely no majority in parliament for your views. If there is a coalition government in the national interest then extreme remedies and answers are not appropriate."

The comments are bound to infuriate Cnservatives as the conference season opens. Many Tories are beginning to resent profoundly the way the Lib Dems are already watering down Tory changes on health and education and blocking Cameron from developing a more hardline approach on Europe.

Clegg and his ministers are now convinced they can claw back some of their pre-election popularity if they can demonstrate that they are reining in the Conservatives and stamping their own mark on government. Deep division between the coalition partners will surface in Birmingham over tax, welfare, health, pensions and last month's riots.

The party leadership will announce it will veto the abolition of the 50p tax rate for people earning over £150,000 – a key demand of the Tory right – unless and until other measures, such as a mansion tax, are imposed. It will also unveil plans to exempt the first £12,500 of earnings from tax, raising the target from its current level of £10,000.

Hughes says the party has to make the fight against wage inequality in the private sector a key theme. He said he is pushing hard for measures to limit the gap between the highest and lowest paid staff in the private sector. "The differentials are obscene and you really cannot just stand by," he said. "Liberal Democrats have to be clear. If Labour is really relaxed about the stinking rich, some of us are not relaxed about it."

Hughes also insisted that reform of party funding was essential to stop the Conservatives running ruthless campaigns – as they had against electoral reform. "The Tories can be nastier – with a result – if they are allowed to collect more and more money legitimately," he said.

On tax, he said the UK properties of wealthy non-domiciled individuals should be hit. "It would be entirely reasonable to say that if someone is not domiciled in this country but has six mansions they should be paying more into the system." Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, will announce the commitment of £600m to boost infrastructure projects and will attack bankers who fail to lend to businesses. "Our judgments about what needs to be done should be driven by the liberal economy we want to build," he will say.

On Saturday night, the Lib Dem equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone, dismissed suggestions that Cameron had been a major force behind the move to legalise gay marriage when she claimed ownership of the policy. "Conference, this is a Liberal Democrat policy," she said.

Clegg said his party had shown courage entering a coalition that was now shaping policy by "cutting taxes, not for the rich, but for millions of people on low and middle incomes". The Lib Dems could have "bottled" the chance to govern but instead "rose to the challenge", he said, "and we did it knowing it meant working with our political enemies and almost certain short-term unpopularity".

The party leadership was celebrating the failure of former health spokesman Evan Harris to force a vote on the NHS. The Lib Dems believe they are making more progress to dilute the reforms behind the scenes.

Coalition Braced For Boundaries Revolt

MPs may mutiny over changes to constituencies.










George Osborne's Tatton seat is among those that could disappear in the boundary change.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg are braced for a collapse in coalition discipline when dozens of MPs learn this week that their constituencies are to be axed.

The redrawing of parliamentary boundaries, which will cut the number of MPs from 650 to 600, will ignite a political storm tomorrow, with government whips fearing that the prospect of being kicked out of the Commons could lead some MPs into rebellion for the next three years.

"Trying to control Lib Dems is like herding cats at the best of times," said one party source. "If a dozen are de-mob happy, counting down till polling day when they know they'll be out on their ear, it will be a nightmare."

Senior ministers including George Osborne, the Chancellor, Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, and Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, are among those whose seats are under threat.

It raises the prospect of more junior MPs being shunted out of safe seats to make way for key government figures. "It will be every man and woman for themselves," a Tory backbencher said. "It will be piranha pool-time," said another. There is even speculation that some disgruntled MPs could quit within weeks, sparking a wave of by-elections.

MPs will be briefed on the plans tomorrow, before they are published officially by the Boundary Commission on Tuesday. They will only cover England, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland following later this year. In England there will be 502 new seats. Two will be on the Isle of Wight, but the remaining 500 will have to have between 80,473 and 72,810 voters. There have already been rows about planned constituencies spanning county borders, with Devon and Cornwall MPs refusing to countenance the idea of straddling the Tamar.

In Leeds a tussle is being predicted between Ed Balls, Labour's Shadow Chancellor, and Hilary Benn, the Shadow Leader of the House, while in north-west Scotland, Mr Alexander could be pitched against former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy for a berth.

Analysis by Rob Haywood, a former Tory MP, suggests that Labour stands to lose 25 seats, the Tories 15 and Lib Dems 10, while Lewis Baston, a senior research fellow at the University of Liverpool, predicted that Labour would lose 18 seats, the Tories 15 and Lib Dems 14, with other parties losing three.

Labour has accused the coalition of gerrymandering, while No 10 insists the high number of seats with relatively small electorates favours the Labour Party. At the last election, the average Labour seat had an electorate of 68,487 compared to 72,418 in Tory-won constituencies and 69,440 for Lib Dems. Downing Street argues the policy will save £12m a year.

"By making constituencies more equal in size, the value of people's votes will no longer depend on where you live, and with fewer MPs the cost of politics will be cut," a source said.

A 12-week consultation will be followed by a second phase allowing parties to respond to each other's complaints.

UKIP Appeal To Tory Supporters, While Greens Target Lib Dems

You can tell it's autumn not just by the change in weather and threat of storms... but because the party conference season is under way.











Party conferences are under way with UKIP meeting in Eastbourne and the Green Party in Sheffield.

The first two have already started with the UK Independence Party (UKIP) meeting in Eastbourne and the Green Party, led by the Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas, in Sheffield.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage is using the conference to appeal to disaffected Tories.











Nigel Farage is appealing to people unhappy with Conservative policies.

He describes his party as having an "open door" and believes the bulk of new support for his party will come from those unhappy with Conservative policies.

'Mass deception'

Never one to shy away from controversy, he's used strong language to describe the three main parties at Westminster as "a group of college kids".

But his main target has been the Conservatives who he said were engaged in a "mass deception", claiming they promised one thing about Europe yet delivered another.

Elsewhere, despite the fact the Green's only MP represents Brighton Pavilion and the Brighton Council is the only Green-run administration in the country, the party is meeting in Sheffield.

Given the party's achievement at the local elections in May, this year's conference is particularly significant for its leader Caroline Lucas.

On national issues she's blamed "unrestrained capitalism" for the riots last month.

She told her party conference that underlying issues, such as lack of jobs and wage inequalities, must be tackled.

And she criticised David Cameron's "repressive crackdown" on those responsible for the disorder.

Just as UKIP want to appeal to disaffected Tories, Caroline Lucas hopes to appeal to disgruntled Liberal Democrats.














Caroline Lucas became Green MP for Brighton Pavilion in 2010.

In her speech she mocked the Lib Dem leader and Sheffield MP, Nick Clegg, as "the minister for meeting angry people and being shouted at".

The party recently celebrated its first 100 days in power at Brighton & Hove City Council.

However, not all its pledges have been a resounding success - the idea for a "meat-free Monday" had to be dropped after a council official proposed piloting it with bin men.

But some of the pledges the party has introduced have fared rather better.

They've introduced an extra 60p on the minimum wage for 340 council workers to meet their living wage pledge.

They've also attempted to tackle the council's pay gap, with chief executive John Barradell taking a 5% pay cut.

They may have only been in power in Brighton for a few months but there is clearly still a lot of work to do - such as tackling Brighton's housing shortages and the lack of school places.

"National support for the Green Party in opinion polls has not increased significantly"
Louise Stewart

Despite Caroline Lucas' high profile as party leader and the election breakthroughs in Brighton, national support for the party in opinion polls has not increased significantly and remains in single digits.

So while the conference is a good time to take stock of the party's achievements, it's often a time when delegates - and the public - start looking at whether their leader is really delivering.

Over the next few weeks we'll see how Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband and David Cameron all fare.

With the Liberal Democrats conference next, in Liverpool, Nick Clegg will be hoping he does not, in Caroline Lucas' words, end up "meeting angry people and being shouted at".

The Liberal Democrats Aren’t Especially Liberal – Or Even Democratic

The junior Coalition partner’s policies have made a mockery of its historic name.












What is Sarah Teather's party actually delivering for Britain?

If the Liberal Democrats didn’t exist, under what circumstances would you choose to create them? I’ll assume that it’s the “Liberal” bit of their historical accident of a name that matters (not many anti-democrats run for election these days). If we did feel the need for a Liberal Party, I guess it would be because neither the Labour nor Tory organisations were being sufficiently, well, liberal in their policy-making.

Ten years of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown making illegal anything that moved, while repeatedly trying to give the state the power to lock us up without charge for longer and longer periods? Yes, I can see a need for some more liberalism; that there could be a useful role for a party to react viscerally against Labour’s criminalising tendencies. Ten years of Margaret Thatcher? I’m hardly one to criticise my political hero, but I can’t deny that prolonged exposure to her governing style might make a voter yearn for something a little less prescriptive; a little more laissez-faire in matters social. Regardless of your own political disposition, then, I don’t think it’s hard to make the case that political space could exist for a party which prioritised the autonomy of the individual over either stateist or corporatist collectivism.

Now imagine that you are a Liberal Democrat. Your organisation has been in the wilderness for 80 years, since the time of Lloyd George. The general election of 2010 gives you the chance to share government with the Conservatives; this is the first time in recent history that an administration will have a serious Liberal presence. How would you behave? Me, I would be bending over backwards to demonstrate that not only is a liberal instinct a useful one to bring to the art of government, but that it also makes sense to have that instinct embodied by my organisation. Anyone anyone can call themselves a “liberal”. The trick is to convince voters that such an instinct requires a party to carry it.

Instead, what has happened? Andrew Lansley’s Health Bill, which made a tentative step towards liberalisation of health provision in the UK, is first of all postponed, and then watered down, largely at the behest of the Lib Dems. Even after the Bill passed the Commons this week, Baroness (Shirley) Williams and the dis-elected ex-MP Evan Harris continued to mutter darkly and publicly about their inability to support it. Lib Dems ensured that the planned GP consortia – supposed to act for us, the patients – will include hospital doctors and nurses; a prioritisation of the producer over the patient. Unelected peer and dis-elected ex‑MP – I withdraw my opening remarks about the party’s name: they’re not even democratic, let alone liberal.

Also this week, Nick Clegg gave a speech about the Coalition’s flagship free schools. These schools are the last, best hope of those children failed by local education authorities. Academic excellence through freedom of choice: what could be more liberal than that? Instead, Mr Clegg chose to focus on the importance of preventing anyone running such a school from making a profit – profit is bad, apparently, because successful schools might use the money to expand – and went out of his way to support an even greater role for councils – the LEAs – in controlling access. In a straight choice, the Lib Dem leader prioritises the producer interest.

I could go on. Lib Dems also want to delay the election of local police commissioners. Anti-democratic again; and when was denying a voice to the people a “liberal” characteristic? And I’ve not mentioned the party’s support for the Human Rights Act, largely because it defies parody, let alone analysis. “Votes for prisoners”, say Lib Dems. It’s not quite the heady fight of the People’s Budget of 1909, is it?

Ah yes, say Lib Dem activists, but think of all the good we bring to the Coalition. When pressed, they trumpet the lack of recognition of marriage in the tax system. I’m not clear why it’s liberal to penalise the natural pair-bonding affinity of human mammals, but there you are. They also claim to have secured the increase in the personal allowance for the poorest taxpayers, as well as the retention – thus far – of the 50p top rate.

The 50p top rate is economically illiterate, and needn’t detain us. Symbolism does matter, though, and if keeping it there for a few months longer means that those such as Simon Hughes (“Champion of University Access”, no less) continue to vote with the Government, so be it. But did we need the Lib Dems to make the case for the increase in personal allowances? Tories have campaigned against the complex and inefficient recycling of income from the poor, to the government, and then back to the poor, for years. More importantly, the Right-wing view of tax (to reduce it wherever possible) is truly liberal, because it seeks to free people from state dependency. Lib Dems view tax as an instrument of social engineering; hence the posturing over 50p.

Eighty years in the wilderness, 80 years protecting the flame, and they can’t even mount a coherent case for electoral reform (“AV is a miserable little compromise” – Nick Clegg. But then: “Vote for AV” – Nick Clegg). Measured as the opportunity to show that British liberalism deserves the vehicle of its own party, coalition has been a disaster for the Lib Dems.

We have to face up to this political category error. Just because we can all agree that there’s a need for some liberalism in our politics, just because some unpopular politicians have given themselves that name, we’ve taken the Liberal Democrats at their own valuation. But Shirley Williams and Evan Harris are not liberals, and nor are the other former leaders and big Lib Dem beasts who haunt the media airwaves with a greater prominence than the paucity of their electoral support could ever justify.

Not that a political position has to be popular in order to be worth holding; and if a party wants to act as a pressure group for the producer interest in health and education, or as a supporter of judicial activism on Human Rights, or to call for ever-greater European integration (as Danny Alexander did this week), then good luck to it. But it shouldn’t mis-name itself.

Where the Lib Dems have been politically effective in the Coalition, they have been anything but liberal. And when they claim to be liberal, they are merely copying policy which the larger party would implement anyway. Neither tactic makes them a worthwhile coalition partner for a Conservative; worse, from the Lib Dem point of view, neither tactic has demonstrated that the 80 years without them were a political loss for Britain. If the Liberal Democrats didn’t already exist, to answer my opening question, I suspect that few would contemplate breathing life into the politically unattractive, social democratic clay from which they are fashioned. We already have a party to represent the sectional producer interest. It’s called “Labour”.

Support Grows For Keeping 50p Tax Rate

Politicians from Labour and the Liberal Democrats joined forces with trade unions to argue for a retention of the 50p top rate of income tax after 20 leading economists called for it to be scrapped “as soon as possible” in a letter to the FT.










Alistair Darling, the chancellor who introduced the rate in 2009, and Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president, said on Wednesday that lowering the top rate of tax would be unfair while the economy was still in difficulty.

Mr Darling said: “This has got to stay in place until we get out of the crisis. It would be grossly unfair to remove it. In the long run you have got to keep your tax rates internationally competitive which means something like the two rates we used to have. To remove it today would be grossly unfair. If they do not pay their taxes then it is poorer people who are going to pay.”

He was supported by Mr Farron, who said scrapping the 50p rate would be “phenomenally immoral and send an appalling message to the overwhelming majority of hard-working people in this country”.

Ed Balls, Labour shadow chancellor, also weighed in: “If we really are all in this together then the right priority to boost the stalled economy now should be temporarily reversing the VAT rise, which is costing families with children around £450 a year. This temporary tax cut would help to kick-start the recovery and give a much needed boost to millions of people regardless of their income.

“If the chancellor really wants to know how effective the top rate of tax is he should immediately ask the Office for Budget Responsibility, not just HMRC, to produce a report genuinely independent of government.”

Their warnings came after the Trades Union Congress also took issue with the suggestion of an immediate tax cut for top earners.

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress called the economists’ opinion “monstrously unfair”, adding: “At a time when cuts are biting hard and ordinary people are suffering the biggest squeeze on their living standards in years, the last thing we need is a handout to the wealthiest in our society.”

But DeAnne Julius, the former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee and one of the signatories of the letter, defended her position to the BBC, saying many hedge funds had already moved to Switzerland and that, if marginal rates were raised on a small number of highly mobile people, “You end up not collecting the tax that you’d hoped to.”

“Only by returning to an internationally competitive tax regime will Britain enjoy long-term sustainable economic growth,” the economists say in their letter.

The signatories include many figures not usually associated with conservative causes, such as Bob Rowthorn of Cambridge University, and two former members of the Bank of England’s policy committee, Ms Julius and Sushil Wadhwani.

George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer, is already facing pressure from the Tory right and CBI employers’ organisation to scrap the “temporary” top tax rate.

The Treasury believed that the 50p rate, introduced by the former Labour government in April 2010 on annual taxable incomes above £150,000, would eventually raise £2.7bn a year. Combined with restrictions on income tax relief for pension contributions and the abolition of the income tax personal allowance for people with annual incomes above £100,000, last year’s tax increases on the rich were designed to raise £7bn per annum.

The economists dispute these estimates, arguing the 50p rate “punishes” wealth and entrepreneurship. “It is often portrayed as a justified tax on the rich, but the economic damage it causes means that it is against the interests even of ordinary workers who don’t pay it,” they write.

Last month Mr Osborne said “there’s not much point in having taxes that are economically inefficient”. He added that the rate was uncompetitive internationally and targeted wealthy people who were already paying taxes on their capital gains.

Government officials, however, have suggested that the top rate is unlikely to be scrapped until 2013 at the earliest, when a pay freeze affecting millions of public sector workers is due to be lifted.

Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat leader, will insist the 50p top rate can only be scrapped if other measures, such as a property or “mansion” tax, are introduced to ensure the wealthy pay their “fair share” towards cutting the deficit. The Lib Dems will also insist that the 50p rate’s abolition is accompanied by accelerated moves to raise the annual tax threshold to £10,000.

Other leading economists are more sceptical. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and not a signatory of the letter, said it was much too early to give up on the 50p rate: “The Treasury has been taking a punt on whether [the 50p rate] will raise money. It is taking a risk, but it is not a stupid punt.”

Scrap 'Reckless And Needless' Public Sector Reforms, Says Ed Miliband

Labour leader tells PM that money spent on elected police chiefs and NHS shakeup could be better spent recruiting frontline staff.



Ed Miliband and David Cameron clash at PMQs.

The prime minister, David Cameron, admitted that stand-alone elections for police commissioners will cost an additional £25m as he faced a barracking from Labour's Ed Miliband over "reckless and needless" public sector reforms.

Cameron faced accusations of "wasting money" which could be better used to recruit thousands of extra police officers, as he sought to defend moves to introduce elected police commissioners.

A plan to bring in elected police chiefs is set to go ahead after Liberal Democrat peers, who had been delaying the Tory initiated policy, accepted safeguards introduced into the legislation.

In a move likely to irritate many on the Conservative benches who feel their party is making too many concessions to Lib Dems and too few to their own side, the legislative delay will mean voting for the new posts will take place in November 2012 instead of at the same time as local elections in May.

The Labour leader told Cameron he was "making a bad policy worse by wasting money" after the prime minister said staging separate elections in November would cost £25m – money Cameron stressed would not come out of police budgets.

As MPs prepared to debate amendments to the health and social care bill on Wednesday afternoon, Miliband also criticised the NHS shakeup and urged the prime minister to "scrap both of these disruptive and dangerous plans".

Miliband told Cameron at the close of a heated exchange: "The truth is, under this government we are seeing two reckless and needless reorganisations of our public services, police numbers down and waiting lists up.

"Under Labour we saw police officers up and waiting lists down. Why don't you do the right thing for the future of our public services and scrap both of these disruptive and dangerous plans?"

Miliband seized on reforms to health and policing as MPs gathered for the first prime minister's questions session since July.

Regarding the cost of delaying the elections for police commissioners, Cameron told Miliband: "It is important to get this policy right and to make sure it works."

Turning the tables on Miliband, Cameron asked him why Labour was "so frightened of elections".

Cameron said the plan involved scrapping police authorities, which would save money, and accused Labour of making a "U-turn".

Labour previously had plans for "directly elected representatives to give local people more control over policing", said Cameron.

Miliband said: "We know what the public up and down this country know: this is the wrong priority for the country. What did we see during the riots? We saw visible, effective policing."

He went on: "The prime minister tells us we cannot afford the current police budget, we have got to cut the number of police officers by 16,000.

"But he tells the country it can afford £100m and more as a result of his decision to waste money on 42 elected politicians earning over £120,000 a year. That could pay for 2,000 extra police officers.

"Isn't the truth that this is the wrong priority at the wrong time for the country?"

As Miliband later moved on to the controversial health reforms, Cameron joked: "I'm not surprised you want to change subjects because on policing you were having your collar felt because you have done a complete U-turn on the policy you used to be committed to."

The Labour leader said the number of people who had to wait more than six months for an operation had gone up by more than 60% since Cameron entered Downing Street.

Cameron insisted the amount of time people were waiting for an outpatient operation had "actually gone down".

"As you know, we have targets for 90% of people to get their treatment within 18 weeks and those targets are being met," he said.

And he insisted the health reforms were now backed by a number of leading professional health groups as well as former Labour health minister and surgeon Lord Darzi – to the dismay of Miliband, who accused him of being "on another planet".

The Labour leader said the British Medical Association, the Royal College of GPs and the Royal College of Midwives "all rejected your bill".

Lib Dem Report Blames Nick Clegg For Debacle Over Lost AV Referendum

Deputy PM's insistence that the vote be held on the same day as local elections turned into a 'perfect storm' for his party










Nick Clegg wanted a May vote to boost the chance of a win for the Yes campaign.

Nick Clegg's decision to call a referendum on the voting system on the same day as local elections backfired disastrously, the Liberal Democrat inquest into the party's crushing double defeat has concluded.

A report to the party's annual conference in Birmingham later this month says the council elections turned into a "perfect storm" because the referendum on the alternative vote (AV) also took place on 5 May.

Although David Cameron wanted to delay the AV vote until this autumn, Mr Clegg insisted it was held in May in the hope that elections to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and English councils would boost the turnout – and the prospects of a Yes vote. In the event, AV was rejected by 68 to 32 per cent and the Liberal Democrats lost 700 town hall seats. With hindsight, the report concludes, the double poll meant that Liberal Democrat activists were unable to give enough time to the "Yes to AV" effort. It also prevented the seconding of staff to the referendum campaign, took media airtime away from the elections and allowed Labour supporters to "kick the party twice".

The report says: "Turnout among Conservative and socially-conservative Labour voters was at general election levels, driven out in consequence of the AV referendum. A huge trade union campaign in Labour-leaning areas targeted the party leader [Mr Clegg] personally and viciously."

A simultaneous AV referendum also meant that Mr Clegg's party got little or no credit from Tory supporters. "Conservative voters satisfied with the Coalition were reluctant to vote tactically for their coalition partners in Lib Dem/Labour marginals, in no small part because of the vociferous rivalry between the two parties in the national referendum," the report says.

The review by James Gurling, chairman of the Liberal Democrats' campaigns and communications committee, will be discussed on 17 September, the first day of the party conference. Some activists claim his inquest has been kept deliberately low-key to spare Mr Clegg's blushes. Many grassroots members remain angry about the defeat and may criticise the leadership at the conference.

The document admits: "Many dedicated community activists lost their seats through no fault of their own, and in the face of exemplary records of personal service. The challenge now is to ensure that the activist base which supported them is not lost."

The report concludes that Liberal Democrat achievements in government "had not been successfully communicated... the impact of the debate on tuition fees and NHS reform undoubtedly played a part".

It appears that some voters told Liberal Democrat campaigners on the doorstep that they would back the party but then failed to do so. The report says the Liberal Democrats may have to change their approach to canvassing now that they share power nationally.

Allies of Mr Clegg believe some criticisms are out of date. Since May he has adopted a more aggressive approach inside the Coalition, distancing his party from the Tories on some issues and trumpeting Liberal Democrat achievements such as changes to the Government's health reforms.

But as MPs debated the Health and Social Care Bill yesterday, the Social Liberal Forum, a pressure group on the left of the party, called for further changes to the legislation and for a full debate at conference. Evan Harris, a former MP, said the revised Bill would not prevent the "marketisation or fragmentation" of the NHS.

Shirley Williams Plunges NHS Reforms Into Fresh Turmoil

Liberal Democrat peer in new battle over health and social care bill, while secret emails fuel privatisation fears for hospitals.












Baroness Williams has raised fresh doubts over the health and social care bill following the publication of secret emails.

The future of the government's health reforms has been plunged into fresh doubt as the Liberal Democrat peer Shirley Williams raises new concerns, and secret emails reveal plans to hand over the running of up to 20 hospitals to overseas companies. The revelations come as MPs prepare to return to Westminster on Tuesday for what promises to be a crucial stage of the flagship health and social care bill.

Baroness Williams, one of the original leaders of a Lib Dem rebellion against health secretary Andrew Lansley's plans – who appeared to have been pacified after changes were made over the summer – said she had new doubts, having re-examined the proposals. "Despite the great efforts made by Nick Clegg and Paul Burstow [the Lib Dem health minister], I still have huge concerns about the bill. The battle is far from over," she said.

Writing in Sunday's Observer, Williams raises a series of issues that she says must be addressed. Chief among them is a legal doubt as to whether the secretary of state will any longer be bound to deliver "a comprehensive health service for the people of England, free at the point of need".

Some critics of Lansley believe the Tories are bent on a mission to privatise the NHS, gradually handing it to the private sector. They fear that moves to end the legal obligation on the secretary of state to deliver comprehensive services may be a deliberate part of the process.

Concerns that ministers want more private involvement will be strengthened by details of email exchanges involving senior health officials about handing the management of 10 to 20 NHS hospitals to international private companies. The emails, which were made public following a freedom of information request and were obtained by non-profit-making investigations company Spinwatch, show that officials have been planning since late last year to bring in international companies. This is despite repeated insistences by both David Cameron and Nick Clegg that there will be no privatisation of the NHS. On 16 May, Cameron said: "Let me make clear: there will be no privatisation." Clegg said: "Yes to reform of the NHS, but no to the privatisation of the NHS."

One of the emails released by the department shows that officials at the private sector firm McKinsey, which advises ministers, were in active discussion about bringing in overseas firms to take over up to 20 hospitals in return for contracts running into hundreds of millions of pounds. An email to Ian Dalton, head of provider development at the Department of Health, who is heavily involved in the reform programme, in November last year talks about "interest in new solution for 10-20 hospitals but starting from a mindset of one at a time with various political constraints".

The emails show that McKinsey is acting as a broker between the department and "international players" that are bidding to run the NHS. The documents even lay out some of the conditions required by "international hospital provider groups" for running NHS hospitals. "International players can do an initiative if 500 million revenue [is] on the table." They also need to have "a free hand on staff management". The NHS would be allowed to "keep real estate and pensions".

The Department of Health attempted to play down the significance of the emails, saying they were referring to what might be done if any one hospital trust asked for the private sector to become involved in running a failing hospital. A spokesman said: "It is not unusual for the Department of Health to hold meetings with external organisations. Any decisions to involve organisations, such as the independent sector or foundation trusts, in running the management of NHS hospitals would be led by the NHS locally and in all cases NHS staff and assets would remain wholly owned by the NHS."

But a spokesman for the public service union Unison said: "Regardless of what Cameron and Clegg say in public, it is clear that behind the scenes the government is planning to privatise the NHS. Private companies will only run hospitals if they see a profit in it. This, together with lifting the cap off the number of private patients NHS hospitals can treat, will completely change the culture of the NHS. It will be profits before patients.

"We demand that the government come clean on their plans. If this is true, patient choice is a complete sham. The move to any qualified provider is clearly about creating a market for private companies. Any MP who votes for the health and social care bill is voting for the end of the NHS."

Williams also raises worries about the extent to which the role of the private sector is being expanded. "I am not against a private element in the NHS, which may bring innovatory ideas and good practice, provided it is within the framework of a public service …" she writes. "But why have they tried to get away from the NHS as a public service, among the most efficient, least expensive and fairest anywhere in the world? Why have they been bewitched by a flawed US system that is unable to provide a universal service and is very expensive indeed?"

She adds: "The remarkable vision of the 1945 Attlee government, of a public service free at the point of need for all the people of England, should not be allowed to die."

John Healey, Labour's shadow health secretary, said: "As David Cameron's government railroads the health bill through parliament, MPs are being denied their constitutional role to properly scrutinise his plans for the NHS. The prime minister has already done a political fix with Nick Clegg on the health bill, and now he's trying to force it through with a procedural fix."

SNP ‘Ducking And Diving’ On Poll

Opposition parties have responded to a poll showing a Yes vote for independence leading a No vote by saying the First Minister should stop “ducking and diving” and get on with the referendum.


















The survey – the latest in a series of 10 identical snapshots by TNS-BMRB, revealed exclusively by The Herald yesterday – put those in favour of Scotland breaking from the rest of the UK ahead by 39% to 38%, only the second time this has happened in the series and the first time for more than three years.

Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray said: “It is no surprise that, after the SNP winning a majority, many Scots are thinking about our constitutional future, and that is right.

“We saw a similar effect after the SNP first formed a government in 2007.

“The SNP is going to hold a referendum and the important thing is that it stops ducking and diving on the date, the question, and what it means by separation.”

He added: “The people of Scotland have a right to know what exactly the SNP is proposing, and to debate those plans for separation with all the information necessary.

“After four years and several White Papers, it is just not credible for Alex Salmond to claim he cannot answer the basic questions.”

Echoing those sentiments, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie MSP said: “This poll confirms that independence is closer than ever before, with there now being a real danger than Scotland could split from the rest of the UK.

“The SNP has successfully created a warm fuzzy glow about how Scotland would perform as a separate country but has failed to provide any of the detail as to the costs of that separation.

“It has so far refused to answer the six big questions on independence posed last week but it cannot duck and dive for ever.”

The Scottish Tories, now in the middle of a leadership battle, did not respond but a Downing Street spokesman insisted: “The Prime Minister’s position on the Union is clear.

“He has said on a number of occasions that he would make the case for it again and again.”

A spokesman for the First Minister said: “We welcome this poll showing a majority for independence and showing growing numbers of people in Scotland are determined this country should aspire to a better future, taking responsibility for our own affairs.

“Clearly, the attacks on independence in recent days from the Westminster Tory and LibDem Coalition Government – far from making a positive case for the Union – have backfired badly and boomeranged on them.

“The UK Government has so far refused to respect the result of the Scottish election in May, in terms of the need for more powers, and has resorted to recycling old scare stories instead.

“The people of Scotland do not respond well to such scare stories and the fact that negative campaigning does not work was one of the essential lessons of the recent Scottish election, but the Unionist parties do not seem to have learned from that.

“The more that Scotland is talked down to, the more the people of Scotland will set their sights on a better future.”

The TNS-BMRB has used the wording suggested in the White Paper four years ago to ask people on a straight agree/disagree basis.

Apart from the headline figures of the 39%-38% lead for independence, the high level of undecideds, at 23%, would make a referendum campaign all to play for.

The poll showed greatest hostility to independence in Lothian and the south of Scotland, where opposition is still some 15 to 16 points ahead.

Support among men is higher than among women by 43% to 36% and peaks between the ages of 34 and 44 at 47% compared with 32% against.

The Reformist Case For Clegg

One ally of the deputy Prime Minister suggested to me yesterday that the press was missing the most significant aspect of Clegg’s speech on education: Clegg acknowledging that free schools would now be a permanent part of the educational landscape. This ally argued that this was a big deal given that a year ago Lib Dem conference had voted to boycott these schools.









The Lib Dem leader is considerably more liberal than his party. This means that he sometimes needs, so the argument goes, to sweeten the reformist pill with some Lib Dem rhetoric. Hence the emphasis on free schools being fair schools in yesterday’s speech.

But this internal Lib Dem party management is frustrating for Conservative ministers. They complain that it often leads to concessions which undermine the effectiveness of a whole policy.

Clegg Calls For 'Probing Questions' On NHS Bill

Clegg's demands over NHS may spark Lords amendments – as Lib Dem grassroots say bill will hurt patients and party.












A demonstrator protests at Tory-Lib Dem moves to reform the NHS.

The Tories and Liberal Democrats are facing a fresh clash over the government's NHS reforms after Nick Clegg encouraged his MPs to put "probing questions" to ministers when the bill returns to the Commons on Tuesday.

In a two-hour meeting with his parliamentary party on Monday night, the deputy prime minister held out the possibility that he will accept amendments to the heath and social care bill when it moves to the House of Lords later this month.

Clegg's move means that Lady Williams could be backed by Liberal Democrat ministers if she attempts to amend the bill to guarantee that the health secretary has a legal duty to deliver a comprehensive health service free at the point of need.

But a source at the Department of Health indicated last night that Andrew Lansley, the health secretary – who has already amended the bill after the government's "listening exercise" – would not accept fresh amendments on this point.

The source said: "Our view is that the legislation is watertight on the secretary of state's obligation to ensure there is an NHS available to all. That was always our view. But we amended the legislation to reassure those who were not sure."

Clegg said earlier in the day that he accepted the view that there was no need for fresh amendments on this issue.

In a speech on schools in south-west London, he said: "Let me be absolutely clear. There is nothing, nothing, nothing in any of the government's plans which in anyway threaten the basic founding principles of the NHS...There is no question, legally or politically, of the secretary of state under these new arrangements being somehow able to wash his or her hands of the NHS."

But at Monday night's meeting of the Lib Dem parliamentary party, Clegg admitted that ministers still had to work hard to clarify the bill for MPs and peers with concerns.

Paul Burstow, the Lib Dem health minister, is to offer further briefings to MPs and peers who will also be invited to meet officials at the department of health.

All sides accept that it is too late to table further amendments on the NHS reforms when the bill is debated by MPs at report stage on Tuesday and Wednesday and at third reading on Wednesday . But Lib Dem MPs have been encouraged to put "probing questions" to ministers for possible amendments that will be tabled in the House of Lords.

One Lib Dem source said: "We hope that we will not need to amend the bill further. But we may have to." Another Lib Dem source said: "There will be robust interventions in the debate."

Lib Dem whips believe that the overwhelming number of MPs will support the amended bill. But Andrew George, the Lib Dem MP for St Ives, said he would rebel.

The battle within the Lib Dem ranks was exposed last night in leaked emails, in which grassroots members of the party vented their anger at the leadership.

Jeremy Sanders of Huddersfield Liberal Democrats wrote in an email to John Pugh this week, the Lib Dem backbench health committee chairman, that "yes, we can try to get improvements to the details, but none of these changes are going to alter the basic fact that the legislation is based on the assumption that what the NHS needs is a system based on private sector involvement, free market competition and internal markets.

"Quite honestly, if our MPs are willing to go along with this, what exactly won't they be willing to support?"

In the same batch of emails obtained by the Guardian, Robert Hutchison, a Lib Dem councillor in Winchester, tells Pugh that "in my view is that if Lib Dem MPs vote for the bill this week — without further major amendments — it will damage the NHS and damage the party".

Charles West, one of the key party activists on the NHS, has written to party members to back an appeal against the the Lb Dem's conference committee decision not to debate the health bill at the forthcoming party conference. "I have therefore written a letter of appeal to the Federal Conference Committee against their narrow decision not to take the motion that I and over 100 conference reps submitted in June, and in case that appeal fails we are submitting an emergency motion which will achieve the same ends".

Last month Andrew George, the Lib Dem rebel on the health bill, emailed Lib Dem activists with a blunt message: "of course I'll try to influence colleagues but some are still basking in the synthetic afterglow of the post-pause Bill revision, perhaps having duped themselves that it's 'job done'! People need to wake up to the fact that we can say what we like at Conference, but the MPs main chance to influence would already have passed!"

Labour twisted the knife into the Lib Dems with the party's health spokesman John Healey arguing that Nick Clegg's claim that he had met 11 out of the 13 changes demanded by his party's spring conference resolution was "wrojng". "He's failed on seven and sallen short on six". Baroness Thornton, the party's spokesperson in the Lords, warned that the lack of scrutiny in the Commons — where 1,000 amenments mean just 40s of parliamentary to consider each one — could see the bill be put into a specialist committee to examine whether there is enough time to debate the bill.

Writing in the Guardian, Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, a former GP who had criticised the health bill, says now is the time to back the coalition's plans as "the structural changes to the NHS have passed the point of no return".

She argues instead that the bill needs to be amended to ensure that the choice of who is appointed to sit on and run the new NHS National Commissioning Board, a quango with £60bn to spend, is fairly and openly discussed.

Danny Alexander Backs Case For Strong UK Union

Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander has stepped up the case for Scotland remaining in the United Kingdom.









The SNP wants to hold a referendum towards the end of the five-year parliamentary term.

In a speech to CBI Scotland members he said the current constitutional uncertainty was in danger of distracting from the economic recovery.

He told the Glasgow gathering: "We are stronger together."

The SNP government has pledged to hold an independence referendum in the second half of the current parliamentary term.

Chair of CBI Scotland, Linda Urquhart, also addressed the annual dinner, saying that members were concerned about the commitment to a referendum and its timing.

She also called for the legality of any such vote to be "put beyond doubt".

But SNP Treasury spokesman Stewart Hosie accused CBI Scotland of "blundering into the constitutional debate".

The constitution is a reserved matter for Westminster, but the UK government has indicated it would not stand in the way of a vote in Scotland.

It is not clear yet what question or options might be included in any ballot.
'Stronger together'

Ms Urquhart said anything that added uncertainty was unwelcome at a time when economic pressure on business continued "to be relentless".

Lib Dem minister Mr Alexander said: "Scotland's road to recovery is intimately tied to recovery of the rest of the UK, and we must work together - politicians and businesses - to capitalise on every opportunity to support recovery.

"We are stronger together - and we are stronger when Scotland's two governments work together, pulling in the same direction for the people of this country."

He added: "We cannot allow the current constitutional uncertainty to distract or undermine this economic goal - Scotland is too important to the UK and the UK too important to Scotland for that.

"I hope that your voices - the voices of Scotland's economic future - will be heard as that debate develops."

Ms Urquhart said the SNP government's commitment to holding a referendum was "a matter for them", but added there was concern among CBI Scotland members "about the possible damage that could be done to Scotland by the uncertainties arising from this commitment and its timing".

She continued: "This is not helpful - but with that timescale committed to, I believe that business will consider it all the more important for any referendum to deliver a clear result: independence - yes or no - and no second questions which might produce an inconclusive result.

"The legality of any referendum must also be put beyond doubt - the constitution is a reserved matter - so the Scottish and UK governments must work together to ensure legal certainty and a decisive result."

SNP treasury spokesman Stewart Hosie questioned whether Ms Urquhart's remarks were representative of the business community in Scotland.
'Right to vote'

Mr Hosie, who is MP for Dundee East, said the CBI's credibility had previously been "undermined by blunders into the constitutional debate", claiming it had misrepresented members on issues related to powers for the Scottish Parliament.

He continued: "This is not the first time CBI Scotland has blundered into the constitutional debate and this latest intervention will fuel concerns that the CBI's leadership has a political rather than a business agenda.

"Given the overwhelming mandate the SNP secured at the recent elections, with broad support from businesses big and small, there must be a question over whether CBI is even speaking for its membership, let alone the wider business community."

Mr Hosie added: "We believe that the people of Scotland should have the right to vote in a single referendum agreed by the Scottish Parliament, on a published proposal, which is then implemented - exactly as was done for the two-question devolution referendum in 1997."