Tag: “Nick Clegg”

I was lucky enough to go last night to a preview of Lincoln, the new film about America’s greatest President. Immediate thoughts – Daniel Day Lewis nailed on for an Oscar, great decision by Spielberg to focus on a relatively short period of his political life, climaxing with the vote to abolish slavery, pleased it [...]

You did not have to be a genius to imagine there might have been a statutory element to the proposals brought forward by Lord Justice Leveson. Indeed, the longer the inquiry went on, the more his tone of questioning suggested such a move might happen. Certainly, by the time David Cameron gave evidence, it was [...]

Ed Miliband’s speech on mental health today is a significant – and good – moment in the campaign to improve understanding and treatment of mental illness in Britain. It is perhaps particulalry significant that this is his first major policy speech since he launched the theme of One Nation Labour at the party conference a [...]

The reason we ended up with a coalition government is that the public did not want Labour back for a fourth term but they did not want the old Tory Party back either. So they chucked in the Lib Dems and said ‘you lot sort it out.’ Analysed coldly, David Cameron should have won the [...]

So, to the excellent question I was asked at a software conference yesterday – is David Cameron doing anything right, does Nick Clegg have a future, and is Ed Miliband electable as Prime Minister? I ended up answering yes, yes and yes, but with varying degrees of caveat and qualification. For Cameron, the problem I [...]

To the Institute of Directors this morning and a speech to a large room full of experts from public and private sector, at a conference organised by software specialists KANA. It is always good to get an audience laughing before going into serious stuff like economic mayhem, political shambles and transport fiasco. So I told [...]

David Cameron is likely to feign indifference to Ed Miliband’s speech when asked about it, as he will be in the coming days. But he will be worried about it. When he PM was busy ‘decontaminating the brand’ of the Tory Party, there were a few notions that were central to that. One Nation was [...]

I missed Ed Miliband on the Marr programme and so, as is increasingly the case these days, I rely on twitter for a sense of how it went. According to some, Marr was a tad tougher than he tends to be on the other leaders, whilst the general reaction to Ed seems to have been [...]

Just as the media were looking for any signs of Vince Cable moving against Nick Clegg this week, so when we come to the Tory conference, there will be an even greater focus on Boris Johnson’s positioning vis a vis David Cameron. Boris, and the possibility of him being the next Tory leader and PM, [...]

As Michael Gove reflects on his latest intervention, what will have the greater impact on him as he surveys the weekend papers with his usual careful reading? … the fact that he has annoyed huge numbers of heads, teachers, parents and children with his ill-timed (in the middle of exams for heaven’s sake), regressive (he [...]