Weekly Parliament Roundup:  29/01/14-5/02/14

Conservative style Ofsted

After the firing of Ofsted Chair and Labour peer Sally Morgan, Michael Gove has said that the next head of Ofsted will be appointed upon merit but has not yet ruled out appointing a Conservative peer.  A number of critics have been saying that Gove is trying to ‘politicise’ an independent body and the same argument has been said by Liberal Democrat Schools Ministers who have said that Gove is bringing his own people into an impartial organisation. However, Michael Gove has replied back by saying that it’s just time for a fresh pair of eyes and his decision on not ruling out the appointment of Conservative peers has nothing to do with politics.

Formal Tests in Nursery

Michael Gove has given an indication that he wants to introduce formal assessments for 4&5 year olds in order to measure progress more effectively. He believes that by children taking these assessments when they start school, their performance in year 6 will then be better contrasted. As a result, schools will be able to see how well the child has developed academically under their teaching, allowing them to make precise improvements for children in the future. Several schools have already stated that they already do this so the proposal doesn’t seem to be anything drastic.

Miliband to reform links with Trade Unions

Ed Miliband’s plans to reform the party went before the party’s ruling national executive this week. Within these plans, trade unions will keep their 50% votes at the party conference and the selection of parliamentary candidates won’t change. Because of this, Trade Union leaders seem to not appear panicked about the reforms because essentially, parliamentary candidates are unable to get nominated without the backing of Trade Unions. In regards to parliamentary candidates, the plans state that they will have to declare that they want to opt in to pay the party. Once they are then elected, Labour will then send them a ballot paper.

Despite the fact that Miliband thinks that the reforms will strengthen the link between the party and the unions, several trade union leaders have hinted that the fundamental relationship won’t change and the unions won’t accept further reforms. Additionally, they have said that Labour is being a little optimistic in its assessment of how many affiliated members they will gain through these reforms. Furthermore, a more important question arising from these reform proposals is: will they make Labour more dependent on Trade Unions?

Miliband strikes again (PMQs)

This week, we saw Miliband gain another victory roll for the third time this year. After hitting the Prime Minister with a few start up questions on the length at which the Tories were taking in handling the flooding issues, he brought out his killer question about what the PM has exactly done in order to improve women equality. As usual, David Cameron tried to get out of answering the question by giving the opposition figures regarding floods. When he finally did reply, he made the remark of the Conservative party having a female Prime Minister and this gave Miliband the perfect opportunity to hit back at Cameron by highlighting his failures of winning the last General Election.

Gloria Ganda

50p Tax rate for the Rich:

Ed Balls recently said that a future Labour government promises to achieve a budget surplus, falling national debt and a 50p top rate of tax for the rich. Businesses have criticised the third proposal by saying that it will harm the economy and put a stunt on job production. However, Ed Balls said that Labour’s Plans to reintroduce the 50p top rate of tax does not mean that the party is against business. Despite this, more business figures have said it is sending the wrong signals. Alistair Darling supported Ed Balls by saying that the timing for making this proposal was right since the General Elections are only about 15 months away. Even though there’s a lot of support for the proposal, Former trade minister Lord Digby called it ‘lousy economics’ in the sense that it might prevent businesses from investing in England.

The Immigration Bill

The Immigration bill was back in the Commons last week and Tory rebels have been threating to reinstate controls over Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants. There’s a big fear among David Cameron and Senior Ministers regarding how the Conservatives react after the European elections. Cameron has become unsure whether the party become unmanageable and more blatantly Eurosceptic following the results of the elections. Many of the Tory rebels are threatening to reinstate controls over immigration because Cameron and Hague though they could park the issue with Europe and they are getting frustrated because Cameron and Hague aren’t doing more to explain what they mean by a renegotiation of power with Brussels.

Lord Rennard Aftermath

Following last week’s Lord Rennard issues, Nick Clegg hopes that mediation is the way they would now solve the issue. He is disappointed by the fact that things have been made more difficult as legal procedures have been brought in by Lord Rennard. In regards to the reputation of the Liberal Democrat party and Nick Clegg himself, he doesn’t seem to be such a strong leader as shown through the way in which he has handled the situation. In addition, the internal procedures that were taken in the party during the last week don’t seem to be fit for a governing party.

Ed Miliband’s Syria success (PMQs)

Last week we saw Ed Miliband pressurising David Cameron into allowing a certain amount of Syrian refugees into entering Britain and despite a disagreement by Cameron who stressed that we were already helping them enough by providing them with aid, the Conservatives still gave in. After Ed Miliband’s demand for Syrian refugees to be allowed in Britain, Home Secretary Theresa May made an announcement stating that hundreds of Syrian Victims, especially fragile victims such as Orphans will be able to come to Britain as refugees.

Miliband’s triumph in getting Cameron to agree and accept his demands regarding the Syrian refugees was evident in his confident and assured demeanour in this week’s PMQs. Not sounding too boastful, he was able to once again act calm and professional while questioning the Prime Minister regarding the 50p tax rate. He was shown as strong and persistent as he continuously asked Cameron to rule out a reduction in the top rate of income tax to 40p, leaving Cameron tongue –tied and embarrassed. So far, we can well and truly say that Miliband has achieved his first big win.

Gloria Ganda

Pick of the Papers (20/1/2014-26/1/2014)

1. Talented MPs are turning their backs on Westminster

Source: The Telegraph

Politics Topic: Parliament

Summary: After another Conservative MP has announced that she will step down in the 2015 general election, it raises the question why are MPs leaving Parliament. One explanation of this is that while Parliament may look grand on the outside, on the inside it is so dysfunctional that continuing as an MP seems like a real waste of time.

2. Labour toughens fiscal policy with promise to reduce national debt

Source: The Independent

Politics Topic: Party Policies and Ideas

Summary: Trying to get back economic policy credibility is a tough job for the shadow Chancellor Ed Balls who has announced that Labour will still make cuts to the budget so per year they will have a surplus budget, which is seen as a toughening of fiscal policy for Labour.

3. Peers put Cameron under pressure to ‘heed the call’ and take in refugees.

Source: The Independent

Politics Topic: Party Policies and Ideas

Summary: Members of the House of Lords as well as Tory backbenchers are putting more pressure onto the prime minister to accept the United Nations programme and to allow Syrian refugees to come to Britain, despite Cameron wanting to get tougher with immigration laws.

4. Conservative bill pledging vote on EU’s membership called a dead parrot.

Source: The Guardian

Politics Topic: Parliament

Summary: The bill passed through the House of Commons has not been called a dead parrot, as Labour and Lib Dem peers in the House of Lords delaying the bill passing through as long as possible. Critics to this bill state that the bill is ‘inappropriate, confusing and potentially misleading’ while others say that ‘it’s a government bill trying to patch over divisions in the Tory party and outflank Ukip.

5. Nigel Farage still doesn’t know Ukip policies – but don’t expect it to damage him.

Source: The New Statesman

Politics Topic: Party Politics and Ideas

Summary: Nigel Farage has been found to be unable to talk about Ukip policies and completely bemused by policies which are on the website but unknown to him. This has made the Tories write him off as being incredible but to the voters, this just adds to his image of informality which they pay more attention to than policies.

Kevin Augustine

Coalition United? I think not

When the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition in the aftermath of the general election of 2010, it was uncharted territory for the UK. Not only was it the first ever Coalition government between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives in history but  was also the first time the Lib Dems gained some real political power in decades – poor Lib  Dems. So the people of Great Britain were naturally curious to see whether the new government would last. Leading members of the Coalition David Cameron and Nick Clegg have continuously said that they support the Coalition and that it is ‘getting things done’, but today, the cracks are appearing within this partnership of parties.

Firstly, one of the big cracks is this issue about the European Union. Now this causes a huge divide already within the Conservatives as they are naturally sceptical about the European Union. The fact that Tory backbenchers want to leave the EU is quite drastic compared to the leading Tory MPs such as the Rt Honourable and PM David Cameron who wants not to leave the EU. Instead, Cameron wishes to change the terms and conditions of the relationship Britain has with the EU, such as the matter of clashing with Brussels over a EU-China Trade and implementing a referendum in 2017, concerning whether Britain should stay in the EU. This is proposed of course,  if a Conservative government is re-elected. The Lib Dems on the other hand, are the most pro-EU party of the three main political parties. An example of this is Nick Clegg attacking UKIP calling them “unpatriotic” and Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary for the Treasury saying that “If you are anti-Europe, you are anti-business, anti-growth”.

Secondly, another difference within the coalition is the issue of same-sex marriage. The Lib Dems were completely for it, as Nick Clegg said “I support gay marriage. Love is the same, straight or gay, so the civil institution should be the same, too. All couples should be able to make that commitment to one another”. Whereas on the other hand, the Conservatives were divided between some Tories who felt that gay marriage should be legalised such as David Cameron and others such as Owen Paterson, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who rejected the notion and voted against it. It was such a divide within the Conservative party that David Cameron had to get the support of the Labour party to make sure that the bill would go through. Arguably, traditional conservatism was overruled by the popularity of the liberal approach.

Finally, the issue of the environment splits the two parties. Originally, David Cameron had rebranded the Conservatives as an eco-conscious party, using the slogan running up to the general election ‘Vote Blue, Go Green’. But now he has distanced himself from green policies even as far saying ‘Get rid of the green crap’ according to the Sun. The Lib Dems on the other hand love the environment, and have made it hard for the Conservatives, resisting Tory plans to remove green taxes as Danny Alexander Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that they ‘are vital to Britain’s long-term commitments to funding renewable energy’.

To conclude, there are always cracks in a relationship, regardless if you can see them or not. But this Coalition has problems on the surface which could break the strength of relationship between the two parties. The question of whether we’ll have another coalition formed in the next general election is very much on the mind of the public and politicians. I suppose party leaders will have to contemplate sacrificing policies if there is to be a hung parliament, and they may indeed need to bear in mind this saying; ‘keep your friends close, but your enemies closer’.

See the Independent for Alistair Campbell’s prediction of a Labour/Liberal Democrat Coalition 2015

Kevin Augustine

Former Chief Executive Lord  Rennard  has threatened to sue (according to his legal advisor) if he isn’t allowed to re-join the party in the House of Lords after he was accused with sexual harassment claims from several women and was found not guilty by the courts due to lack of sufficient evidence. Nick Clegg said that he should apologise to the women before he is allowed to join his peers in the House of Lords but Lord Rennard refuses to do so. Lord Rennard has been given a temporary suspension from his House of Lords seat. In the upcoming days and even weeks, the way in which Nick Clegg handles this situation will illustrate his leadership strength.

However, this disagreement is seen to be potentially very damaging to the Local and European elections in May for the Liberal Democrat Party. Chris Davis MEP, also a friend of Lord Rennard recently expressed his support for the former Chief Executive by stressing on the fact that he has the right to decline apologising to the women since the courts have found that he did nothing wrong. Despite some support, there have been numerous complaints by members of the Lib Dems that Lord Rennard has brought the party into disrepute.

UKIP Counsellor suspended

A UKIP counsellor has been suspended for stating that the recent flooding has been God’s response to the legalisation of Gay Marriage. Nigel  Farage  wanted to clear out what he saw as extremist views in his party and he told the Sun on Sunday that he ordered a ‘clean up’ of his party so that no such extremist views will exist. At first, the party stated that he had a right to voice his opinions freely but now, especially since the European Elections are looming, they’ve realised that they can’t do anything bad to place the party in a bad limelight.

No Housing Benefit for EU Jobseekers

Home Secretary Theresa May and Work  and Pensions Secretary  Ian Duncan Smith  have written an article explaining  how reform of the welfare and immigration system will interact. They also said that Housing Benefits should be stopped altogether for EU jobseekers, one proposal which might be said to be slightly influenced by UKIP and their current stress upon EU migrant levels which have risen. In addition, they have also published an analysis on employment figures which has showm the big increase in the number of migrants in employment and a decrease in the number of Britons in employment.

Labour proposes a Basic Skills Test for jobseekers

Rachel Reeves, the Shadow work and Pensions Secretary gave a speech this week where she proposed that under Labour, Jobseekers will begin to take a basic skills test. She stated that individuals who are coming out of work benefit sometimes don’t have the skills that are essentially needed for work. Therefore, they will have at test within six weeks of signing on and if they don’t have the basic skills needed then they will receive training. The Tories have criticised this proposals by saying that it will cost more money rather than save money.

A new page for Miliband – PMQs

This week, as promised, Ed Miliband took a more civilized and professional approach when asking questions to the Prime Minister. He calmly began by paying his respect to Del Singh, a Labour MEP who was sadly killed in Kabul. He then tried his best to show that he had some agreement with the Prime Minister in regards to the Syria crisis but grilled him about allowing Syrian Refugees to come into the UK instead of just simply providing them with aid. On top of that, he actually accepted the fall in unemployment and admitted that it was a good thing. Overall, Ed’s new approach to PMQs might actually help him in becoming a better leader but for now, we won’t be holding our breath…

Gloria Ganda

Pick of the Papers (13/01/2014 – 19/01/2014)

Woodhouse’ weekly pick of the papers is devoted to keeping A level politics students up to date with the political news and on track with the Unit 1 and Unit 2 syllabus.

1. UKIP tops Independent on Sunday Poll as the nation’s favourite party

Source: The Independent

Politics Topic: Party Policies and Ideas

Summary: A shock to the Conservatives and the Labour Party as UKIP is seen as the nation’s favourite party. This will underline concerns that UKIP could come first in May’s European election and this could be potentially deny either the Labour Party or the Conservatives an outright majority in the 2015 general election.

2. Why the sudden Tory U-Turn on the minimum wage? Fear of Miliband

Source: The Guardian

Politics Topic: Party Policies and Ideas

Summary: The Chancellor of the Exchequer reflects his party’s worry of Miliband and they are worried that Miliband is turning voters against them and onto things that matter. This is enough to stop a man who is wedded to his long term goal of shrinking the state and minimising government intervention.

3. Parliament need an emergency brake on EU legislation

Source: The Telegraph

Politics Topic: Parliament

Summary: When Cameron gave his speech last year on a EU referendum last year, it set a direction for the Conservatives but lacking in detail. It would be time for the European system to be brought back under clear, democratic control. But this has undermined a Government bill to promote EU citizenship, bringing ‘Europe closer to its citizens’, which is directly the opposite of Cameron’s speech stating that a ‘ever closer Union is not the objective’

4. Miliband’s big opportunity is to unite the middle class and working-class

Source: The New Statesman

Politics Topic: Party Policies and Ideas

Summary: By promising big changes to the economy, the Labour leader has the ability to make a new coalition between two big areas of voters. But this is uncharted territory as the middle class tend to benefit from the success fro the City; where Miliband wants to break down the banks in the City.

Kevin Augustine

Parliament Roundup – 13/01/14-19/01/14

Labour Speech

This week, Labour leader Ed Miliband and his shadow ministers will make speeches for the electorate in order to announce Labour’s upcoming plans. The speeches are designed to broaden the debate away from spending and the deficit. Shadow Housing Minister Emma Reynolds made a speech on Tuesday reemphasising on Labour’s plans to build more than 200,000 homes a year by the end of the next Parliament in 2020 by stressing that we need to increase social housing. However, this might prove tricky for Labour as they will have to allow more borrowing in order to reach this ambitious goal. This goal in particular might be seen as Ed Miliband’s way of proving that Labour is not just about short term goals such as his established energy price freeze.

Euro sceptics unsatisfied

95 of Conservative backbenchers have recently signed a vote for the law to be changed for the House of Commons to veto new EU regulations. There has been much recent disagreement with this vote and William Hague recently said that it’s unrealistic to give every country a veto on EU law. The main issue is that the euro sceptics will never be satisfied by any of Cameron’s actions towards the European Union. It is very obvious that our relationship with Europe isn’t working but this doesn’t necessarily mean that we should back out when we feel like it and tie the House Commons down with every EU law that is put in place. We can’t join an international treaty and then simply pick and choose what we like and what we don’t like, the whole point of being in union with Europe is to work together and compromise on some issues.  We also need to trust that Cameron is doing the best he can and we should simply let the people decide in 2017 in Cameron’s referendum promise whether or not they want to stay in the EU. Making the House of Commons veto every single EU regulation will not solve the deep underlying issues which Britain need to sort out with the EU.

PMQs

Ed Miliband and other members of his party have realised that there have been a slight decline in the number of people watching PMQs due to the programme becoming too much like a ‘Punch and Judy Show’ (starring himself and David Cameron). Therefore Miliband is attempting to act more civilized and ordered. So as to doing this, he is trying to find some areas where he and Cameron agree on certain issues. This was visible on Wednesday’s PMQs where Miliband, instead of beginning his questions rather loudly and impatiently towards Cameron, acted in a more ‘professional’ manner. We will see how long it will all last before his tantrums about the Cost of Living Crisis begins again…

Miliband questioned Cameron about The Royal Bank of Scotland asking the government to approve bonuses to 100% on multi million pound salaries. It seemed like he was willing to talk about this issue in an orderly manner whereas Cameron resulted to attacking him again about the failures of the labour government to handle the issues with RBS. David Cameron even went as far as stating that Miliband should be apologising of the mess that they made of RBS in the first place.

Other News

- David Cameron will announce that the government will give new incentives to allow shale gas/fracking development .Councils will get more than 1.7 million pounds a year for these sites. See the Guardian for more detail

Gloria Ganda

Parliament Roundup: 4/12/13-11/12/13

MPs to receive 11% pay rise:

Click for a video explanation

IPSA(Independent Parliament Standards Authority) have recently proposed to provide MPs with a pay rise of 11% which will increase their salary to £74,000. They have stated that there will be changes to the pension scheme which will save tax payer 2.5 billion pounds if the rise is to take place. Even though this might be seen as a great thing for the MPs, lots of them are scared to state publicly that they think it is a good idea. The main issue with this proposal is that it might be the wrong time to make such high rises in MP’s salaries when other public sectors are facing difficult freezes. However, of this proposal is to go ahead, it will take legislation in 2015 to stop this from occurring.

The public might not like the sound of the proposal at first because many might feel that the MPs don’t deserve such a high pay rise as they have failed to improve costs of living. Despite this, the huge worry for IPSA and for several MPs is that the public won’t fully understand the fact that this will not affect them in any major way. This money will not be taken out of the tax payer’s pockets and in fact, it might even aid them. This proposal will also mean that there might be tougher regulations on expenses.

Shadow Red Ed

Following George Osborne’s autumn statement stating that ‘Britain’s economic plan is working’ and that ‘The hard work of the British people is paying off, and we will not squander their efforts’, Ed Balls made one of the most disastrous responses which led him to be mocked by Osborne and the rest of the opposition. In his response, he stated that Labour was winning the economic argument despite being contradicted by recent polls. Despite this, he has recently stated that he’s not bothered at all about the gossip about his performance in House of Commons and he also refuses to accept the fact that his response was weak. David Cameron also attempted to throw an attack at him again in this week’s PMQs by saying that ‘He can dish it out but he can’t take it.’ 

Click here for more detail on Cameron’s argument

Tributes to Mandela

After the death of former South African President Nelson Mandela, Parliament paid tribute to the iconic figure on Monday. All parties stressed upon the fact that he’s legacy will stay imminent in our lives. David Cameron also talked about Mandela’s strength of character and mentioned the fact that progress is not won by people accept the way things are but dreaming of what it can be. Cameron,Clegg and Miliband went to Johannesburg for Mandela’s memorial service on earlier on this week and Prince Charles will be attending the funeral on Sunday.

PMQs

This week’s PMQs saw the return of Cameron Vs Miliband on another round of Cost of living, only this time the debate was dominated by the 11% proposed pay rise for MPs which Ed Miliband used to strengthen his argument of course. Mr Miliband asked Cameron that if given the current living standards issues among families should MPs receive a pay rise. Surprisingly, the two men agreed on the fact that these proposals were in fact unacceptable and Cameron reemphasized the fact that these decision weren’t finally. After a few seconds of agreement, Cameron once again played the blame game and replied to Miliband’s request to work together on the issue by saying that the Conservatives are still left with the mess that Labour has left behind.

Gloria Ganda

Pick Of The Papers (25/11/13-1/12/13)

Woodhouse’ weekly pick of the papers is devoted to keeping A level politics students up to date with the political news and on track with the Unit 1 and Unit 2 syllabus.

1. Powerful swing voters say Labour lacks vision – and that the Tories are still nasty.

Source: The Independent

Politics Topic: Parties Policies and Ideas

Summary: Voters in four key marginals were asked about the two main parties – neither came out well. Voters believe that Miliband lacks vision to become a future prime minister as his policy of an “energy freeze” is nothing more than a “sweetener” as well as the Conservatives due swing voters believing that they “favour the rich” and are associated with “cuts”.

ALevelPolitics Help: Labour leading in YouGov poll but Cameron claims Miliband’s policies are “weak”

2. George Osborne: Boris Johnson is wrong to say low IQs were to blame for people who struggle to get on

Source: The Telegraph Party

Politics Topic: Policies and Ideas

Summary: Chancellor says he does ‘not agree’ with the comments the Mayor of London made arguing that because people have varying IQs economic equality is impossible. In a speech at the Margaret Thatcher lecture last week Mr Johnson suggested that economic equality will never be possible which some have suggested that he is Margaret Thatcher’s Heir. Mr Osborne has been the first Conservative to distance himself from the Mayor of London.

3. Cameron warned to protect green policies or risk party split

Source: The Telegraph

Politics Topic: Party Policies and Ideas

Summary: The Prime Minister has been told by a group of his own MPs that he risks division within the Conservative party if he waters down green policies to please the Right.

ALevelPolitics Help: Can Cameron claim a green government? 

4. The Lib Dems’ shift left could be more dangerous for the Tories than Labour

Source: The New Statesman

Politics Topic: Party Policies and Ideas

Summary: With the Tories his party’s main electoral foe, Clegg is seeking to woo the One Nation voters alienated by the Conservatives’ UKIP tendency. Any Labour/Lib Dem coalition after the next election is likely to be based upon common agreement in the policy areas of tax, the environment and housing. This is good news for Labour as Lib Dem voters believe that those three main areas plus jobs are the four key principles in the 2015 manifesto.

5. Tories deny seeking Big Six energy price freeze

Source: The Independent

Politics Topic: Party Policies and Ideas

Summary: Downing Street is on the back foot over Ed Miliband’s energy price freeze policy as Labour suggests that the government is in disarray over energy freezes over energy companies stating that ministers asked them to halt energy price rises as well as condemning Labour for calling for energy freezes as they are a “con”.

ALevelPolitics Help: Cameron’s Dilemma 

Kevin Augustine

Weekly Parliament Roundup: 27/11/13-4/12/13

Autumn Statement

George Osborne released an Autumn statement on which was said to concentrate on delivering a responsible recovery.  The statement aims to turn the political conversation back to the economy and to emphasise the fact that we are making considerable improvements as our growth forecast is upgrading and how we are now borrowing less.

Coalition action on Energy Bill Crisis

Recently, there have been Coalition plans to reduce energy bills by an average of £50 per year. In addition to this, the cost of insulating homes will be spread over a longer period and there are plans for a new £1000 incentive scheme given to new home buyers to help them insulate their homes. The government is hoping that this plan will turn attention away from Ed Miliband’s proposed plans to resolve the cost of living crisis which he has not failed to emphasise upon successfully for the last few months.

However, there are many rising issues associated with the plans and the most important one is that the coalition government have not yet made it clear on how these plans will be acted upon and is currently less clear compared to Miliband’s plans. Also, the £1000 incentive is apparently going to be paid off by extra tax avoidance and the £50 will still be paid by the taxpayer. If this is so, how will the government’s proposal be helping individuals if the money that will be supposedly ‘reduced’ from their bill has actually come out of their own pockets anyway?

Loveless Coalition

At the beginning of the coalition it was quite obvious that despite their differences, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats had the potential of creating an effective and stable government. The two parties have currently been letting their differences get the better of them and both parties think they’re going all the way to 2015. The Conservatives have been stressing to the Lib Dems that if they talk about what they’ve stopped them from doing and keep creating and strengthening their own agenda, the government will look weak and divided. The union that was immensely strong is beginning to break down as Nick Clegg has finally begun to stand firmly on his own two feet since he has been insisting that the Liberal Democrats crucially need to have their own agenda.

Labour’s silence on the economy

The Cost of Living Crisis has been Labour’s anthem for the last few months and Miliband has not allowed the issue from escaping the Tories’ minds. Even though the Labour party have been trying to make effective plan proposals to solve the issue, they haven’t said a word about the economy. It is hard to identify exactly why this might be but in according to David Cameron, the main reason why they aren’t talking about the economy is because it’s recovering. This might be true but it must be said that Labour has avoided being attacked by the opposition about the recovery of the economy because of their concentration on the Cost of Living Crisis. Yes it’s been like Miliband’s ongoing rant but it has worked in regards to turning attention away from the fact that the coalition government are actually improving the economy, without much of their input.

 PMQs-Liberal Democrats vs. Labour

This week’s Prime Minister Questions was answered by the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg as David Cameron visits China. The Deputy PM faced some grilling questions from the opposition, especially from Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman. Mr Clegg was asked by Harriet Harman this winter’s energy bills will be lower or higher and he answered that they would be higher if the coalition government didn’t take the action that they have. He also stated Harriet Harman’s party’s economically illiterate policy was ineffective and that they aren’t able to control energy prices. To add, Clegg also highlighted their inability to stand up to trade union paymasters but Harman hit back by telling Clegg to leave it to labour to handle its party members, especially since some of them used to be his.

Surprisingly, without mentioning the Conservatives, Clegg fired back at the opposition by saying that without the Liberal Democrats, there wouldn’t be a recovery and they didn’t suck up to the banks like labour did. Evidently, we are beginning to see a stronger and more independent side of Mr Clegg which is willing to stand firm by Liberal Democrat policies. However, the opposition still see him as weak and this is shown through Harriet Harman’s reference to Nick Clegg as ‘Cameron’s little helper’ on her recent website post.

Gloria Ganda