Europe
Eastleigh: all the wrong lessons
Too many Conservatives are sure to take the wrong lesson from third place in the Eastleigh by-election, which is that they should be more Eurosceptic, tougher on immigration and should never have legalised gay marriage.
The right lesson, of course, is that they should have supported the Alternative Vote in the 2011 referendum. It wouldn’t have [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 1 March 2013 at 9:20 am
Cameron on Europe “turned a trap into a tryst with destiny”
David Hayes has a lovely long essay on Britain’s history with Europe in Inside Story, an Australian website. He sees the crisis of the eurozone as a big moment in this long story, which “makes the prime minister’s referendum démarche on 23 January all the more intelligible, and his craftsmanship in turning a political trap into [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 26 February 2013 at 5:39 pm
Cameron’s Public Plot to Stay in the EU
David Lidington, the Europe minister, was on BBC1 Sunday Politics yesterday. The BBC sends transcripts to journalists but doesn’t put them on its website, so here it is.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 28 January 2013 at 8:33 am
Cameron on Europe: right, wrong or … political?
We Sunday columnists are divided over the Prime Minister’s speech on the European Union.
Matthew d’Ancona says David Cameron got it right and it was all part of the grand modernising plan. Andrew Rawnsley says it was “a terrible mistake, quite possibly the fatal error of his premiership”. And I am somewhere in between, saying that [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 27 January 2013 at 7:08 pm
“Why are you screaming and hugging?”
“It’s the wrong people who are clapping!”
I meant to refer last week to this quotation from Dora Gaitskell, wife of Hugh, who expressed her horror at the applause for his “thousand years of history” Eurosceptic speech to Labour conference in 1962.
Andrew Rawnsley got there first, in his column for The Observer today. It is an apt echo of [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 27 January 2013 at 2:55 pm
Voters back Cameron on Europe
Labour’s lead has halved after the Prime Minister’s speech on Europe this week, according to a ComRes opinion poll for tomorrow’s Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror. The Conservatives have gained support at the expense of UKIP, while David Cameron’s personal ratings have risen.
Conservative 33% (+5)
Labour 39% (-)
Lib [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 26 January 2013 at 7:25 pm
Populus Poll on Europe
Populus has a poll taken online since David Cameron’s EU speech in The Times today. The report is behind the pay wall but the tables are not, and they contain more and more interesting information.
The main finding is that people would vote to leave the EU in a referendum by 53% to 47%, excluding don’t [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 25 January 2013 at 2:35 pm
Fallon, clearing up after the PM
I hear that Michael Fallon, Minister of State at the Business Department, was late to a meeting with London business people this morning.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 23 January 2013 at 8:37 pm
PMQs Through the Sound-Proof Glass
An unusual degree of textual analysis is required of the exchanges at Prime Minister’s Questions today.
I thought Ed Miliband simply failed to notice that David Cameron answered his question, twice, and stuck doggedly to the script he and Douglas Alexander had agreed (the more Eurosceptic Ed Balls was notably sullen and silent a further seat [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 23 January 2013 at 6:44 pm
David Cameron’s S.P.A.
I was the one of very few people who watched Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday and who dissented from the proposition that Ed Miliband whipped David Cameron’s sorry pink ass, to judge by the reaction on the popular microblogging social network, Twitter. Well, read Hansard and make up your own mind:
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab): When [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 17 January 2013 at 12:37 pm
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