Posts tagged "PM"

PM: ‘let children behave like children’

New measures announced today follow an independent report by Reg Bailey, Chief Executive of Mother’s Union.

His report ‘Let Children be Children’ found that society is full of sexualised imagery and that families don’t feel in control.

New measures to support parents have been announced today. They include:

• consulting on whether the current age rating system should be extended to cover more music DVDs and Blu-ray discs
• working with the music industry, online retailers and video services, to have clear warnings on explicit videos where they are shown online. By the end of the year, YouTube will provide the music industry with the ability to label their videos ‘explicit’
• work with the BPI (the British record industry’s trade association) and digital services to ensure parents have the option of controls that will hide videos and songs intended for an older audience
• taking forward the final stage of legislation needed so that the planned new system of age classification and labeling for videogames giving clearer age ratings and advice for parents can start in July. 
• asking the Advertising Standards Authority to consider whether more should be done to spell out the commercial intent of ‘advergames’ to young people and their parents.

Speaking to today’s Daily Mail, David Cameron said the Government was determined to help parents ensure that ‘children have a childhood’.

The Prime Minister added:

‘Reg Bailey has done good work right across the board, whether it’s videos, video games, music videos, street adverts, just trying to turn the dial back a bit on over-sexualisation and allowing children to behave like children.’

As part of the response to the Bailey review, UK media regulators joined forces in October 2011 to launch ParentPort, a website to help parents keep their children safe from inappropriate programmes, adverts, products and services.

Elections drubbing piles pressure on PM

Tory rightwingers demand change of tack as Boris Johnson takes mantle of man most likely to eventually succeed Cameron

David Cameron is under intense pressure to change the course of his government after suffering a severe electoral defeat that saw Labour chalk up gains across the country, and Ken Livingstone run Boris Johnson closer than expected in the London mayoral contest.

The prime minister’s hopes that the elections would represent a chance to turn the page on a catalogue of errors since the disastrous budget were dashed as the Conservative right immediately called on their leader to be more assertive over his Liberal Democrat partners.

Ed Miliband, seizing control of 32 councils across the country, claimed Labour was back on the people’s side, but promised he would work hard every day to win the electorate’s trust. His aides, delighted by a strong showing in Scotland and southern England, admitted Labour had benefited from Tory abstainers as well as converts.

Senior Liberal Democrats warned that another set of resultslike Friday’s would spell the end of the party as an independent nationwide force.

In an acerbic attack on the government, Lord Oakeshott, the former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said the party would only recover popularity if growth is restored to the economy. He said: “The Treasury looks like a beached whale after the tide has gone out – there is the odd spout about yet more cuts but basically they are clueless and helpless.”

The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said he was “really sad” at the results, and promised to continue to play his role in rescuing the economy. He will appear in a BBC interview where he will argue he is still radicalised by office. He will insist the party can recover by 2015.

Despite a late wobble Johnson won a second term as London mayor, beating Ken Livingstone by 3%, a closer contest than the polls had predicted. Johnson got 1,054,811 first and second preference votes in total. Livingstone scored 992,273 votes, and said he was truly sorry to Londoners for failing to win, adding this was his last election. He added: “I suspect this result has settled the question of the next Tory leadership election.”

Labour activists rounded on Livingstone for crassly insulting Jewish voters. It was pointed out that in seats with strong Jewish communities, such as Barnet, the Labour candidate outpolled his Tory rival by 21,000, yet in the mayoral election in the same seat Johnson beat Livingstone by 24,000.

But Johnson easily outpolled his Conservative colleagues across the London assembly elections, where Labour made sweeping gains, underlining the extent to which Johnson’s personality and politics had immunised him from the Tories’ suddenly plummeting popularity.

The Green candidate, Jenny Jones, just pulled ahead of the Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick in the race for third place, polling 4.48%, with Paddick on 4.16%.

Johnson, now installed as the man most likely to eventually succeed Cameron as Conservative leader, is to tell the prime minister an eclectic winning formula includes remaining “bone dry” on the economy so long as it is accompanied by a clear, compassionate Conservatism. He promised to serve a full term to 2016, beyond the next election.

But Stewart Jackson, the former parliamentary aide to Northern Ireland secretary Owen Patterson, warned: “David Cameron is on notice that he does need to raise his game. He needs to focus on bread and butter issues like jobs and mortgages and public services and, above all, to develop a clear route map to growth, and stop fixating on the agenda of a liberal clique around him and barmy policies such as Lords reform and gay marriage, which people either don’t like or don’t care about.”

He added: “There is a growing frustration from many Conservative backbenchers that their views are not being listened to. If you get one Labour or Liberal voter to vote Conservative at the general election but lose three or four others to Ukip, you are not going to win the election.”

Some Tories, led by David Davis and John Redwood, are expected to demand that next week’s Queen’s speech highlights crime, immigration and Europe.

Cameron’s aides have already started discussions on whether to offer a referendum on Europe in the party’s election manifesto, and make this known before the European elections in 2014 as a way of spiking the guns of Ukip.

Lord Mandelson, the former business secretary, called for a referendum on Europe, but said it was many years off, after the euro had been stabilised.

Cameron did not offer his backbenchers any immediate initiative by response, saying the results reflect a government dealing with “difficult times and no easy answers”.

“Obviously, when you’re taking difficult decisions to bring the country out of the broken economy that Labour left us, there aren’t easy decisions,” he said. The foreign secretary, William Hague, promised the coalition would not be veering to left or right.

Cameron and Clegg will appear together at a joint event on Tuesday before the Queen’s speech – then Cameron’s government risks being engulfed again in two days of Leveson inquiry hearings.

In a further blow to Cameron’s domestic agenda, voters in every English city save Bristol decisively rejected the idea of directly elected mayors. Birmingham, often seen as the big city most likely to vote “yes”, instead voted “no” by a margin of 57.8%. Eight other cities have rejected plans to replace local council cabinets with directly elected mayors.

Incoming search terms:

• oakshott says treasury looks like a beached whale after the tide has gone out basically they are clueless and helpless

Boris Johnson to tell PM he has winning Tory formula

London mayor to say his ‘compassionate cosmopolitan Conservatism’ provides best chance for party after dismal results elsewhere

Boris Johnson is to tell David Cameron that his brand of “compassionate cosmopolitan Conservatism” provides the best chance for the party to rejuvenate itself across Britain and secure an overall parliamentary majority at the next general election.

In a clear signal that he will continue to differentiate himself from his fellow Etonian, Johnson will say that “bone-dry” Tory economics can triumph if the party appeals beyond its traditional base on social issues.

“Boris has championed a cosmopolitan and compassionate Conservatism which he has combined with a bone-dry approach on the economy,” one source close to the London mayor said.

“If Boris had been seen as a straightforward Conservative, he would have been massacred.”

In his victory, finally announced at City Hall late on Friday night, Johnson showed his personal appeal by performing more strongly in the mayoral contest than Tory candidates standing in the parallel elections for the London assembly. While his win was far narrower than expected, it provided one of the few bright spots for the Tories amid poor results across Britain. But the personal success of Johnson, who relishes the opportunity to embarrass Cameron and George Osborne, is a mixed blessing for Downing Street.

Friends of Johnson, who will be 48 next month, regard him as the most ambitious member of his generation at Oxford, and determined to become prime minister.

Cabinet ministers have long assumed that Johnson would return to parliament at the next general election in 2015, a year before the next mayoral election in 2016, even if he won a second term as London mayor this year.

There was speculation that the safe Tory seat of Reigate, held by the justice minister Crispin Blunt, is being lined up for Johnson. A triumphant return to parliament in 2015 – seven years after he stood down as MP for Henley after his election as London mayor in 2008 – would place Johnson in pole position to replace Cameron as Tory leader. The prime minister, regarded by Johnson as intellectually inferior, is expected to stand down in 2017 or 2018 if he wins the next election.

But Johnson said on Friday that he would remain as mayor for a full four-year term until 2016. “If I am fortunate enough to win I’ll need four years to deliver what I’ve promised,” he told the London Evening Standard. “And having put trust at the heart of this election, I would serve out that term in full.

“I made a solemn vow to Londoners to lead them out of recession, bring down crime and deliver the growth, investment and jobs that this city so desperately needs. Keeping that promise cannot be combined with any other political capacity.”

It is understood that Johnson is not closing off the opportunity of returning to parliament after 2016. “Who knows what the future will hold,” one source said.

For the moment, Downing Street will have to tolerate a free-thinking Johnson who seems to have overcome a weakness that is causing continuing grief for the prime minister: his privileged background. “Boris has shown that you can be an old Etonian who went to Balliol [Oxford] and that need not prevent you succeeding,” one source said.

Johnson’s friends say that his stance on social issues and economics is the only model that can ensure success for the party nationally. On the economic side, they cite Johnson’s campaign to cut the 50p tax rate as he fought for the City of London.

“Boris has shown that you can stand up for the City of London and call for tax cuts if you are grounded in the right principles. Boris built more affordable homes in four years than Ken Livingstone ever did. He has halved the number of rough sleepers in London and he has extended the living wage to 10 times as many people as Ken Livingstone ever did. Boris also led on socially liberal issues by proposing an amnesty for illegal immigrants. He also spoke out against the housing benefit cap by saying there would be no Kosovo-style social cleansing in London.”

Johnson’s friends admit that his personality was a key factor in his campaign. “The character of Boris was at the heart of his campaign – he does not pretend to be something he is not, unlike Ken Livingstone. Yes, he is funny. But you need more than that to do well in a recession. Boris has delivered on 90% of his pledges.”

One senior Tory at Westminster said the prime minister was bracing himself for jibes from Johnson. “Boris will now be saying, ‘I am the man who has won twice, unlike you, David Cameron, who has yet to win an election’,” the Tory said.

Osborne, seen as the “under the bus” candidate to replace Cameron, will have to watch out. “Boris’s star has risen and George’s has fallen,” the Tory said. “But politics is more snakes and ladders than an escalator.”

PM blames UK double-dip recession on eurozone

PM says economic crisis will go on for years and progress on reducing dependence on City and public sector too slow

David Cameron on Sunday held out the prospect of the UK economy being dragged down for years, as he predicted the euro crisis was “nowhere near half complete” and warned the single currency may yet break up. He also admitted efforts to move the UK economy away from dependence on the City and the public sector were not going fast enough.

Speaking at the start of a week of elections in Europe, including for the French presidency and the Greek parliament, Cameron’s suggestion that governance of the euro is not yet resolved will anger the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, as she seeks to steady increasingly nervous markets.

Cameron’s dire warning about the euro in part reflects a desire to explain that the continued problems in Britain’s main export markets had led the UK last week to slip back into recession. Asked if the world was halfway through the crisis in the eurozone, he told BBC1′s The Andrew Marr Show: “I don’t think we’re anywhere near halfway through it.”

Many commentators would argue the eurozone crisis started in late 2009, implying that Cameron believes it will stretch on for many years. Describing “massive tensions” inside the eurozone, he said: “I think it’s going to be a very long and painful process in the eurozone as they work out do they want a single currency with a single economic policy and all the things that go with it, or are they going to have something quite different? That, they have to decide about.”

He said continued problems in the eurozone, and UK dependence on these markets, was one reason why the US economy was growing faster than that of the UK.

France goes to the polls next Sunday to decide whether to elect the Socialist François Hollande, the favourite after the first round eight days ago. He has called for a renegotiation of the European fiscal pact to put more emphasis on growth.

Next Sunday, too, votes for the Greek parliament could lead to the election of a bloc opposed to austerity measures regarded as necessary to secure bailout funds. And Dutch elections have been called for September after Mark Rutte’s government was unable to win support for an austerity package.

Merkel has insisted the fiscal pact is not up for discussion. She said last week: “The fiscal pact has been negotiated, it has been signed by 25 heads of government. It is already ratified by Portugal and Greece. It is not renegotiable.”

Cameron believes it is the political stalemate in Europe – particularly about the role of the European Central Bank in managing the European economy – that is holding back growth in the UK. In a major speech at Davos last year, he argued that a system of fiscal integration and risk-sharing, perhaps by creating euro-area bonds, as well as structural reforms, was necessary for the euro to thrive. His remarks on Sunday suggest he does not believe the issues of competitiveness and governance have been resolved.

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said: “It is no good the prime minister telling us that the eurozone crisis is going to last a long time. Cameron and George Osborne must accept their share of the blame.”

A Sunday Times YouGov poll showed that 32% blame the return to recession on UK government policies, 29% on the eurozone and global factors, and only 17% on the last Labour government.

Cameron also insisted the UK needed to take further measures to make the economy more competitive. He listed the key issues as “how we get our banks lending, how we make sure the money goes into infrastructure, how we make it easier for businesses to employ people, how we boost our exports, how we make sure that manufacturing and the rebalancing in our economy takes place”, adding: “All of those things are on the table.”

He said his working day was full of meetings trying to ensure the government was implementing the growth programmes it had already set out. Government sources said ministers were looking hard at the welfare budget and Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, had highlighted plans to cut the government housing benefit bill by putting pressure on rents.

Incoming search terms:

• ed balls eu fiscal pact

David Cameron’s mask has slipped, says Labour leader

Ed Miliband plays down party’s biggest lead for five years, but says PM must know Conservative budget was ‘a mistake’

Ed Miliband piles out of Cardiff railway station and quickly asks his entourage the name of his driver that day, as his local election campaign swings across the drought-free Welsh valleys. Even though Miliband warmly shakes hands and engages with a man who then turns out not to be his driver, there is something of a spring in his step.

The gathering sense of a government gone omni-shambolic has presented Miliband with a YouGov poll lead of 13 points – Labour’s biggest lead for five years.

Miliband, echoing Tony Blair, insists he is an eternal warrior against complacency, but is evidently convinced that politics has reached a moment.

“What matters is not to poll-watch but to do the right thing – polls go up and down. But we are at a turning point. What has happened over the past months or so is the government has stopped getting the benefit of the doubt. I do genuinely believe the mask has slipped and they have revealed something very deep about themselves, which is that they are an unchanged party with an unchanged ideology.

“Whatever their twists and turns, people will draw conclusions from the reality of the cut in the 50p rate for those earning over £150,000 a year and the raising of taxes on pensioners and working families. It says something about who you are and what you stand for.

“For me it marks the end of the Cameron project – you cannot be the person who says we are for the disadvantaged, and not the people at the top, and then deliver the budget they did.

“I think Cameron now knows it was a mistake. As I was giving my budget reply I could almost see Cameron thinking to himself, ‘This is not what I claimed the Tory party was about.’”

So why did David Cameron make such an error? Miliband answers precisely: “Their economic plan was not working, so Osborne reached for the right’s emergency brake, which is top-rate tax cuts and trickle-down economics.”

But after the Bradford byelection Miliband does not see Labour as the automatic beneficiary of the PM’s troubles: the coming elections may be a mixed blessing.

He points out that in Scotland the new Labour leader, Johann Lamont, has said the party is just embarking on a process of rebuilding. The electoral system makes it possible Labour could fail to win Glasgow council.

In London, he says cautiously, “Livingstone has been the underdog and done well to get himself back into the fight, but he remains the underdog.” He pointedly urges Labour supporters to vote for Livingstone, a coded admission that many are thinking of not doing so.

But if a single electoral result has shaken him it has been Bradford – confirming in his view that in too many areas Labour has atrophied.

“I take Bradford 100% seriously. It was a very important reminder that unpopularity for government does not necessarily mean success for Labour. You have got to earn it and show that not all main parties are the same. Let us be frank, there is a great, great cynicism about politics and politicians and that is what we have to punch through.

“People are so sceptical of any established politics to deliver and part of my task is to think about the way we organise, the way we communicate, the way we talk about our politics, so we can convince them we have changed. We have got to take up the mantle of change.”

In south Wales, he meets unemployed people, some on the dole for 10 years; some cheerful pensioners; and in Caerphilly – eating his umpteenth Welsh cake – he meets a party worker, Barbara James.

The party is confident of winning three seats back from the Welsh nationalists in the ward. But she admits: “Door after door, people just say to me ‘they are the same’.

“It’s often the most vulnerable and worst-off that say it. Politics has nothing to do with their lives. When we were young a generation ago we talked about politics in our families, perhaps because there was industry. Now, in so many of these homes it is never discussed, yet it affects their transport, their schools, their children.”

Miliband agrees enthusiastically when she says politics needs to be taught in schools. But he also feels Labour has to demonstrate its relevance and be a movement, and to do that it cannot simply be a vote harvesting machine.

He is being advised on how to change the party culture by Arnie Graf, a community and industrial activist from the US who once trained a young Barack Obama in how to organise. He insists he is aware of the Europe-wide decline in activism, and insist that Graf is not naïve.

Graf has been visiting constituencies and talking to members. Miliband recounts his advice: “You campaign at elections, but you also campaign all year round. If you think people have no faith in politics you cannot just be the people that say ‘vote for us’.” He gives examples of how the party has to reorient itself, such as Labour students campaigning for a living wage constituencies holding job fairs. “We have got to help change people’s lives directly. We have got to take our members seriously, so they are no longer there just to deliver leaflets. We have to find ways to grow an activist base from just 15 people. Every local party member that joins needs to get a visit from someone asking why have they joined what are you interested in. We often don’t do that.”

“The temptation is that you just knock on the doors of the people who have already voted for you, and you ignore those that don’t vote, but that means you have a declining pool of people to reach.”

He insists his offer to take big money out of politics is serious and is part of an attempt to rebuild politics away from the big battalions. His proposal last weekend to cap all donations at £5,000 was designed to force parties to broaden their membership base, and would have lost the party £30m in the last parliament.

“I am not trying to bankrupt any party, and want any proposal to have equal-ish effect on parties, but if we leave things the disillusionment and disengagement is going to get worse.”

PM: Burma sanctions should be suspended

David Cameron tells Aung San Suu Kyi that moves towards democratic reform should be rewarded – and invites her to London

David Cameron called for sanctions against Burma to be eased after holding talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Making a historic visit to the former British colony, the prime minister insisted that moves towards democratic reform should be rewarded.

He was standing alongside the Nobel Peace Prize laureate in the garden of the lakeside villa where she spent 15 years under house arrest.

The prime minister said: “I think it is right to suspend the sanctions that there are against Burma – to suspend them, not lift them.”

Cameron continued: “[Burma] shouldn’t be as poor as it is, it shouldn’t have suffered under dictatorship for as long as it has and things don’t have to be that way.

“There is the real prospect of change and I’m very much committed to working with you in trying to help make sure that your country makes those changes.

“I met with President Thein Sein today, and I think there are prospects for change in Burma, and I think it is right for the rest of the world to respond to those changes.

“Of course we must respond with caution, with care, we must always be sceptical and questioning, because we want to know those changes are irreversible, but … I think it is right to suspend the sanctions that there are against Burma – to suspend them, not lift them, and obviously not to include the arms embargo – because I do think it is important to send a signal that we want to help see the changes that can bring the growth of freedom, human rights and democracy in your country.”

Aung San Suu Kyi said: “We still have a long way to go but we believe we can get there.

“I believe President Thein Sein is genuine about democratic reforms and I am very happy that Prime Minister Cameron thinks that the suspension of sanctions is the right way to respond to this. I support the … suspension, rather than the lifting, of sanctions, because this would be an acknowledgement of the role of the president and other reformers.

“This suspension would have taken place because of the steps taken by the president and other reformers, and it would also make it quite clear to those who are against reform that should they try to obstruct the way of the reformers, then sanctions could come back. So this would strengthen the hand of the reformers.”

Aung San Suu Kyi paid tribute to the “help friends have given us over these last decades, especially Britain and other very close friends”.

She added: “They have always understood our need for democracy, our desire to take our place in the world and the aspirations of our people.

“And we have always shared in the belief that what is necessary for Burma is an end to all ethnic conflict, respect for human rights – which would include the release of political prisoners – and the kind of development aid which will help to empower our people and take our country further towards the road to genuine democracy.”

Cameron said he had invited Aung San Suu Kyi to visit Britain in June.

Had she attempted to leave Burma in previous years, she knew she would have been prevented from returning.

Cameron said: “For many years, Daw [Aunt] Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed, if she wanted to, to leave this country. You wrote that they would roll out the red carpet all the way to the aeroplane, and put you on to it, but never let you return … I have invited Daw Suu today, to come to London in June, and to come to the United Kingdom in June, to also see your beloved Oxford in June, and that I think is a sign, if we’re able to do this, of huge progress, that you will be able to leave your country, to return to your country, and to continue your work as a member of parliament.”

Aung San Suu Kyi, who lived and studied in Britain during the 1960s and 1980s, responded: “Two years ago, I would have said: ‘Thank you for the invitation, but sorry.’ Now I am able to say: ‘Well, perhaps.’ And that’s great progress.”

The prime minister also paid tribute to the opposition leader, saying: “Everyone in the United Kingdom has been inspired by your struggle … What an inspiration it is to have followed your struggle, to have watched your incredible courage, and the light that you have shone to all those around the world who want to see freedom, democracy and greater human rights … It is an honour to stand by your side.”

And he suggested that political reform would lead to economic prosperity in her country. “I can’t speak for why the regime is acting in the way that it is, but I think it’s clear when you look at Burma’s neighbours you can see economies that are growing more quickly, you can see poverty that is being tackled more effectively, you’re seeing in other countries … democracy going hand in hand with greater economic success and growth.”

This is the last stop on Cameron’s tour of Asia, in which he has visited five countries in five days: Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Burma.

PM hints at desire to lift Burma sanctions

PM sees ‘potential flowering of freedom and democracy’ as he prepares to meet Aung San Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein

David Cameron has given his strongest hint yet that Britain will take the lead in pressing for a relaxation of EU sanctions on Burma as he expressed the hope that recent political reforms will be irreversible.

As he prepared to become the first western leader to visit Burma since Aung San Suu Kyi triumphed in recent parliamentary byelections, the prime minister indicated that he hoped to be able to use his visit to argue in favour of a change in EU sanctions policy.

“What I see happening in Burma is a potential flowering of freedom and democracy and I think that from everything I’ve seen – although I will see for myself tomorrow – it seems as if the president of Burma is intent on taking a new path and wants to see a progressive flourishing of freedom and democracy,” Cameron told students at the Malaysian campus of Nottingham University.

Cameron appeared alongside his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, who pressed for the lifting of sanctions imposed by the Association of South East Asian Nations after visiting Burma. Cameron said: “Those aren’t just my words, or the words of the prime minister of Malaysia, that is the feeling of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has suffered incredibly – an incredibly dignified struggle for democracy.

“I hope that following my meetings tomorrow I will have the confidence to go back to my country, to back to others in the European Union, and argue that the change in Burma is irreversible, that they are set on a path towards democracy, that in a world of difficulty and darkness and all sorts of problems, here is one bright light that we should encourage, and we should respond in a way that makes that regime feel that it is moving in the right direction and that the world is on its side.”

On Friday the prime minister will round off his Asian tour when he visits Burma, weeks after the landslide victory in the parliamentary byelections by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.

Cameron will visit President Thein Sein in the Burmese capital, Naypyidaw. The president has won international praise for allowing Aung San Suu Kyi’s party to contest the byelections in the face of opposition from conservatives in his regime, who were said to be shocked by her victory. The prime will also visit Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon.

Earlier, in a speech in Jakarta, the prime minister praised Aung San Suu Kyi and, noticeably, Thein Sein for his “courage” in pursuing reforms.

Cameron said: “Where reform is beginning, like in Burma, we must get behind it. So let’s pay tribute to those who have for decades and at huge personal cost to themselves fought for that freedom and reform. Not least, of course, the inspirational Aung San Suu Kyi.

“Let’s pay tribute also to the leadership of President Thein Sein and his government, which has been prepared to release political prisoners, hold byelections and legalise political parties that had previously been outlawed.

“And let’s show that when they have the courage to reform we have the courage to respond.”

The prime minister’s use of the word courage to describe the leader of Burma’s military regime may raise eyebrows. Gordon Brown devoted a chapter of his book on courage to pay tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi’s long fight against the dictatorship.

Downing Street has carefully balanced the trip to show support for Aung San Suu Kyi’s 24-year struggle for democracy, which began when she abandoned her life in Oxford after the military regime’s violent crackdown on protesters in 1988. But No 10 also wants to send a warm signal to the president.. The prime minister’s apparent decision to take the lead in calling for the lifting of EU sanctions is likely to lead to wry smiles in Brussels. Britain was, until recently, in the lead in demanding sanctions remain in place.

Clegg’s hymn to green economy clears stage for Cameron’s solo | Damian Carrington

The deputy prime minister’s radical speech undermines 80 years of economic orthodoxy. But will the PM sing the same tune, or follow his sceptical chancellor?

A radical speech from a British leader that undermines 80 years of economic orthodoxy and will have the trolls of the Treasury scuttling out of the glare? That’s what deputy prime minister Nick Clegg delivered on Wednesday in the most full-throated hymn to the green economy yet delivered by a senior British politician in power.

It will be music to the ears of those who argue that going green protects the natural capital on which we depend, while delivering economic growth through the industries of the future, as well as helping cut costs to consumers through its innate efficiency.

And yet the fat lady has yet to sing: the argument is far from over. Is Clegg merely playing to the Liberal Democrat gallery ahead of the council elections, just as chancellor George Osborne wooed the Conservative right wing with his trash talk on the environment? Are radical speeches from deputy prime ministers merely a quirk of coalition politics?

Despite the strong words – more on those below – there was one worrying sign. All the briefing ahead of the speech focused on something that made up just a twentieth of the speech: the promise wrested from the big six energy companies not keep most of their customers languishing on expensive and obsolete tariffs. Rising energy bills are a serious issue of widespread interest, but the apparent judgement that green issues are not suggests Clegg may have had his disaffected former voters in mind more than the nation at large.

We will know for sure soon, when the prime minister David Cameron sings for his supper in front of the world’s most important energy ministers on 26 April. The speech, which I revealed last week, will end Cameron’s dangerous silence on clean energy and the environment since gaining office, given that he spent much time in opposition urging voters to “vote blue, go green” and pledged to lead the “greenest government ever” within days of becoming PM. What Cameron says will reveal whether it is Clegg or Osborne who is the more in tune with him, and reveal whether the UK’s leaders can give investors enough confidence to build a national infrastructure fit for the 21st century.

There was certainly the clash of the slanging match about Clegg’s speech, with Osborne rebutted in all but name. The deputy prime minister opened with these words: “There is a myth doing the rounds in political debate today: struggling businesses must be liberated from burdensome environmental regulations.”

In November, Osborne said: “We shouldn’t price British business out of the world economy. If we burden them with endless social and environmental goals … the businesses will fail, jobs will be lost, and our country will be poorer.” It’s hard to imagine two more directly opposed sentences.

Clegg then finds his voice. “This new wisdom, however widely held, is utterly wrong … In so many ways, for so many consumers, for so many firms, going green has never made so much sense.”

He addresses the damage Osborne’s rhetoric caused to investor confidence – the extent that foreign chief executives were asking if it was time to abandon renewables in the UK and other business leaders warned of rising costs to cover the rising political risk. “How will we find the money needed to renew our infrastructure? By competing successfully in the global low carbon market to attract billions of pounds worth of outside investment to the UK.”

Significantly, the voice of business, the CBI, sang in harmony with Clegg. “It’s increasingly important to argue the case for our green economy in helping to deliver much-needed growth. The key is investor certainty and a new long-term industrial policy will be crucial to achieving this,” said chief policy director Katja Hall.

Clegg also pointed out that those “countries powering away from the recession – Germany, China, Korea, Brazil – are investing heavily in low carbon industries”.

Then comes the crux. “We are undergoing a profound transformation within our economy. And for the first time ever our economic and environmental mantras are exactly the same: Waste not, want not. And that creates a unique opportunity to put environmental thrift into the mainstream.”

Getting the green economy into the mainstream of government is indeed an opportunity that Clegg – and Cameron – must not be allowed to waste.

Pasty row hots up for PM and Osborne

The West Cornwall Pasty Company outlet at Leeds station where PM recalls enjoying his last pasty closed two years ago

David Cameron’s efforts to show he loves a hot takeaway far more than a private dinner with his rich backers came to a crumbly end when his fond memory of eating a large Cornish pasty at Leeds railway station turned out to be somewhat faulty.

The prime minister’s problems began at the Treasury select committee on Tuesday when the fiercely independent and somewhat lugubrious Labour MP John Mann asked George Osborne why he was imposing VAT on hot foods such as pasties. He asked the chancellor when he had last eaten a pasty at Greggs the bakers.

Osborne – more interested in the dynamic modelling of tax reforms than hot food VAT anomalies – looked nonplussed, and said he could not recall. One tweet suggested he was then probably subjected to a Treasury presentation where he was told that pasties were “similar to mini boeufs en croute”.

The Sun newspaper, currently intent on doing over the Tories, described him as the Marie Antoinette of the 21st century. Then Greggs chief executive Ken McMeikan denounced Osborne as out of touch, and warned hundreds of jobs were at stake if pasty prices were raised by 20%.

For Cameron’s handlers, facing polls showing that two-thirds of the electorate once again regard the Conservatives as the party of the rich, this was more bad news in a week already filed under challenging. So when – in the middle of a Downing Street press conference on the Olympic legacy – the PM was asked about the treatment of pasties in the budget, he was primed to say how often he eats them.

He began to wax lyrical. “I think the last one I bought was from the West Cornwall Pasty Company. I seem to remember I was in Leeds station at the time and the choice was whether to have one of their small ones or one of their large ones. I have got a feeling I opted for the large one, and very good it was too.”

But the West Cornwall Pasty Company outlet where he thought he enjoyed his last pasty closed two years ago. There was a Cornish Bakehouse booth at the station; that closed last week.

Despite U-turns on most things this week, Downing Street stuck to its line and insisted that the prime minister had eaten a pasty at Leeds station, but the date was unclear, and possibly the purveyors had not been West Cornwall Pasty Company.

This was just as well, since Gavin Williams, the ungrateful boss of David Cameron’s favourite pasty-makers, was not interested in Cameron’s endorsement of his product. He wanted “clarity and leadership” from the prime minister.

But clarity is a rare commodity in this area, since it seems a pasty can avoid VAT if it is served cold at the counter and then warmed elsewhere in the shop.

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, not normally known for his proletarian manner, sensed he could save the squeezed middle. He rushed to a Greggs in Redditch – where he and Ed Balls ate sausage rolls – and announced that his party would make common cause with west country MPs and vote against the measure in the budget. Our middles may yet be unsqueezed.

Incoming search terms:

• guardian george osbourne john mann tax avoidance
• mini boeufs en croute
• treasury select committee 2012 budget john mann

Pasty row hots up for David Cameron

The West Cornwall Pasty Company outlet at Leeds station where PM recalls enjoying his last pasty closed two years ago

David Cameron’s efforts to show he loves a hot takeaway far more than a private dinner with his rich backers came to a crumbly end when his fond memory of eating a large Cornish pasty at Leeds railway station turned out to be somewhat faulty.

The prime minister’s problems began at the Treasury select committee on Tuesday when the fiercely independent and somewhat lugubrious Labour MP John Mann asked George Osborne why he was imposing VAT on hot foods such as pasties. He asked the chancellor when he had last eaten a pasty at Greggs the bakers.

Osborne – more interested in the dynamic modelling of tax reforms than hot food VAT anomalies – looked nonplussed, and said he could not recall. One tweet suggested he was then probably subjected to a Treasury presentation where he was told that pasties were “similar to mini boeufs en croute”.

The Sun newspaper, currently intent on doing over the Tories, described him as the Marie Antoinette of the 21st century. Then Greggs chief executive Ken McMeikan denounced Osborne as out of touch, and warned hundreds of jobs were at stake if pasty prices were raised by 20%.

For Cameron’s handlers, facing polls showing that two-thirds of the electorate once again regard the Conservatives as the party of the rich, this was more bad news in a week already filed under challenging. So when – in the middle of a Downing Street press conference on the Olympic legacy – the PM was asked about the treatment of pasties in the budget, he was primed to say how often he eats them.

He began to wax lyrical. “I think the last one I bought was from the West Cornwall Pasty Company. I seem to remember I was in Leeds station at the time and the choice was whether to have one of their small ones or one of their large ones. I have got a feeling I opted for the large one, and very good it was too.”

But the West Cornwall Pasty Company outlet where he thought he enjoyed his last pasty closed two years ago. There was a Cornish Bakehouse booth at the station; that closed last week.

Despite U-turns on most things this week, Downing Street stuck to its line and insisted that the prime minister had eaten a pasty at Leeds station, but the date was unclear, and possibly the purveyors had not been West Cornwall Pasty Company.

This was just as well, since Gavin Williams, the ungrateful boss of David Cameron’s favourite pasty-makers, was not interested in Cameron’s endorsement of his product. He wanted “clarity and leadership” from the prime minister.

But clarity is a rare commodity in this area, since it seems a pasty can avoid VAT if it is served cold at the counter and then warmed elsewhere in the shop.

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, not normally known for his proletarian manner, sensed he could save the squeezed middle. He rushed to a Greggs in Redditch – where he and Ed Balls ate sausage rolls – and announced that his party would make common cause with west country MPs and vote against the measure in the budget. Our middles may yet be unsqueezed.