UK Politics

You say success, I say failure. The difficult politics of telling the difference

The Cameron legacy: engineer of Brexit and a stable coalition government

Prime ministers often start office with the conviction that the potency of their agenda will one way or another break the mould of British politics. Most fail but, in some respects at least, David Cameron…

Taxing times in Scotland: what to make of the emerging debate on tax policy?

The announcement by Kezia Dugdale that Scottish Labour would use devolved tax powers to add 1p to all the main rates of Scottish income tax, a similar stance to the Lib Dems, and hot on the heels of…

The candour deficit — rise and fall: what next?

There was always something highly implausible about the pre-election fiscal debate, and that implausibility infected all the parties. No one was immune. It certainly applied to the Chancellor’s cocktail of claims: enormous future cuts to…

Top-up powers for Scotland on welfare: welcome to defensive devolution

The debate on devolution of welfare to Scotland has gone up another gear over the last week as the UK government published its amendments to the Scotland Bill that transfers new powers to the Edinburgh…

Are George Osborne’s tax credit cuts really his 10p tax debacle?

“History doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme”, the phrase attributed to Mark Twain, is one that Westminster types like to wheel out to situate a new political saga in the context of previous conflagrations. Well…

Scotland, the UK and the devolution of welfare — an enduring settlement?

Today the SNP’s annual conference opens in Aberdeen amid continued flux over the balance of control between Edinburgh and London on key issues such as social security spending. Given the deep welfare cuts…

Conservative disunity is not all good news for Labour

The first test of opposition politics is relevance. Other key yardsticks — political plausibility, economic credibility, setting the agenda and developing a governing vision — all matter greatly. But making yourself a central part of the…