The week in politics: Slow starts and festive jingles
By Ian Dunt
The political world slowly started getting back into gear after the festive break this week. Everyone had Monday off. Rather more people than usual had Tuesday off too, as workers booked a further bit of holiday to dampen the depression of returning to their desks. Parliament decided not to return until January 10th.
Westminster was a ghost town. News was low on the ground. But over in Oldham, there was activity. Clegg faced constituents on Wednesday. With such a narrow loss last time and a humiliating exit for the Labour MP, he should be expected to win the forthcoming by-election, but voters are intent on punishing the Lib Dems and most pundits think Labour will retain the seat.
Such is the pressure on Clegg that David Cameron reportedly wants the Lib Dems to win. There were murmurs of treachery from his backbenchers. Norman Tebbit, God bless his soul really stuck the knife in by publically saying that he wanted the Lib Dems to come fourth. The next day, Cameron himself popped down, but blink and you’d have missed it. Expect this to dominate next week’s agenda, along with the European Union bill, which is likely to cause the government a few headaches on Tuesday night.
The rumours of backroom rows over control orders continued to stretch into this week. It began with several ex-minister, from all parties, campaigning for their retention. It ended with a Nick Clegg speech which promised substantive change but admitted that no final decision had yet been made.
Clegg himself was still having a hard time of it. A ‘poll of polls’ for the Independent found the party at its lowest ever level of support. He promoted libel reform and an expansion of freedom of information with all the zeal of a man desperately trying to convince his party that there is a point to all this.
Meanwhile, Ed Miliband made his big New Year comeback, attacking the coalition for the VAT rise and accusing them of deceit over the economy. It all got a little frazzled when he sat through an unremittingly unpleasant phone in on Radio 2 on Thursday, in which listeners asked him about his girlfriend, his son’s birth certificate, his parents’ politics and, of course, his brother. It’s like an ancient Greek play with this one.
