Ed Miliband has said that the coalition's mid-term review contains "no real substance and no real detail". In an interview, he dismissed it as a cosmetic relaunch.
Today’s re-launch changes nothing, and actually what people need in tough times is a government on their side, fighting their corner, not a government that promised change and has actually made things worse not better.
Ed Miliband has played down speculation that his brother David is planning a return to the shadow cabinet. (See 10.49am.) "[David] made a decision two and a half years ago that it wasn’t the right thing for him to part of the shadow cabinet," Miliband said. "That continue to be his view."
That's all from me for today. It's good to be back.
As I write, Radio 4's Eddie Mair is trying to get Danny Alexander to explain why the coalition has published a document that contains less detail about the government's future plans on issues like childcare than you'll find in the papers. He did not get a particularly good answer.
Tomorrow we've got the second reading of the welfare uprating bill. I'll be covering it in detail.
Here is a summary of the main points from the Cameron/Clegg press conference.
David Cameron and Nick Clegg both strongly expressed their determination to keep the coalition going until 2015. “This is a full, five-year coaliton,” Cameron said. He and Clegg were more businesslike than they were at the famous Rose Garden press conference in May 2010, when they spoke in idealistic terms about the advantages of coalition, and Cameron turned this into a joke.
We are married, not to each other. We are both happily married, and you know this is a government not a relationship. To me it’s not a marriage; it is, if you like, it’s a Ronseal deal, it does what it says on the tin - we said we would come together, we said we would form a government, we said we would tackle these problems, we said we would get on with it in a mature and sensible way, and that is exactly what we’ve done.
Two and a half years in, we haven’t chosen to separate and do something different, we have chosen to continue just as we said with a five-year government to tackle these deep seated problems.
Clegg made an identical point. “We will govern and provide this country with good government until the election is held in May 2015,” he said.
Cameron said he would be fighting for a “Conservative-only government” at the 2015 election. But he sidestepped a question about whether he would try to govern alone if he had a majority of just one. Clegg said it was up to the electorate, not politicians, to decide what happened after the election. “I just think it’s a complete mug’s game for people to start peering into a crystal ball and saying ‘what will happen?’” he said.
Cameron rejected claims that the debates cost the Conservatives a majority. Some Tories believe that the debates damaged their chances by boosting Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems. But Cameron said: From memory, the polls going into the start of the last election were pretty similar to the polls coming out at the last general election. So I suspect that the result would have been pretty much the same anyway.
Clegg criticised the Conservatives for trying to create a division between “strivers” and “shirkers”. Asked about the way people like George Osborne have been using the welfare uprating bill to depict Labour as the party of “shirking” benefit claimaints, Clegg said: “I don’t think it helps at all to try and portray that decision [the decision to pass a bill capping benefit rises at 1%] as one which divides one set of people off against another, the deserving or the undeserving poor, in work or out of work.” But he said he agreed with the arguments used by Cameron to defend the bill in his Andrew Marr interview yesterday (pdf).
Clegg challenged Labour to explain how it would fund benefit increases worth more than 1%.
The challenge for people who don’t want to take that decision [capping benefit increases at 1%], which as I say is consistent with an approach we’ve already taken on a cross-party towards public sector pay, is where would you find that £5bn? What would you cut; Schools? Health? Defence? Local government? Social care? That’s the question you’ve got to ask yourself and I just think it’s time for the Labour party to stop constantly indulging in opposition for opposition’s sake. Be more consistent.
Cameron denied newspaper claims that Lord Hill, the new leader of the Lords, tried to resign from the government when he met Cameron at the time of the last reshuffle. ”That is a good example of not always believing everything you read in the newspapers so what you read in the papers wasn’t quite right,” Cameron said.
Cameron described Lord Strathclyde, the former leader of the Lords, as “a brilliant public servant”.
Cameron and Clegg both said that there different views on Europe did not stop them working effectively together on foreign policy. Clegg said they were united on the issue of the EU budget. And Cameron said they had cooperated successfully on deepening the single market, on taking Britain out of the EU bail-out mechanism and on imposing sanctions on Iran and Syria.
Cameron said emotional arguments would be just as important as rational arguments in the battle to persuade Scots to reject independence.
I think there are important arguments of both the head and the heart that need to be made in this great debate about the future of our United Kingdom and I profoundly hope that Scotland will vote to stay in the United Kingdom.
I think when it comes to the arguments of the head, things like would Scotland be better off, I think we will be able to show, categorically, that Scotland would be worse off, would be less well off.
There are arguments of the head, but I profoundly believe we must win not only the arguments of the head but also of the heart: that we are better off together in the United Kingdom, there’s a solidarity that we show each other, if different parts of the United Kingdom have a difficult time we are all there ready to stand behind those parts of the United Kingdom. We are stronger together, we are better off together, we are safer together.
Cameron also said Alistair Darling, the Labour former chancellor who is leading the no campaign, was doing a “fantastic job”.
Another year, another re-launch and still none of the change that David Cameron and Nick Clegg promised. They said they'd fix the economy. But living standards are still falling for the hard working majority whilst a handful of millionaires get huge tax cuts.
I'm glad I don't have to turn that into a splash. I haven't had time to read the mid-term review yet, but colleagues who have taken a look are saying it is pitifully thin. And we did not learn a great deal from the press conference either, although Cameron and Clegg did a reasonable job quashing speculation that the coalition may collapse before 2015.
I'll take a look at the Twitter reaction and post a full summary shortly.
Q: Have you resolved your differences on the boundary review? [Patrick says page 39 of the review suggests the government has not decided what will happen next.]
Cameron says there will be a vote on the boundary review. Further details will be announced later.
Q: Is it true that Lord Hill, the new leader of the Lords, tried to resign at the reshuffle?
Cameron says this is a good example of how what you read in the newspapers is not always right.
Letts says he was going to ask why Tom Strathclyde "gobbled the cyanide capsule" today.
But he asks about Les Edbon and university "dumbing down" instead.
Cameron says Strathclyde told him after Christmas he wanted to step down. He thinks Strathclyde has done a fantastic job. Cameron says he was present when Strathclyde attended his first meeting as a minister in 1988. It was in the DTI. Cameron was just an adviser.
On Les Edbdon, Cameron says "dumbing down" is over.
There will not be a dumbing down at universities, he says. Students will become more demanding now that they are paying higher tuition fees.
Q: The Treasury produced figures suggesting that independence would cost Scots £1 a head per year. But the pro-independence campaign say this shows the scaremongering is false. What do you think?
Cameron says arguments of the head and arguments of the heart are both relevant. The "heart arguments" will win the day.
Alistair Darling, who is leading the pro-union campaign, is doing "a fantastic job", he says.
Q: If the coalition is a such good thing, why stop in 2015?
Clegg says it is not for politicians to decide how the country is governed; it is for the public.
It is a "mug's game" for people to start predicting the future, he says.
Cameron says he answered a question on this in an interview published yesterday. He has probably said enough.
Clegg says you should not criticise politicians for being ambitious.
Q: [To Clegg] Will you criticise the skivers/shirkers rhetoric?
Clegg says he does not think it helps "at all" to try to use the welfare uprating bill as a means of dividing people, or to suggest that some groups are deserving and some are not.
But he says he agrees with what Cameron said in his Andrew Marr interview yesterday: if capping public sector pay at 1% is fair, capping benefits for those in work and those out of work at 1% is fair too.
Labour should stop indulging in opposition for opposition's sake.
Q: [To Cameron] In 2010 you sounded as if you were in love with the idea of coalition. If you have a majority of one at 2015, will you try to govern alone?
Cameron says he is in no doubt that forming the coalition was a good idea.
But when it comes to the election, he will be fighting for a Conservative victory and a Conservative-only government.
Q: {To Clegg] Why do you think Cameron's EU policy is a fantasy?
Clegg says the EU needs to be reformed. But there are areas where countries are stronger together.
For me, it's jobs, jobs, jobs.
Even though he and Cameron come at this from different directions, they have cooperated in advancing the national interest. For example, on the EU budget.
Q: [To Cameron] If you win the election, can you guarantee that Britain will still be in the EU in 2020?
Cameron says he and Clegg have different views. The Tories will set out their views at the election.
But he agrees with Clegg about the fact the coalition partners have cooperated.
He does believe in the need for a new settlement, and in the case for getting consent for that. He will set that out in his forthcoming speech.
He thinks Britain needs to be at the table making the rules.
David Cameron Photograph: Sky News Photograph: /Sky News
Sky's Adam Boulton goes next.
Q: Would you both be standing here together if there had not been TV debates in the election? And will you hold them again?
Cameron says that at the end of the election campaign the polls were in much the same place as at the beginning. He does not think the debates made that much difference.
(Some Tories believe that the debates led to a hung parliament, because they gave Clegg a boost.)
On debates, generally, Cameron says that he is in favour of them.
Clegg says he is also a firm believe in TV debates.
Cameron and Clegg Photograph: Sky News Photograph: /Sky News
They are now taking questions.
The BBC's Nick Robinson goes first.
Q: How would you sum up the state of the coalition? Will it go on until election day in 2015?
Cameron says this is a full, five-year coalition. The public want the government to work hard. It's a five-year government.
Cameron says he and Clegg are married - but not to each other. This is a government, not a marriage. It's a Ronseal deal; it does what it says on the tin.
Clegg goes next. "Ronseal deal - you could call it the unvarnished truth."
The coalition is doing what it said - providing stable government.
Clegg says that he has learnt that when you take difficult decisions, you get attacked.
Some people have said the Lib Dems are too strong in the government. And some have said they are too weak. That suggests they are probably getting it about right, he says.
Lord Strathclyde, the leader of the Lords, has resigned from the cabinet. The announcement came as a surprise, and it will distract some attention from the launch of the coaliton's mid-term review this afternoon at 2.30pm, but probably not much because Strathclyde's assertion that he is leaving now, at the start of a new parliamentary year, because after 25 years on the front bench it is time to move on is a credible one.
When cutting public spending dramatically to help reduce an unsustainable budget deficit it is almost inevitable that spending on benefits and tax credits – which account for 30% of the government’s total budget – will be targeted. This policy achieves savings through an across-the-board reduction in the real value of benefits for people of working age at a time when real earnings have been falling.
But we don’t know two things. First, the actual effects of the bill on real benefit rates are unknown, because they depend on future price levels. This exposes the poorest in society to inflation risk. Second, we don’t know the government’s view on how benefit rates should be indexed in the longer run. We ought to.
Sarah Teather, the Lib Dem former education minister, told the World at One that she would vote against the bill.
And James Landale on his BBC blog has a good take on the Strathclyde resignation too.
Most prime ministers do not understand the House of Lords. They resent it when it gives them trouble and disrupts their legislation. So Mr Cameron will miss Lord Strathclyde, I am told, above all because under him, the Lords has not given No 10 much trouble.
His skill was his ability to keep two masters happy, balancing the needs both of his party leader and also his party's peers.
Over the years he was repeatedly called upon to smooth feathers in the Lords that had been ruffled by the threat of reform - despite being one of the few Tory peers who supported the principle of a more democratic Lords. And equally he has calmed successive party leaders and their advisers as they fretted about what their rebellious peers were up to.
In a post on his blog the Daily Telegraph's Benedict Brogan explains why David Cameron will miss Lord Strathclyde.
Lord Strathclyde's departure is a loss for the Prime Minister. Mr Cameron relied on him to run the Lords with little or no interference from Downing Street. He trusted his judgment, acknowledging that Lord Strathclyde had forgotten more about the Other Place than he would ever know. But he also served another invaluable purpose, as a connection into the further reaches of the Tory party, its grandees and fundraisers. He also provided a voice of a certain kind of traditional Toryism that many fear is missing from the Cabinet.
An immensely charming man, [Strathclyde] was — generally — able to coax legislation through a chamber where the government has no majority. But he was becoming increasingly frustrated at the behaviour of some Liberal Democrat peers. Shortly before Christmas and as Liberal Democrat Lords rampaged against the Cameron-Clegg compromise on secret courts, he remarked to one colleague that the ‘coalition had already broken down’ in the House of Lords.
You have an impressive record of public service which you should be very proud of. To me personally, you have always been a staunch friend and wise counsel. You will be much missed.
I do hope that at some point in future years you will have a further contribution to offer.
When I was invited to join the government by Margaret Thatcher in 1988, I never believed it was a career for life. I didn't expect it would consume me for as long as it has or that I would one day lead the Lords and sit in a cabinet. Both have been a huge privilege shared by a few and it has been a particular pleasure to serve in cabinet with you as prime minister. I have been on the front line of politics for a long time now. I am half way through my 25th year on the front bench and a month ago I started my 15th year as leader of the Conservative party in the House of Lords. The Lords is an extraordinary and vigorous place, but recently I've been considering a change of direction. I started my working life in the private sector and at some stage always hoped for a return. I would now like to do so. While I have the highest respect for the privilege and duty of public service, I do not see a political career as the cap to everything and would like, while there is still time, to take up other threads of my life and other interests.
it's odd to announce a cabinet resignation on the day of a major government announcement. But aides say Lord Strathclyde felt it was appropriate to go now because we are at the half-way point of this parliament. Peers return to the Lords after their Christmas recess tomorrow and Strathclyde wanted the new leader to be in place by then.
In the Lords an aide said that Lord Strathclyde decided to resign because he has been on the frontbench for 25 years and leader of the Conservative peers for 15 years and because he felt it was "time to move on". Strathclyde felt "he had probably done his stint". There were no personal or policy reasons behind his resignation, the aide said.
Strathclyde's replacement, Lord Hill, used to be John Major's political secretary.
Lord Hill. Photograph: Gary Lee/Photoshot Photograph: Gary Lee/Photoshot
Lord Strathclyde in Downing Street. Photograph: Rex Features Photograph: Rex Features
I'm back. It's normal service from now on.
And I've missed a cabinet resignation. The Press Association has just filed this.
David Cameron today lost one of his most experienced Cabinet members, as Lord Strathclyde resigned as Leader of the House of Lords. The 52-year-old peer told Mr Cameron in a letter that he wanted to return to his career in the private sector and "take up other threads of my life and other interests". He was replaced as Leader of the Lords by Lord Hill of Oareford, who also becomes Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and a member of the Privy Council.
Prince Charles has expressed serious concern about the impact of ‘rushed’ Government plans to change ancient laws governing the Royal line of succession.
Friends told the Daily Mail that he believes altering the rules that give male heirs priority and bar members of the Royal Family from marrying Roman Catholics could have ‘unintended consequences’ that have not been properly considered ..
The Prince of Wales backs the principle of changing the law to ensure the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first child becomes Queen if it is a girl, a move which has been discussed for several years, as long as it commands popular support.
But according to a well-placed source, he believes the potential consequences for the delicate relationship between the state and the Church of England, as well as for the rules governing other hereditary titles, have not been thought through.
In a meeting with Richard Heaton, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, the Prince is said to have raised concerns about what will happen if his grandchild is allowed to marry a Roman Catholic, as the Government proposes.
Church leaders have previously expressed concern that if a future heir to the throne married a Roman Catholic, their children would be required by canon law to be brought up in that faith.
Ultimately, that could lead to the constitutional nightmare of an heir to the throne, due to become the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, being a Catholic and therefore barred from being crowned.
It must be getting on for 20 years since the first cheques started to arrive in my wife’s bank account, and I shudder to think how much it adds up to. Yes, I shudder, but I quickly do the calculations – and, as of today, and in today’s money, we have received about £47,547.40.
It would be fatuous to claim that this cash has all been spent on essentials for the kids. I can’t pretend that without this dosh they would have been deprived of bootees or SMA milk powder or scented nappy bags. Like many other families we have been able to use this astonishing state largesse – the thick end of fifty grand – on all sorts of discretionary spending. We’re looking at 10 half-decent ski holidays here, or about five luxury safaris. We could have laid down a cellarful of Chateau Lafite, or picked up an Old Master drawing, or a share of a lovely little place in Spain.
I couldn’t tell you how exactly we have blown the cash, but I feel both grateful and appalled to have profited in this way, and a sense of intellectual relief that today, the madness comes to an end. Today, like 820,000 other households, we receive our last philoprogenitive bung from the taxpayer.
An emerging scenario would see him return to the Labour front bench next spring. At once, this raises all the questions that the former Foreign Secretary has tried to avoid for two years. What role? Whose job? And how would he get along with the younger brother who stole his future?
The signs that David is ready to end his mourning, move on from his desire to give his brother space and avoid a soap opera, will focus attention on Ed Balls. For the Labour leader, replacing Mr Balls with his brother is the nuclear option. Even some of David’s friends think it would be suicidal, sparking a war with ex-Brownites that could wreck a Miliband government.
Sir Stephen Bubb Photograph: BBC News Photograph: /BBC News
There is no mention of the big society in the foreword to the mid-term review released overnight by Number 10. That might be because, according to the organisation that represents charities, the big society is going nowhere.
Sir Stephen Bubb, who runs the head of the association of chief executives of voluntary organisations, has written a letter to David Cameron about this. Here's an extract.
As prime minister, you described building a big society as your 'great passion' and 'central to my vision for our country'. You spoke eloquently of your desire to reform public services, with a significantly greater role for charities ... The mood music across Whitehall has been that reform is off the agenda. The reality many charities now face is crippling spending cuts.
In interviews with the BBC, Bubb has been stressing that he supports the big society agenda. He's just disappointed that Cameron is not implementing it, he said.
David Cameron's vision of the Big Society is something we want and we want to help him achieve it. There is huge frustration amongst charity leaders that these ideas about reforming public services don't seem to be going anywhere.
Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader. Photograph: David Levene Photograph: David Levene
David Cameron is holding a coalition press conference with Nick Clegg today, but could be be standing alongside Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, after the 2015 election? Probably not, but Farage did float the idea in an interview on the Today programme this morning. Here are the key points from what he had to say. I've taken the quotes from PoliticsHome.
Farage suggested that Ukip could be part of a coalition government after the 2015 election.
Don’t think about Ukip forming the government in 2015 but if we continue at anything like our current progress, who knows? The first-past-the-post system is brutal to a party like us, we’ve got a lot of work to do on that and to build up our stronger areas, but who’s to say that in 2015 Ukip may well be needed in a coalition?
He said Ukip could influence policy without being in government. "I think we can influence policy and change the national debate in this country without forming a government ourselves," he said. "Indeed, if you look at the way the national debate changed in 2012, we’ve been a very major catalyst in that."
He acknowledged that Ukip was not going to form a government.
When David Steel said to the Liberal party ‘go home and prepare for government’, it made him a laughing stock and people are still laughing at him about that now … We’ve got to keep our feet on the ground ... We’re not yet a party that is posed to take government in this country.
[Cameron] thinks that people who talk about Europe or ‘bang on’ about Europe as he once put it himself, he thinks that people who talk about immigration and who are worried about the numbers of people coming to Britain, he thinks that people who are concerned about the blot of wind farms all over our landscapes and seascapes, he thinks that people who discuss those things are beyond the pale and I think when he insults us actually what he’s doing, he’s insulting a very large number of his own voters.
Nick Clegg. Photograph: David Jones/PA Photograph: David Jones/PA
Nick Clegg is going to start holding a weekly radio phone-in. The Press Association has the full story.
Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is to hold a weekly radio phone-in in a fresh attempt to reconnect with voters. The Liberal Democrat leader will take calls from listeners to London's LBC 97.3 radio with presenter Nick Ferrari for half-an-hour every Thursday morning. "I'm doing this because I don't think politicians get to hear enough from people directly," Clegg said. "You can't do the right thing in government unless you keep in touch with how people are thinking and feeling." LBC 97.3 broadcasts in Greater London but is available online across the UK.
In his Today interview, David Laws, the education minister, also insisted that Lib Dem supporters were not disillusioned with the coalition.
Lib Dems, like everybody else, can count. They can count that when we came to power we had a deficit of £160,000,000,000. Our supporters are realistic about this. They know there are tough times. They do not believe that every decision made by the government in these circumstances can be an easy and popular one.
We are still united as a party in believing that we need to be in coalition to deliver for the country, put our policies into practice, and also because the electorate in May 2010 did not give a majority to any one party.
David Laws said there would be six key policy proposals in the mid-term review when he was on the Today programme earlier. Patrick Wintour identified six issues in his Guardian story (childcare, social care, mortgages, transport, pensions and housebuilding), but the extract from the review released by Number 10 in advance treats mortgages and housebuilding as a single topic and instead identifies a different, sixth prioirty - freedom.
Here's the quote in full.
We will support working families with their childcare costs. We will build more houses and make the dream of home ownership a reality for more people. We will set out plans for long-term investment in Britain’s transport infrastructure. We will set out two big reforms to provide dignity in old age: an improved state pension that rewards saving, and more help with the costs of long-term care. And as we take these steps to reshape the British state for the 21st century, we will take further steps to limit its scope and extend our freedoms. We will be making announcements about each of these policy initiatives in due course.
"Limiting the scope of the state and extending freedom." I'm not sure what that means yet, but we'll soon find out.
The holiday is over, the Commons is sitting for the first time in 2013 and David Cameron and Nick Clegg are going to start the year with a press conference to mark the publication of the coalition’s long-awaited mid-term review. Partly it will be an assessment of what the coalition has achieved so far (perhaps the last self-congratulatory round robin letter you’re going to read this Christmas), and partly it will be a manifesto for the next two years. David Laws, the education minister, told the Today programme this morning that it would set out proposals in six key policy areas. Patrick Wintour sets them out in his preview story in today’s Guardian.
In a range of proposals designed to show the coalition has not run out of ideas, Cameron and Clegg will set out plans for a flat-rate childcare voucher paid through the tax system, likely to be worth up to £2,000 per child; a cap on the cost of social care; new help with mortgages; and transport investment through road tolls.
There are also fresh plans for a flat-rate pension worth £140 a week, and more proposals to speed up housebuilding, an area in which successive initiatives have failed to prevent record low numbers of house starts.
And here’s an extract from the review released by Downing Street in advance.
Dealing with the deficit may have been our first task, but our most important task is to build a stronger, more balanced economy capable of delivering lasting growth and widely shared prosperity. In essence, this involves two things: growing the private sector, and reforming the public sector so that what the Government does – and the money it spends – boosts, rather than undermines, Britain’s competitiveness.
Meeting this challenge is imperative if Britain isn’t to fall behind in the global race, for while the Western economies have stalled in recent years, the emerging economies such as India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey have been surging forward. In the coming years, some countries in the developed world will respond to this shift in economic power; but some will not. Those that do will prosper. Those that do not will decline. It is that simple.
That is why we have not baulked at the tough decisions needed to secure Britain’s future. Whether it is reducing the deficit, rebalancing the economy, regulating the banks, tackling climate change, modernising our energy and transport infrastructure, putting our universities on a sustainable financial footing or dealing with the challenges of an ageing population and reforming public sector pensions, we have consistently chosen to do what is right over what is easy or popular; what is in our country’s long-term interest over our parties’ short-term interest.
Ultimately, however, Britain will only prosper in an increasingly competitive global economy if we can realise the full potential of each and every person in our country. That is why our plans for economic recovery are accompanied by a radical agenda of social renewal, to build not only a strong economy, but a fair society in which everyone, no matter what their background, can rise just as high as their aspirations and talents can take them.
According to the BBC’s Norman Smith, the review, which was orginally expected to be published at the end of last year, will be quite a bulky read.
I'm told the Coalition Review willbe achunky tome witha list of 226 (!!) policiesin progress/to be completed#lightreading
2.30pm:David Cameron and Nick Clegg hold a press conference in Downing Street where they are publishing the coalition’s mid-term review.
2.30pm: Theresa May, the home secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
At some point this morning I’m going to have to stop blogging for an hour or so because there’s a meeting must attend. But otherwise I will be blogging as usual, and of course I will be covering the press conference, and the reaction to it, in detail.
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