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Red Box

Monday, February 2

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Good morning and welcome to your daily briefing with me, Philip Webster.

In today's edition:

  • Balls promises "fair solution" on tuition fees
  • Thousands more schools to be taken over
  • Voters want more government - poll
  • Study boosts Lib Dem hopes
  • Tories in showdown over English laws

Any tips or feedback tweet us @TimesRedBox.

Top News
Labour election campaign
Balls says Labour looking for fair deal on university fees

After the assault from grandees on health, enter now the vice-chancellors on education.

Ed Miliband’s aim to cut tuition fees to £6,000 a year – the party has yet to agree how to pay for it – gets a pasting from university leaders in a letter to The Times.

They suggest that it risks “colossal damage” to universities and will only help graduates who are better off. It is “implausible” that he could guarantee to replace the £10 billion of lost revenue over five years, they write.

Greg Hurst, education editor, says the vice-chancellors’ “pre-emptive strike” reflects exasperation that months of private lobbying appear to have been rebuffed by Miliband. Such a public challenge to Labour policy is highly unusual from university leaders.

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, has just said on Today that the current situation is unsustainable and was not working well for students, taxpayers or the government. Rather than save money for the taxpayer, as originally claimed, it was in fact costing the taxpayer more. Almost half of students were not repaying the fees because they did not earn enough money in their working life. “I want a solution that is fair for students, protects the taxpayer and is good for universities. That is what we are working on.”

He added; “The status quo is unsustainable. George Osborne is playing fast and loose with the public finances.”

The university leaders’ challenge also complicates efforts to find a way of meeting Miliband’s stated aim. Some shadow ministers are talking of trying to find an interim solution pending discussion of a graduate tax in government.

Like all the other attacks on Labour in recent days, it comes from outside the parliamentary party. The Sunday papers contained new criticisms from familiar names, but none of them from anywhere near the shadow cabinet.

Perhaps the most significant factor is the anger of leading modernisers in the high command at their older colleagues for rocking the boat. It is undeniable that some leading figures wanted Alan Johnson to run last autumn. But since that failed to materialise, the shadow cabinet has united behind an attempt to win under Miliband.

An intervention from the executive chairman of Alliance Boots, Stefano Pessina, who warned that a Labour government would be a “catastrophe” for Britain, prompted furious reaction from Labour MPs. Italian-born Pessina lives in Monaco.

Balls told Today that between now and the election the Tories would bring forward more people saying “Don’t vote Labour”. The idea that somebody who did not pay tax in Britain was telling the British people how to vote would stick in the craw.

Comment
Labour is wearing the medals of defeat
Phil Collins

A phrase that Christopher Hitchens once used about Churchill describes what the Labour party is doing – wearing the medals of its defeat. The only way to make sense of Labour’s conversation with itself on the NHS is to realise that it is more about defining defeat than claiming victory.

When the former health secretary Alan Milburn said that being conservative on the NHS could be “fatal” to Labour’s prospects he wanted to establish, should Labour lose, that defeat was caused by being too cautious.

The current Labour health shadow, Andy Burnham, is himself, in his own way, also fighting the next election but one. His consolation prize if Labour lose is that, by making a sentimental case that appeals to Labour’s base, he has started his leadership campaign early.

Tory policy
Thousands of 'mediocre’ schools to be taken over

Education dominates today’s election fare as David Cameron promises to launch “an all-out war on mediocrity.”

The PM will announce new powers to force up to 3,500 schools to accept new leadership. I’m sure readers are keeping up with this, but the PM will be making schools policy his fourth election theme. The Times says thousands of “bog standard” schools face being taken over. Any school judged to “require improvement” will have top head teachers imposed and will be supported by expert sponsors or high-performing schools near by.

But for most government departments the strongest possible hint from Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, that the schools budget is to be protected will have caused a stir. Cameron is likely to go close to confirming that.

As Michael Savage writes in The Times, this means cuts of more than a quarter to unprotected departments by 2020. It would almost certainly require significant budget cuts to policing, possibly also defence, and may mean a cut to further education. Health and overseas development are already protected.

The Guardian says the new plans have been branded "gimmicks" by teachers’ organisations.

Poll
How do you generally view government?
Tory policy
Voters believe government should do more, not less

Conservatives are against “big government”, writes YouGov’s Stephan Shakespeare. They tend to think of government as a problem, not a solution. In this, they are out of step with the expectations of the British people, as an exclusive YouGov poll for Red Box makes clear.

We asked: "People sometimes talk negatively about 'Big Government', seeing it as an inefficient bureaucracy that intrudes on people's lives. But we also want the government to run great services, provide security and help grow the economy. Ignoring whichever party happens to be in power, how do you balance these two opinions? Do you generally see 'government' as..." 'mainly a force for good' (31 per cent) or 'mainly a negative force'?” (17 per cent, with 36 per cent saying 'evenly mixed').

Finally we asked: "On the whole, reducing this huge and complex issue to a forced choice of just two words, which do you lean towards: 'government doing more' or 'government' doing less?" “More” won by an overwhelming 62 per cent to 38 per cent. Until Conservatives develop and communicate a programme of better and purposeful government, and not just a schedule of economically necessary “cuts”, they are unlikely to win a full mandate from the electorate.

YouGov polled 1,550 adults on January 29-30.

YouGov
Morten Morland
2015 general election
Better news for Lib Dems in new election study

Lord Ashcroft is adept at creating advance interest in his polling and today Westminster awaits his latest findings on Scotland.

But already this morning we have a straight mathematical prediction of what will happen on May 7.

The Guardian reports that Labour will narrowly win more seats than the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats will be saved from wipeout by the first-past-the-post system, according to Professor Paul Whiteley at the University of Essex. His forecast, based on mathematical modelling, focuses on what happened at previous elections. The May prediction released to the Guardian shows Labour on 291 seats, the Conservatives 281, Lib Dems 48 and others 30.

The Lib Dem figure is a surprise. Many analysts have suggested that they could lose half of their current 56 seats.

As we all struggle for clues on how the vote will pan out, the Independent reports another interesting study. The paper says senior Labour figures are worried that the party may fail to halt the SNP advance because many Scots do not believe that Labour can win.

A University of Strathclyde analysis suggests, it reports, that the SNP will hold on to the 45 per cent who backed independence in the September referendum, which could give them up to 45 of Scotland’s 59 seats. Labour has 41 seats north of the border and the SNP six.

  • Today party leaders take to the internet and airwaves as Sky News and Facebook host a day of live Q&As from Facebook’s London HQ on issues facing the young. Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Natalie Bennett will respond to questions submitted by the public, while it’s not yet clear whether the PM will appear.
The Number
£1 billion
Estimated affordable housing payments to Westminster council lost after a change in government policy, according to the Guardian's splash
SW1
Tory showdown over English laws

The Sun brings news of a showdown meeting today between William Hague, leader of the Commons, and senior Tories over English votes for English laws.

Tom Newton Dunn says leaders of the 1922 Committee will insist that ministers enforce an outright ban on Scottish MPs having any say on England-only issues. They fear that Number 10 is close to choosing a watered-down plan under which English MPs would be able to veto laws only at an earlier committee stage.

Today John Redwood, one of the Tory backbenchers who was most vocal about what he said was the need for “English votes for English laws” during the Scottish independence referendum, pens an op-ed in ConservativeHome warning that anything short of this is a “recipe for resentment”.

Red Box
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“Who poses the greatest threat to the established parties - SNP, Greens or Ukip - and can the old protest party, the Liberal Democrats, survive to fight another day?”


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Briefs

Call for clearer rules on hung parliament

MPs on the constitutional reform committee have called on the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, to clarify who would be PM during coalition negotiations in the event of a hung parliament.


Greens branded 'hypocrites' over low-paid job

The Green party is accused of hypocrisy after advertising a job for a London-based policy assistant starting at £17,000, below the London living wage - one of the party’s key policies.


Committee backs international aid

A cross-party group of MPs has thrown its support behind the government’s commitment to spend 0.7% of the budget on foreign aid, saying it remains “essential”.

2015 Election Countdown
94 days to go
Top News

Commentary


1. Prisoners are tainted goods - victims of a throwaway culture
- Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph

2. Miliband must decide: is he austerity-lite or Syriza-lite?
- Matthew d'Ancona, The Guardian

3. The church is wrong on ‘three-parent’ babies
- Matt Ridley, The Times

4. Why the deficit could still be a long-term problem for Labour
- Conor Pope, LabourList

5. Billionaire tax-avoider attacks Ed Miliband. Shock, horror
- Matthew Norman, The Independent
Agenda
In the Commons
  • Oral questions on communities and local government
  • Chief executives of Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Circle Health and the Care Quality Commission appear at public accounts committee hearing on the situation at the hospital

In the Lords
  • Counter Terrorism and Security Bill reaches report stage

Elsewhere
  • Sky News and Facebook host #AsktheLeaders, a day of political interviews
  • George Osborne meets new Greek finance minister
  • Shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander speaks at Chatham House about Labour's foreign policy priorities
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