The week in politics: Britain’s frozen, not broken
Most of us have spent the last week skidding and sliding around in snow and ice. Politicians’ slip-ups have been no less impressive.
Every day, it seems, ministers have been turning up their collars against bitter headwinds. Monday saw the biggest blizzard of all – a storm of leaked US diplomatic cables courtesy of whistleblowing website Wikileaks revealing just what our special friends think about us. Unguarded and unrestrained, they’ve picked on how we’re fighting the war in Afghanistan, criticised both Gordon Brown and David Cameron – and even called one of our MPs a “hound dog” with women.
What terrible timing for foreign secretary William Hague, who revealed the details of the failed rescue attempt by US forces on UK aid worker Linda Norgrove. None of this has been much fun for anyone involved.
Cameron admitted in a Football Focus interview last weekend he was “frustrated” by the timing of the BBC’s Panorama documentary ahead of England’s 2018 World Cup bid. Its allegations about corruption probably weren’t decisive – we only got two votes, after all – but they certainly didn’t help.
Literally out in the cold were the student protestors who demonstrated again in central London on Tuesday. Those who daubed ‘revolution’ on Trafalgar Square probably had less impact than the 100-plus Lib Dem 2010 election candidates who petitioned Nick Clegg. The deputy prime minister, though, was nowhere to be seen as a poll showed students swinging towards Labour in their droves. It turns out he had fled to Kazakhstan in central Asia. Not sure if higher education funding is as much of a political firework as it is here.
Back in parliament, MPs were to be found huddled together for warmth in the Commons on Thursday afternoon. Their idea is to chop up the expenses regulator, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, and use it for firewood.
They should be pleased that they’re allowed in the Commons at all, of course. Phil Woolas’ final attempt to wriggle out of his election court verdict ended in failure at the end of the week. Never again will he be able to view new party leader Ed Miliband take on Cameron at prime minister’s questions, which was this week dominated (yet again) by the complications of fixing the roof while the temperature is plummeting. His attacks on George Osborne’s precious Office of Budget Responsibility didn’t seem to bother the chancellor, who has spent the week basking in the positive economic figures from Monday’s autumn statement. This is the political equivalent of a large, warm blanket. It’s alright for some.
