Diary: December 2012

Childcare tantrums, sausage and mash at Bletchley Park and the Big Society as art
November 14, 2012
Picking Cameron’s pollster

Why is there so much shadow boxing over whether Lynton Crosby, the Australian political operative, will run the 2015 Tory general election campaign? In talking to journalists, David Cameron could not have been clearer about his enthusiasm to co-opt Boris Johnson’s election strategist. But there is one sticking point: whether Lynton’s company will carry out the political polling for the campaign.

Election strategists make their money by commissioning campaign polling from their own companies, and Lynton’s firm, Crosby Textor, might expect to do this. But that could put the prime minister in conflict with Andrew Cooper, his director of political strategy. Cooper joined Downing Street from Populus, a bespoke polling company which does the numbers for the Tories at the moment. He is widely expected to return before the next election to repeat his 2010 election role. Will bringing in Lynton cause heartache in Team Cameron?

Tears over childcare

There could be Westminister tantrums over childcare policy. Liz Truss, the new Tory minister in charge of the brief, has long supported radical deregulation, such as allowing childminders to care for five children not three, and removing the requirement for monitoring by Ofsted. Nick Clegg has declared that childcare provision is a priority, but is nervous of the gibe that the coalition is backing “factory farms” for babies. There are signs that Truss, one of the brightest of the 2010 intake, may be softening her position, after talks with her EU counterparts. But Labour will home in on any tensions; Ed Miliband wants to promote his own package for the “squeezed middle” as a key election issue.

Bankers out of the box

Talking to the British Bankers’ Association, an influential group (if understandably defensive these days), Paul Tucker made some provocative remarks given that he is a front runner to be the next governor of the Bank of England. When the bank takes over from the Financial Services Authority in regulating UK banks in April, he said, there will no longer be a tedious load of “box ticking” foisted upon the City. This suggests a big change in style, and even implies criticism of Adair Turner, FSA chief, and a rival for the top job.

From Barak to Barack

During Ehud Barak’s packed trip to London just before the US election, Israeli officials were audibly anxious about President Barack Obama’s “pivot” towards Asia and detachment from the Arab Spring. Now that the US elections are past, they are also braced for new EU criticism of Israel’s building on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Indeed, Alastair Burt, minister for the Middle East, issued a sharp rebuke to the latest Israeli announcement while Obama’s victory speech was still playing across the world’s screens.

Publishing enigma

An account of the wartime codebreakers of Bletchley Park is one of the latest offerings from Unbound, which funds books through crowdsourcing, and is attracting attention amid the upheaval in publishing. Unbound, set up by, among others, John Mitchinson and Justin Pollard, creators of the BBC show QI, enables authors to solicit cash online. If enough is raised, the book goes ahead. A £10 pledge to the Bletchley book gets the donor an e-book. £250 gets an e-book, a hardback, a tour of Bletchley Park, and sausages and mash in Hut 4, where Enigma codes were decrypted.

No laughs, we’re Labour

Unknown to many even in Labour, Ed Miliband has not one but two stand-up comedians as advisers. One is well known: Ayesha Hazarika, a longtime Labour aide, now works for Harriet Harman but is “borrowed” to come up with jokes and attack lines for PMQs. James Morris, the Labour pollster who works for US-based Stan Greenberg, is less well-known but also has comedy pedigree—he was president of the Cambridge Footlights, the university troupe. Sometimes the pair are thrown together and told to come up with gags. Unkind souls might ask why the Labour leader doesn’t get bigger laughs.

Prospect at the border

Raymond Tallis, the philosopher, reports that his son Ben, working on a PhD, recently visited a Polish border detention centre at Przemysl and was intrigued to see Prospect in the guards’ reading room.

The indefinable Letwin

Oliver Letwin, asked to define the “Big Society” at a November meeting of the Mile End Group, replied, “can you define art in a sentence? Or Great Britain?”