The GUIDE to the week: Friday 23rd January 2015 The GUIDE Liberation Front hasn’t been offered a spot at the leaders debate yet, but given the growing invitee list, we wait with bated breath. Meantime, here’s our take on the week in Westminster… Things can only get better worse…? Caroline Spelman’s amendment to the Infrastructure Bill (which goes to Report Stage on Monday) calls for a ban on fracking. Whatever you think of this, it points to a bigger issue for public affairs bods if the Conservatives stay in office after May. Five years in power has inevitably left Cameron with a group of disaffected former Ministers (Spelman among them), who have little or no incentive to toe the party line – and that group will only grow if the Tories are re-elected. Paradoxically, it’s likely that more Conservative MPs will strike out on their own in the next Parliament if Cameron wins than if he loses – meaning public affairs campaigns will need individual champions as well as official party support. Feeding the beast Nicola Sturgeon is proving every inch the political tactician that Alex Salmond was as Scottish First Minister and SNP leader. Her threat to vote on the NHS in England gave the SNP acres of media coverage, split Labour, poked EVELers and allowed her to pitch to possible supporters – and no one so much as questioned whether the SNP will actually win enough Westminster seats to have the slightest influence over UK policy. Westminster’s refusal to meet the nationalist threat head-on will end in tears – no amount of concessions, short of full independence, will ever be enough for the SNP, so at some stage Downing Street will have to draw a line in the sand. The debates debate leads to debate There’s really no telling how many politicians, if any, will be allowed to look sincerely into the camera and talk about their latest meeting with an ‘ordinary person’ in a park. But the continued focus on the TV debates does reflect the eagerness of all the main parties to steer clear of potentially painful discussion of their manifestos for Government. In this absence of anything substantive, journalists are understandably looking for more interesting material – leading to renewed attention on the next generation of leaders. As a case in point, Labour’s Dan Jarvis MP (who will be speaking at our event on Tuesday) receives a glowing profile from the Telegraph’s James Kirkup. If senior frontbenchers insist on keeping their heads down, attention will continue to stray elsewhere…
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 12:57:04 +0000
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