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Welcome to Newslog - come here for my reflections and analysis on what's going on in and around politics
10:27 UK time, Tuesday, 18 June 2013
The G8 is likely to reach agreement on Syria today, Downing Street believes, although the exact wording of any statement is still the subject of tense negotiations.
The issue which is causing most difficulties is what the G8 should say about the transition to a new Syrian government after any new round of peace negotiations.
18:09 UK time, Monday, 17 June 2013
Find the moderates. That has been David Cameron's instruction to his ministers and to Britain's diplomats.
He insists that Britain does not have to choose between backing what he calls President Assad's murderous regime or the rebels who Boris Johnson called Syria's maniacs.
21:15 UK time, Sunday, 16 June 2013
Nick added analysis to:
Putin faces a British prime minister who cannot do what he believes in and an American president who doesn't show much sign of believing in what he's apparently committed to doing
'West in strange place' over Syria
19:04 UK time, Sunday, 16 June 2013
What we used to call the West finds itself in a pretty strange place when it comes to Syria and Vladimir Putin knows it.
Speaking at Downing Street the Russian president was completely unapologetic for arming the Syrian government - it was quite legal he said - and looked unimpressed when his host, the prime minister, called President Assad a "murderous dictator".
22:25 UK time, Friday, 14 June 2013
Nick added analysis to:
The question now is that if President Obama does order the arming of the Syrian rebels, will Britain follow suit and would MPs vote for it?
06:00 UK time, Friday, 14 June 2013
The change in the White House's position on Syria appears designed to bring it more into line with that long argued for by Britain and France.
London and Paris have maintained that President Assad must be made to realise that he cannot secure a military victory against his opponents and must be forced to the negotiating table.
17:38 UK time, Monday, 10 June 2013
"I will take great care to say nothing..." the foreign secretary said at one stage during his statement about the questions raised by the revelation of the Prism programme for monitoring email and social media traffic.
At one stage during his Commons statement I feared that William Hague might live up to his words.
17:18 UK time, Thursday, 6 June 2013
A bit of politics, a lot of philosophy and a slug of new policy. That's what we got from the Labour leader Ed Miliband today.
His backing for the idea of a cap on social security spending - or at least that bit of it which doesn't go up simply because of rising unemployment - is designed to reassure those voters who tell the pollsters they don't trust Labour to control spending or welfare.
17:40 UK time, Wednesday, 5 June 2013
When this government decided to cut child benefit from higher and top-rate taxpayers Labour attacked the move as unfair and proving that the government was out of touch with hard-working families.
Now, however, I understand that the party's leadership has concluded that it will not be able to reverse the cut.
14:24 UK time, Monday, 3 June 2013
On Budget Day in just two years' time the man holding the red box outside No 11 may be Labour's Ed Balls. That will only happen if he can restore Labour's economic credibility.
Today the shadow chancellor came to the City to deliver a speech designed to do just that. His message was the same as ever and yet different.
11:43 UK time, Thursday, 23 May 2013
It was a barbaric attack carried out in broad daylight on the streets of London. A man hacked to death. The attackers had been shot by the police. An extraordinary and horrific story but not one, you might think, for the Political Editor of the BBC.
However, the fact that the victim was wearing a "Help for Heroes" T-shirt and was walking near an army barracks raised the possibility that it was something else as well - an act of terrorism with implications for the country as a whole. That was my instinct as soon as I heard about the story, but instinct is not enough. I started to try to establish whether the government was treating it that way.
21:36 UK time, Monday, 20 May 2013
He was young. He was handsome. He said what they wanted to hear.
It was time, he told them, to show they cared, to move with the times. They needn't worry, though, because he shared their core beliefs.
12:30 UK time, Tuesday, 14 May 2013
It is clear that some people are finding the current Tory wrangling about Europe hard to follow. So, in the spirit of those beginner's guides, let me see if I can help.
The Conservatives are going to publish draft legislation establishing an EU referendum today. So, does that mean I am going to get a vote on the EU?
10:56 UK time, Thursday, 9 May 2013
Judgement, perspective, balance.
That's what the BBC expects from you when they give you the title "Editor".
14:05 UK time, Wednesday, 8 May 2013
Oh dear. The Queen's Speech has already got my goat. Let me explain.
I reported this morning that the Gracious Speech is written on vellum with ink that takes three days to dry so it cannot be amended at the last minute. True... until recently but, apologies, I now learn it is not any more. I regret to have to report that the goat has fallen victim to the age of austerity. This year's speech will be written on plain - or, in truth, rather posh - paper.
19:29 UK time, Tuesday, 7 May 2013
The significance of Nigel Lawson's intervention is not just that he has broken something of a Tory taboo by calling for Britain to quit; it's also that he is a former chancellor arguing essentially on economic grounds.
The EU, he claims, is hurting one of our most important industries - financial services - and, secure "within the warm embrace of the European single market", giving British businesses an excuse not to develop trade with the developing economies.
18:06 UK time, Friday, 3 May 2013
Those David Cameron once insulted - but now says he respects - have given him and the Conservatives a bloody nose. Indeed, all the leaders of the big political parties are nursing wounds after so many chose to vote for "none of the above".
This has been a very English anti-establishment revolt. After all, its leader Nigel Farage is an ex public schoolboy from Kent, the son of a stockbroker who also worked in the City of London. However, like Boris Johnson or Alex Salmond he has found a way to reach those parts of the electorate others cannot reach.
07:32 UK time, Friday, 3 May 2013
This is the day when those dubbed "clowns, loonies, fruitcakes and closet racists" may find it hard to resist the temptation to laugh in the face of their detractors in the established political parties.
It is the day UKIP emerged as a real political force in the land.
18:15 UK time, Wednesday, 1 May 2013
These are nervous times for Messrs Cameron, Clegg and Miliband as they await the verdict of the voters - or, rather, some of them.
Even though almost all the votes will be cast in England and not other parts of the UK; even though it'll largely be the residents of the shires and not the cities; even though many people will choose not to vote, the results do matter - for national politics as well as local.
04:09 UK time, Tuesday, 30 April 2013
The Italian boss of the "city the Poles took over" tells me that the new arrivals will integrate, just as his community once had to.
He is answering the criticisms made not just by the white British residents but a significant number of the city's large Asian community, who complain that eastern Europeans simply don't integrate.
Nick started blogging about politics for the BBC in 2001 when he was one of the earliest mainstream journalists in the UK to adopt the format.
He has been in his current role since 2005.
Before he was political editor, he did the same job at ITV News, before which he was chief political correspondent for BBC News 24, deputy editor of Panorama and a presenter on BBC Radio 5 live.
He began his time at the BBC behind the microphone, starting as a trainee producer in 1986 on Brass Tacks, Newsround and Crimewatch.
Based at Westminster, he has particular responsibility for serving the flagship news programmes, including Today on Radio 4 and the Ten O'Clock News on BBC One.
Born in Macclesfield, Cheshire in 1963, he attended Cheadle Hulme School, followed by University College, Oxford where he studied politics, philosophy and economics.
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