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Welcome to Newslog - come here for my reflections and analysis on what's going on in and around politics
17:38 UK time, Friday, 23 November 2012
What many will describe as failure, David Cameron has described as "progress."
After two long days of talking, EU leaders may not have agreed a budget deal but the prime minister said that at least an "unacceptable deal" had been stopped.
10:36 UK time, Friday, 23 November 2012
The EU is trying to cook up a "Goldilocks budget" - not too hot for the countries like Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden who want to see spending frozen and not too cold for the countries of the South (Spain, Portugal, Greece) and East (led by the biggest net beneficiary Poland) who want to see spending on them maintained.
Yesterday's late night talks lasted little more than an hour and showed no sign of finding that recipe. One British source told me that the man in the chair, the President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, doesn't have a plan and doesn't have a way to get there. The necessary preparatory work had not been done I was told.
17:55 UK time, Thursday, 22 November 2012
Nick added analysis to:
David Cameron wants Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council, to be in no doubt that unless the EU budget is frozen in real terms and Britain's rebate is maintained there will be no deal at this summit
17:53 UK time, Thursday, 22 November 2012
David Cameron chose to be the first EU leader to meet the man chairing the summit which will set the EU's budget for seven years.
His aim was to convince Herman Van Rumpuy that he had come to seek a deal and was not set on vetoing one. But also to insist he could only sign up to a budget that does not rise faster than inflation and which has a British rebate which stays unchanged.
08:21 UK time, Thursday, 22 November 2012
The first leader to threaten a veto. The first in Brussels this morning to meet the man who has to try to forge a budget compromise.
David Cameron wants Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council, to be in no doubt that unless the EU budget is frozen in real terms and Britain's rebate is maintained there will be no deal at this summit.
20:58 UK time, Tuesday, 20 November 2012
At any time the news that Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks were facing yet another set of serious criminal charges would have been difficult for David Cameron. This, though, is not just any time.
It is little more than a week before the Leveson report into the culture, standards and ethics of the press is due to be published.
11:15 UK time, Monday, 19 November 2012
Swing Mrs Thatcher's handbag but avoid isolation. Threaten to use the veto but do not waste your energy on negotiations that will not deliver.
That is a summary of the occasionally bewildering advice being given to the prime minister at the beginning of his big week in Europe.
23:36 UK time, Friday, 16 November 2012
It was a day of records and firsts - none of them good.
The lowest turnout in a national election; the lowest turnout in a by-election outside wartime and the first time, as far as anyone can recall, that a polling station had not a single voter pass through its doors. Not good for democracy.
16:18 UK time, Thursday, 15 November 2012
The government is considering whether to follow France by officially recognising the Syrian opposition and working to lift the EU embargo which prevents the supply of arms to the rebels fighting President Assad's forces.
Sources say a decision could come next week.
00:41 UK time, Thursday, 15 November 2012
Prime Minister David Cameron will chair a meeting of the National Security Council on Thursday morning which will consider the military, humanitarian and diplomatic options for dealing with the conflict in Syria and the growing refugee crisis on its borders.
Mr Cameron believes the bloody conflict Syria is reaching what one of his advisers calls "the something must be done stage" - the moment when the public will demand action to save the lives of refugees massing on the country's borders.
18:00 UK time, Tuesday, 13 November 2012
He's out...again.
Not as promised on a plane to Jordan but, this morning, in a car taking him back home here in Britain.
14:22 UK time, Tuesday, 13 November 2012
What's the bit of economic news that voters have noticed more than any other since the coalition came to power?
Was it the £6 billion of spending cuts made six weeks after they came to office?
18:06 UK time, Monday, 12 November 2012
"Hard to justify…not right… a matter for his conscience".
Today MPs of all parties lined up to condemn the pay off to the former Director General of the BBC, George Entwistle.
17:25 UK time, Sunday, 11 November 2012
Nick added analysis to:
Many politicians are watching the BBC reeling from its self-inflicted wounds with a mixture of amazement and frustration but I detect little anger or desire for retribution
14:10 UK time, Sunday, 11 November 2012
It's your turn.
That sums up in three words the attitude of many politicians and many in the press to the BBC crisis.
18:10 UK time, Thursday, 8 November 2012
What began with crimes committed by a big-name celebrity who is now dead has moved on to a swirl of internet and Twitter rumours about politicians who are still alive.
Rumours which the prime minister was confronted with on ITV's daytime sofa this morning.
18:08 UK time, Wednesday, 7 November 2012
You know what it's like when you invite someone to dinner.
There's always the question of who pays. Should you split the bill or should the host pick up the tab? So it will be tonight at one of Westminster's most exclusive private dining rooms - in No 10, Downing Street - when David hosts Angela.
11:32 UK time, Wednesday, 7 November 2012
So Barack Obama has been re-elected as US president. What are the lessons from the campaign and result for British politicians?
1. Incumbents can still win
17:36 UK time, Monday, 5 November 2012
Never was there clearer evidence of the difference the Savile scandal has made to attitudes to allegations of child abuse.
The prime minister has broken into a trip to the Gulf to announce an investigation into allegations that abuse at a North Wales children's home went much further than an official inquiry revealed and may have involved a senior Conservative from the Thatcher era.
10:04 UK time, Thursday, 1 November 2012
On the morning after the fright night before, the chancellor says the government will listen. Listen, that is, to the call from the House of Commons for a cut to the EU budget. Yet the deputy prime minister says the government's "offer" to Europe is a real-terms freeze - ie: an increase in line with prices.
Even that could be hard to deliver, we are told, given that every one of the EU's 27 governments must sign up to any new long-term budget deal. Currently, 17 nations want an increased budget because they are net beneficiaries.
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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