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Welcome to Newslog - come here for my reflections and analysis on what's going on in and around politics
10:11 UK time, Wednesday, 19 December 2012
What began as a story about what was really said became a story about who leaked a police log but it is now much more serious than that.
The Metropolitan Police say they are investigating allegations against a serving police officer of fabricating evidence against someone who was, at the time, a cabinet minister. What's more, they say that they will investigate conspiracy if any evidence emerges.
17:34 UK time, Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Who cares whether Andrew Mitchell did or did not say "plebs" when he had an angry confrontation with police officers on the gates of Downing Street?
That's the reaction of some to the news that a police officer has been arrested for misconduct in a public office. He also claimed that he witnessed what happened, even though the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe said this morning that he "wasn't there at the time"
23:11 UK time, Monday, 17 December 2012
The police watchdog - the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) - is investigating "the validity" of a claim made by a police officer whose evidence helped lead to the resignation of Andrew Mitchell as the government chief whip.
Mr Mitchell resigned after he apologised for swearing at an officer who refused to open the main gates of Downing Street to let the chief whip through on his bicycle.
09:55 UK time, Monday, 17 December 2012
It's time people saw how the coalition's sausages are made. That, believe it or not, is how Nick Clegg describes his latest strategy.
The deputy prime minister believes it's time the public understood that policy-making in government is like a kitchen in which all sorts of recipes are suggested, but only some make it onto the menu. He wants voters to know which ingredients the Lib Dems added and, just as importantly, which they insisted were left out.
12:27 UK time, Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Do you remember that old song "You say tom-ar-to, I say tom-ay-to" ?
It ended, you may recall, with the line "Let's call the whole thing off!"
07:57 UK time, Tuesday, 11 December 2012
It is a year since the prime minister found himself isolated in Europe at a summit determining the EU's future. It is six months since he signalled that he might be open to a referendum on Britain's relationship with the Europe. Yet David Cameron has still to fix a date let alone finalise the text of a long promised speech spelling out his European policy.
I understand the PM held a meeting with the foreign secretary and the chancellor on Monday to agree the content of a speech which will see him walking a political and diplomatic tightrope.
14:35 UK time, Wednesday, 5 December 2012
"I can tell the House that we are no closer to balancing the books than when we first promised to do it. We are not on course to meet our debt target. We now need to put up taxes and cut spending until at least 2018. We're making progress. We're sticking to our Plan."
Cue Tory MPs shouting "hear, hear" as the chancellor sits down to be congratulated by the prime minister.
00:46 UK time, Wednesday, 5 December 2012
This is a statement the chancellor would rather not have to make.
George Osborne will have to publish grim official forecasts with serious political and economic consequences. With growth much lower and borrowing much higher than he hoped, the chancellor may be forced to admit he's missing his own deficit and debt targets.
18:19 UK time, Tuesday, 4 December 2012
Tomorrow's a day the chancellor isn't looking forward to. It's the day he'll be unveiling official forecasts showing borrowing and debt both going up. The day he'll announce deeper cuts and more tax rises.
So on the morning before the bad news to come the prime minister and his deputy went to school to unveil what they hoped would be viewed as some better news - an increase in investment spending paid for by deeper cuts to day to day departmental budgets.
09:32 UK time, Tuesday, 4 December 2012
Newspaper editors and proprietors had hoped that this morning's meeting with the prime minister and the culture secretary would be in the House of Commons, allowing them to slip in to the building unnoticed.
It has, though, been switched to Number 10, turning their on-camera arrivals into what the editor of the Telegraph, Tony Gallagher, jokily described on twitter last night as "the perp walk" during which the TV guys would "shout rude questions as we humbly beg entry".
20:43 UK time, Thursday, 29 November 2012
Nick added analysis to:
The prime minister knows he has given his opponents yet another stick to beat him with. He also knows, however, that the press are firmly on his side.
17:21 UK time, Thursday, 29 November 2012
He set up the Leveson Inquiry.
He said there could be no more last chances for the press.
13:36 UK time, Thursday, 29 November 2012
It should not be acceptable that it (the press) uses its voice, power and authority to undermine the ability of society to require that regulation is not a free for all, to be ignored with impunity. The answer to the question who guards the guardians should not be "no one".
Those words buried deep in the Leveson Report seem to summarise the judge's view.
06:48 UK time, Thursday, 29 November 2012
It's 2,000 pages, needs a box to carry it around in and covers much more than simply recommending a new way to regulate Britain's newspapers.
No wonder the Coalition has yet to agree how to respond to the Leveson Report.
17:45 UK time, Wednesday, 28 November 2012
The prime minister has just begun a meeting with his deputy, Nick Clegg, to discuss the findings of the Leveson report and how the government should respond.
I understand that it is hundreds of pages long and that officials have been seen carrying it around Downing Street in cardboard boxes.
06:31 UK time, Wednesday, 28 November 2012
It is not often that the prime minister, his deputy and their most senior advisers clear their diaries for most of two whole days.
They have done so to read, digest and consider how to respond to the Leveson report on the culture, standards and ethics of the press.
09:51 UK time, Tuesday, 27 November 2012
Standby for data which will show that the government's work programme is, well, not working. One senior Whitehall figure described it to me as a "failure"
The work programme was part of what ministers called a revolution in welfare. It paid private companies by results in order to get the long term unemployed back to work.
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
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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