Neil O'Brien: Which of the class of 2010 are making an impact?

Neil O'Brien is Director of Policy Exchange and blogs regularly for The Telegraph.

Follow him on Twitter.

Which of the new MPs elected last year have made an impact in Westminster, and in the media?  As they find their feet in Parliament, can we spot any patterns emerging?  Are new political tribes being formed?

There’s no single idea of what being an effective MP involves.  So this piece isn’t about who is doing “well” or “badly” as MPs.  Here I’m interested in two things: which of the newbies are making a splash in the media, and which of them are making waves in politics and national policy. 

Of course, many people would prefer their MP to focus on quietly working for their constituency, and many MPs in marginal seats have to spend much of their time campaigning at home.  So none of what follows is a value judgement on anyone.

We can put some numbers on their media “splash” in a (very) rough-and-ready way.  Using the Nexis press database and some intern labour we can see who has been appearing in the newspapers a lot.  Of course, not all coverage is good coverage.  Some have done better on TV and radio than in the papers.  And there is often a trade-off between making noise in the media, and making progress in politics behind the scenes – though some high performing MPs manage to do both.

Neil O'Brien: Michael Gove is confronting Britain’s education disaster - so why are the Left complaining?

Neil O'Brien is Director of Policy Exchange.

I’m baffled.  Stumped.  Totally at a loss.

For years, teachers have been complaining about the narrowing of the curriculum.  Educationalists (many of them on the left) have warned that languages, sciences and humanities were being squeezed out, as schools tried to hit narrow government targets.  

One of their main complaints was that the last government ranked schools on the percentage of children getting 5 “good” GCSEs (a C or above) including English and Maths.  There is some evidence that this did narrow the curriculum.  The number of children learning a language has fallen by nearly a third since 1997.

Michael Gove has responded to these problems by creating a wider measure - which he calls the “English Baccalaureate” as a homage to our friends across the Channel. 

The “English Bac” will measure how many pupils achieved good grades in five specified core subjects – English; maths; two sciences; ancient or modern history or geography; and a modern or ancient language.

But instead of being delighted, various usual suspects (and bizarrely Andy Burnham) are now hopping up and down to say that this is “unfair.”

What’s going on?  I think the main reason is that far fewer pupils will pass this wider measure.  Around half of pupils passed the old measure, while according to the Guardian, only about 15% are expected to get the “Bac”.  That is depressing - but only because it reveals how much we have been underperforming.

Neil O'Brien: If David Cameron wants the Big Society to be his big idea, it needs to be better defined - and more conservative

Neil O'Brien is Director of Policy Exchange.

“The really good thing about the Big Society,” a fellow think-tanker told me last week in Birmingham, “is that it can mean absolutely whatever anyone wants it to mean.  It’s totally brilliant.” This assessment, made in the wee small hours, is a far too harsh.  But there is a lack of clarity about the “Big Society” that won’t do, if it is going to be the Tories' Big Idea.

Some people think that governments don’t need to have a big guiding idea.  Just be successful managers and try to deliver what people want.  There’s a grain of truth in that.  But I think governments need a guiding spirit for two reasons. 

Firstly, governments tend to lose support if they don’t seem to have a clear sense of direction.  As Harold Wilson pointed out, unless you drive the bus really fast, everybody gets out and starts bickering about where to go. Cameron needs to enthuse his own activists.  The number of Tory party members is apparently falling.  Journalists like Jonathan Freedland argue that the Big Society isn’t well liked by Tory members.  I think it sort of is, but needs more work.  The importance of the “little platoons” is a pretty central idea in conservatism (it dates from at least 1790). But Cameron needs to put a more conservative spin on it if he wants it to really fire up his activists.

Secondly, a guiding philosophy is part of how Prime Ministers get what they want in Government.  The notion that we have a presidential system in the UK is, I think, misguided.  Downing Street has a lot of influence, but little control.  The PM can block bad ideas.  But he can’t run every department and be everywhere.  So to drive their work forward, he needs to enunciate a clear sense of direction.  Margaret Thatcher is the best example of this.  Though not a supreme bureaucrat, she radiated a totally clear sense of direction.  Officials and ministers who wondered “What would Margaret want as to do?” instantly knew the answer, without having to ask her.

The Big Society isn’t really fulfilling these functions for Cameron yet, hence his conference speech last week.

Neil O'Brien: How to make housing more affordable for everyone

Neil O'Brien is Director of Policy Exchange, which today publishes Making Housing Affordable: A new vision for housing policy.

Last week there was a big debate about “fairness”.  The Government are doing a number of things which will tackle the underlying causes of our social problems. IDS is trying to reform welfare to reduce unemployment, and Michael Gove is trying to narrow the education gap, with his Free Schools and the “pupil premium” for poorer children.

But there’s lots more to be done to make Britain a fairer society.

Today Policy Exchange publishes a major new report, looking at how to make housing more affordable for everyone.  Britain’s current housing policy has failed the poorest, and is contributing to our huge deficit.  There are two main problems. 

Problem 1: Housing costs are rising, and this is pushing up government expenditure
Over the past few decades rents and house prices have risen much more rapidly in the UK than other countries.  This has driven up government expenditure on Housing Benefit and social housing, and is now driving down home-ownership. The largest single cause of high house prices is the restriction of supply. House building has more than halved in recent decades to rates that are consistently among the lowest in developed world.

Between 1975 and 1995 average house prices in real terms (i.e. excluding inflation) rose from £75,188 to £77,828, a rise of just 3.5%. But between 1995 and 2009 the average real terms house price rose by a historically unprecedented 120%. This has two bad consequences.

Higher private housing costs have pushed up waiting lists for social housing.  Some people blame “right to buy” for increased waiting lists.  But the real cause is higher housing costs, which have priced people out of private accommodation. In fact during the main period of right to buy sales in the early 1980s, the numbers waiting for a home fell.  Waiting lists shrunk slightly between 1980 and 1997 (as private housing costs rose slowly in this period), but then rose rapidly from 1 million to over 1.7 million households between 1997 and 2009 (as housing costs shot up).

Neil O'Brien: It's like the Thatcher revolution never happened

Neil O'Brien is Director of Policy Exchange.

Welcome back.  I’m afraid you’ve arrived at rather a critical moment.

Angela Eagle delighted the Fabian Society the other day with a speech declaring that “It is end of the Thatcher-Reagan era and it has come not a moment too soon.”

Her speech was a sign of the times, and in one sense she is right.  It’s certainly like the Thatcher revolution never happened.  According to the European Commission, UK public spending is heading for 48% of GDP in 2010. That puts us above the European average for the first time in a generation, and with a bigger state than when Thatcher started in 1979.

There are now roughly the same number of civil servants (about 480,000) as there were in 1979.  The Government have nationalised a major chunk of the economy and are mulling a series of industrial bail-outs, for example for the car industry.

True, the labour market is no longer crushed by trade union power, but European labour market regulation (particularly the working time directive and temps directive) have undermined our employment-friendly labour market, and are causing chaos in the NHS.

All the effort invested in turning around the British economy is going up in smoke.

Right now the focus is on getting credit flowing again.  But in the longer term, fixing the supply side of our economy is going to be just as important.  That’s your new department, and it’s in a mess.

Neil O'Brien: Is Merkel’s memo the beginning of the end for the EU?

This is the final part of a series on the return of the EU constitution by Open Europe, of which Neil is Director.

The mood in the UK embassy in Brussels must be pretty dire.  The merde has hit the fan. Angela Merkel has just circulated to heads of government a summary of where she believes the consensus lies in the negotiations on the revised constitutional treaty. 

The Merkel memo has started to leak out, and it won’t make for pleasant reading for Gordon Brown. (You can read it in full on the Open Europe blog.)

Firstly, there is the usual ritual display of the low regard that the European political class hold the public in.

Neil O'Brien: They think you’re stupid

Ahead of the EU summit in two weeks, Open Europe of which Neil is Director, will write for ConservativeHome each weekday this week outlining the ways in which the EU constitution is returning by stealth, and how we should resist it.

Here we go again.  EU leaders are meeting in two weeks time to re-launch the constitutional treaty which was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. 

In fact, delegates appointed by the 27 leaders have been meeting behind closed doors since the start of the year, trying to thrash out a deal, and the outline of the new version is already starting to become apparent from leaks.

Their collective strategy for pushing through the revised text is even clearer.  For once, the EU has learned from its mistakes.  There will be no more referendums, and no more negotiating in public.  There will be no fireworks. Unlike last time, EU leaders won’t go around boasting about how it is “the capstone of a federal state” or “the birth certificate of a United States of Europe”.

Neil O'Brien: Environmentalism is the last refuge of a Europhile

Neil is Director of Open Europe.

A new argument has got Britain’s dwindling band of Europhiles very excited: we need the EU in order to save the planet from climate change.

This line is now being parroted right across the Government.

David Milliband has argued that “You cannot be an environmentalist and a Eurosceptic.”

Geoff Hoon has written that “The Conservative leader's hostility to the EU makes a mockery of his green credentials”.

Will Hutton asks: “Which is it to be? Euroscepticism, or being serious about climate change?”

Even Gordon Brown has joined in. “Euroscepticism and continent-wide environmental action are at odds with each other.”

Let’s leave aside the personal hypocrisy here.  Never mind that Milliband doesn’t recycle his own rubbish, or that all across Whitehall, Government departments leave their lights blazing all night.  The endless repetition of this idiotic soundbite is maddening for two different reasons.

Firstly, it’s yet another example of politicians exploiting public concern about the environment to push through other things that they know voters don’t want (like higher taxes).

In this case, the cynical use of green issues to justify greater powers for the EU is surprisingly overt. As David Milliband explained in an article for the pro-euro Centre for European Reform: "The environment is the issue that can best reconnect Europe with its citizens and re-build trust in European institutions. The needs of the environment are coming together with the needs of the EU: one is a cause looking for a champion, the other a champion in search of a cause."

In other words, “the environment” has become a convenient excuse for giving the EU even more powers. For example, the UK Government is about to allow harmonised EU-wide crimes with harmonised sentences to be passed by a majority vote – something which it had always previously opposed.  But by introducing this new procedure first for so-called “green crimes”, the Government hopes that its cave-in on the issue will be more palatable to voters.

Neil O'Brien: The moral case for breaking the EPP consensus

Neil is Director of Open Europe

The row over the Conservatives’ attempt to form a new group in the European Parliament is heating up quickly. The current consensus among most journalists is that the move was a rashly-promised sop to eurosceptics in the party, which Cameron must surely now regret.

If the Tories want to make a success of the policy, they will have to turn this consensus around soon.

The main criticism is that the Conservatives might end up sitting with “extremists”. Most of this criticism focuses on the Tories possible allies in “Law and Justice”, the ruling Polish conservative party.

Poland is a socially conservative and seriously catholic country, where the 1960s only started happening in the 1990s. As such it’s no surprise to find that Law and Justice have policies which would be considered way off colour here. For example, Law and Justice have discussed banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools and backing the death penalty.

So are Law and Justice too hot to handle? It’s certainly worth putting things in a bit of perspective. For example, Labour currently sit in the Party of European Socialists with two deputies from the Polish Samoobrona (Self Defence) party. Their leader Andrzej Lepper started the party after beating up a tax collector who came to his farm and has been convicted of five offences including assault.

Lepper has also praised Hitler and made several anti-semitic comments. He noted that “the most dangerous nation for the Poles is the Jewish nation” and said that “Everyone wants what is good for Poland, just like Hitler wanted what was good for Germany.” He even went on to argue that “It was after the seizure of power by the Nazis in Germany that the number of unemployed decreased, the economy recovered and the motorways were built.”

Nor are his MEPs much nicer. One of the MEPs sitting with Labour is Bogdan Golik, a former shipyard owner. Last Christmas Golik was accused of raping a prostitute. The woman in question seemed to have a good case, and even showed police a cellphone belonging to Golik to back up her claims. However, according to the official Polish Press Agency, Golik cannot be investigated because of his status as an MEP. When asked to comment on the allegations Andrzej Lepper laughed in the presence of journalists and asked: "How is it possible to rape a prostitute?"

Neil O'Brien: Can Europe Ever Learn to Listen?

Neil O'Brien is Director of Open Europe.  Open Europe is a think tank that believes that 'ever closer union' has failed.  It "believes that the EU must now embrace radical reform based on economic liberalisation, a looser and more flexible structure, and greater transparency and accountability".

The year since the French and Dutch votes against the European Constitution has been a bitter disappointment for all those who hoped that the referendum results might finally trigger reform of the European Union.

It is stunning to think that just twelve months after the amazing referendum results, the main topic of conversation in EU circles is how (not whether) to bring back the rejected EU Constitution. Indeed, since the no votes a further six countries have chosen to ratify the text as it stands.

Supporters of “ever closer union” have chosen to interpret the no votes as protests against economic liberalisation, votes against enlargement, and even as votes for greater powers for the EU - in short, everything except a vote against deeper integration.

Last week the Constitution’s author Valery Giscard d’Estaing explained: "It is not France that has said no. It is 55 per cent of the French people”. 

This rather existentialist distinction seems to reflect a wider confusion in Europe about the whole point of democracy.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel explained earlier this month that, “The negative results of the referendums in France and the Netherlands were a setback, but this has no bearing whatever on whether or not we need a Constitution. I say yes, we need the Constitutional Treaty”.

Indeed, Italian Foreign Minister Giuliano Amato claimed said last week that the no votes were in fact “a request for more Europe, not less”.  But the polls simply don’t bear this out.  A new poll we commissioned at Open Europe finds that one year on, two thirds of French and Dutch voters now want to take back powers from the EU, or even leave it altogether.

But this seems to be lost on Europe’s leaders. A consensus is has formed around plans to revisit the Constitution in the spring of next year:  France and Holland will have elections and new governments, and the German government, (who are the leading supporters of the Constitution) will hold the Presidency of the EU. 

With this in mind the European Commission is lining up member states behind a plan to sign a “political declaration on the future of the EU” in May of next year.  The UK government has already said it is open to signing up, even though the Commission has made it clear that this declaration will be the precursor to a new treaty.  The declaration is to be modelled on the Messina declaration which led to the founding of the EEC.

President Barrosso has said it will be a document, “which not only sets out Europe’s values and ambitions, but also contains a shared undertaking to deliver them: an ‘obligation d’engagement’. The purpose and style of the document should be inspired by the Messina declaration [of 1955], which was both a response to an institutional setback, and a precursor to a Treaty, in that case the Treaty of Rome.”

So the game is very much on.  Indeed, EU leaders are gradually implementing the proposals in the EU Constitution anyway: the European Defence Agency proposed in the Constitution has been set up, the veto on asylum issues has been abolished, the veto on justice and home affairs legislation is to be abolished shortly, and a recent European court decision has given the Commission the power to propose criminal laws which are then adopted by majority vote.

Is Tony Blair trying to halt the drift back to the Constitution? Not really.  In an interview in Le Monde Tony Blair said this: “I continue to think that the Constitution is a set of rules perfectly apt for Europe to function better. We will have to reflect on it again.”

The Blair strategy in Europe is not one his successors, whether Labour or Conservative, will want to continue. Look at the state of play: Britain has just agreed to pay £10.5 billion a year into a totally unreformed EU budget; there has been an increase in the EU regulatory burden on business - even on the Governments own figures - of at least £30 billion since 1998; and there has been a disastrous drift to a single EU defence which has wasted billions duplicating NATO assets, and infuriated our allies worldwide by leaking key technology to China.

Worst of all, the EU still hits poor countries with huge tariffs to protect the Common Agricultural Policy. For example Malawi has to pay a tax equivalent to 12% of the value of all its exports to the EU, despite having an average income per person of just over €1 a day.  Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland face tariffs of over 20%. This is grotesquely unfair. These are not policies which the UK would choose if it ran its own affairs.

We simply can’t go on like this.  It’s time to return power from the EU to the local and national level.  Now is the time for all of those who aspire to lead Britain in the twenty first century to put serious time and effort into thinking about how to reverse the relentless ratchet towards “ever closer union.”