Politics

On Monday night, a member of the Number 10 Policy Board, Peter Lilley, voted against the government. Now, in the past, it has been made clear to the MPs on the board that if they defied the whip they would have to resign or be sacked. But despite this, Lilley is staying in place. Number 10 clearly doesn’t feel in a position to pick a fight over the European Arrest Warrant. Now, you can make a case that Lilley should be treated differently from the rest of the Policy Board. The rest of the Board is made up of new MPs, Lilley—by contrast—is a distinguished former Cabinet Minister. One can

How do Labour campaigners overcome the Ed Miliband problem on the doorstep? Today’s Standard poll finds just 13 per cent of voters think he is ready to be Prime Minister, down from 22 per cent in June. MPs, candidates and activists have noticed a hardening in voters’ attitudes towards the Labour leader. One says: ‘Voters have gone from thinking “I’m not sure about this guy” to “I’ve made up my mind about this guy and I’m not going to vote for him”.’ But the candidate standing before them on the doorstep needs to work out how to persuade that voter to back them. So what do they do? One says

The Tories have pulled ahead of Labour in a new poll in today’s Evening Standard. The Ipsos Mori poll puts David Cameron’s party three points ahead of Labour, at 32, and Labour down four points to 29. The Lib Dems are on 9 and Ukip 14. This poll is just one poll, Labour will say, as it tries to stop more panic breaking out ahead of Miliband’s speech tomorrow. But it is a bad poll, the worst poll for Labour so far. The Labour leader does need to reassure his party that going neck-and-neck and sometimes behind the Tories is not a symptom of Labour’s weaknesses but a feature of

Ukip is still on track to pound the Tories into second place in the Rochester and Strood by-election, but not necessarily at next year’s general election, according to a new poll from Lord Ashcroft. The latest polling (see chart above) puts Tory defector Mark Reckless on 44 percent, the Conservatives on 32 percent, Labour on 17 percent and the Lib Dems on 2 percent. Although Reckless looks set to win back the seat he once held as a Conservative next Thursday, this doesn’t mean the same will happen at the general election. According to Ashcroft’s poll, 36 percent of those who named a preference said they would vote Conservative in 2015 — up four points from

A battle lost is worse than a battle won and there are fewer Pyrrhic victories in politics than you think. One of the staples of pre-election punditry, however, is that someone will always pipe up with the suggestion This is a Good Election to Lose. It is almost always bunk. Not least because, with the notable exception of the Liberal Democrats, major political parties are in the business of acquiring, then exercising, power. Shorn of that they lose their point. So there’s that. Nevertheless if you suspect there might be a but lurking a couple of lines in the future your premonition would, in this instance, be correct. But this might actually be

Much harrumphing reaches Mr Steerpike today from the City of London. At last night’s Lord’s Mayor Banquet — the annual knees up at Mansion House to welcome the new Lord Mayor — the Prime Minister caused absolute chaos with his demands to exit in time to vote in the Commons. The Loyal Toast and speeches were moved to before dinner — breaking centuries of tradition — in order to allow the PM to slip out and traipse through the lobby in his full white tie regalia. ‘It was very strange,’ said one man in tights. ‘We had the Loyal Toast before grace, then the toast to the Lord Mayor before

The government has just won the vote extending the debate on the justice and home affairs opt-outs by just nine votes – 251 ayes to 242 noes. This means that MPs have approved the motion for the debate to continue to 10pm, which rebels and Labour had turned against because the Speaker had said that this was not a vote on the European Arrest Warrant. Theresa May is insistent, though, that this is a vote on the matter. Such a narrow win is clearly a relief for ministers  – and many of them had been hauled into the Commons early by panicked whips who suddenly realised they were facing a

The government is in a total mess this afternoon. The whole house of Commons has turned on Theresa May and Chris Grayling for the way they have handled the vote on the European arrest warrant. MP after MP is calling, via points of order, for the motion to be withdrawn. The whips are in frantic conversation. Update, 17.26  May is now speaking and she appears to be sticking to her line. I hear that whips are trying to get all of the payroll vote ready to support the business motion that the house will vote on, as there are fears that the government will lose it.

When is a target not a target? Theresa May seems quite keen for us to think that Tory pledge to bring migration down to the tens of thousands was a ‘comment’ or an ‘aim’, now that it doesn’t look as though that’s going to be possible in time for the election. Today Number 10 did insist that there had been no change in the target, but also refused to call it a ‘promise’. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘There’s no change. That remains the objective towards which the Prime Minister and others are working… It has always been the objective. There’s been no change, the tens of thousands by