Politics

Oh dear. Miliband was all set to give Cameron an almighty hammering at today’s PMQs, but Maria Miller’s resignation blew up his ammunition dump. Mr Bercow rose at the start and begged everyone to ‘show a good example’ as there were ‘children present.’ Indeed there were. All across the green benches. The Miller saga has given us seven days of unseemly viewing. The family is gathered at the bedside of a rich but ailing matriarch. All are affecting tragic expressions while smirking behind their unwetted handkerchiefs and mentally calculating their gains. But the biggest loser was Miliband. He wanted to turn Miller’s capsize into a character issue. He said the

PMQs today was bad for David Cameron, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been. No permanent damage was done to him. Ed Miliband did not, to my surprise, come with a set of reforms to the expenses regime that he wanted Cameron to agree to there and then. Instead, he chose to concentrate on what this said about Cameron’s judgment. ‘This is about him’, Miliband thundered. I was, though, surprised not to hear Miliband making more of his usual line that Cameron ‘stands up for the wrong people.’ listen to ‘PMQs: Cameron and Miliband on Maria Miller’ on Audioboo

After excited rumours flew around the Conservative party that she was finally getting a promotion, Andrea Leadsom has been confirmed as the new Economic Secretary to the Treasury. She was on the Number 10 policy board, but should have risen much sooner – had she not offended George Osborne by suggesting that he should apologise to Ed Balls for these comments to the Spectator about the Libor scandal. Offending the Chancellor is the political equivalent of getting a black spot from a pirate. But now Leadsom has the promotion she deserves, having impressed in a number of roles. She co-founded the Fresh Start Project, which visits European capitals making the

It’s not often I would, in the fashion of the late Tony Benn, pass lightly over the personalities in a row in favour of discussing what he liked to call the ‘ishyoos’ but in the case of Maria Miller, it might do no harm. It does rather look, as Isabel Hardman has already intimated, that she’s toast, but the answer to the Problem of Maria is, I would say, pretty well the opposite of what we’re all told. Which is, as Labour MP John Mann (he whose formal complaint about Mrs Miller prompted the original investigation) put it in an urgent question, that MPs should not regulate their own expenses

Maria Miller’s PPS Mary Macleod seems to have been trying to emulate what Jeremy Hunt’s former aide Rob Wilson (now PPS to the Chancellor) did for his boss as Culture Secretary in trying to round up support for the minister. The problem is that while Wilson operated below the radar, with his work only surfacing when he got a bit over-enthusiastic and asked them to tweet nice things about Hunt as Health Secretary when his real troubles were long gone, Macleod was rather less subtle and her text messages soliciting support and alleging a witch hunt ended up on Guido’s blog quicker than a 32 second Miller apology. The really

Day five into the Maria Miller debacle and the calls for her resignation keep on coming. As Isabel reported earlier, more MPs are starting to break cover. Many of the critical Tories are speaking to the press anonymously, but some have been more vocal, especially the younger MPs who sit in marginal seats – who are more conscious of the slings and arrows of outraged voters. Here’s a breakdown of some MPs who have criticised Miller publicly and what their motivations might be: Esther McVey ‘I can honestly say it wouldn’t be how I would have made an apology’ The Employment Minister is widely tipped for promotion in the near