Politics

Andrew Lansley will shortly announce the return of the Immigration Bill to the Commons. I hear from impeccable sources that its report stage will be next Thursday. As I wrote yesterday, the whips have failed to persuade Nigel Mills to withdraw his amendment on reintroducing transitional controls for Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. He has already re-tabled it, simply with some tweaks to keep it up to date. But another crop of amendments from Tory backbenchers has just gone down as well. Tabled by Stephen Phillips, one of the signatories to the Mills amendment, the new clauses call for the Home Secretary to take action to limit EU migration if the

Now that the economic statistics are looking better, people are beginning to rediscover the once-fashionable thought that George Osborne is a great strategist. Things are coming together before the 2015 election in a way which makes life uncomfortable for Labour. I am not sure that ‘strategist’ is the right word, but I do think Mr Osborne deserves praise for something else. If you compare this government with the last, you will see that it is not dysfunctional in its internal relations. The coalition has constant frictions, but these are, as it were, built into the system. After nearly four years, there is no serious split or even known personal hatred

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_January_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Alex Wickham discuss Westminster’s wandering hands with Miranda Green” startat=790] Listen [/audioplayer]As I walked out of the bar, I noticed a Conservative MP following me. It had been an evening for young political activists, mostly teenage boys, and it was drawing to an end. I pretended to be engrossed in my phone, but the MP — well-liked, universally respected — lurched towards me, placing his arm around my waist and leaning in close. I could smell the whisky and cigars on his breath. ‘I’m just going to the toilet,’ he slurred, winking and gesturing at the gents. I had only worked in and around Parliament for a year, but

It’s by-election time once more. In just over three weeks, the voters of Wythenshawe and Sale East in Greater Manchester will head to the polls on the 13 February to decide who will replace Paul Goggins, the Labour MP who died suddenly earlier this month. By-elections are often thought to be a useful barometer of how the country is feeling, but in reality they are mostly fought on hyperlocal issues. This one will no doubt be watched closely given the rapidly approaching Euro elections in May. The Tories and Lib Dems are unlikely to do well in either battles, while Ukip and Labour will be going head-to-head in both instances.

It’s been a while since the Liberal Democrats commanded quite so much media attention or quite so much space on the front pages. If all publicity were good publicity, the volume of coverage that the party is receiving from the Rennard scandal would do wonders for its poll rating. But that’s not how it works, and particularly not when your top brass has spent months trying to tell voters that the Lib Dems are so very grown up, mature and thoughtful that they’d make any government better. It’s a little more difficult to see this party as the special secret ingredient in a good coalition when all the talk is

Mr S was in the bath thinking ‘My word, isn’t nature wonderful?’ when he heard the pleasing sound of an email hitting his inbox. It contained the photograph above. The man in the picture is none other than Richard Royal, who is on the Conservatives’ candidates list for the 2015 general election. RR is what we euphemistically call a “political consultant”, and he is also a former male model. Mr S hears that RR is a bit of hit with the ladies. Is this broody, Heathcliffe-esque figure the answer to Young Dave’s seemingly insoluble woman problem?

The Tories have always denied rumours that they might give their coalition colleagues an easier ride at constituency level in the 2015 general election. But even though all three parties are very much on an election war footing now, the Conservatives have, strangely, yet to select candidates to fight two of their favourite ministers. The constituencies for Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander currently have no candidates, along with 28 others (including MPs the Tories aren’t quite so keen on working with in Coalition, such as Lynne Featherstone), while the other 27 have candidates in place. Alexander is easy to work with in the Treasury (I reported before Christmas that he’d

I have this theory that the reason why the British public is so hugely in favour of cutting welfare to the bone, and the British media so hostile, is that many (maybe most) journalists still depend on financial support from their parents well into their 30s. Since most media folk come from the sort of backgrounds where home ownership is expected, and yet work in an industry where the typical salary makes living anywhere near London extremely difficult, they feel too ashamed to opine on ‘scroungers’ because, well, they are scroungers. Anyway, maybe that’s what’s called projection. Most people in politics, like those in the media, tend to come from

As the bell announcing the afternoon sittings in Parliament rang across Westminster, the Lib Dems  announced that Lord Rennard will have his membership of the party suspended pending a new disciplinary procedure for failing to apologise to the women who he allegedly behaved inappropriately towards. A spokesman said: ‘Nick Clegg made clear last week, and again this morning, that it would be inappropriate for Lord Rennard to resume the Liberal Democrat whip unless he apologises. Lord Rennard has refused to do so. ‘The Regional Parties Committee, which oversees disciplinary procedures under the English Party membership rules, today decided to suspend Lord Rennard’s membership of the party pending a disciplinary procedure.