Politics

Politics abhors a news vacuum. So with the government on holiday, attention shifts to the opposition. This is why oppositions normally have a whole series of summer stories ready to fill this vacuum. But, oddly, we have heard little from the Labour front bench in the last ten days or so. One consequence of this is that criticisms of Ed Miliband’s leadership by the Labour backbencher George Mudie are going to get more play than they normally would in tomorrow’s papers. There’ve been none of the attacks on a government that you would expect from the opposition in the penultimate summer before a general election. It is hard not to

Boris Johnson will not stand for parliament at the next election, The Spectator understands. The Mayor of London has told the Cameron circle that he will not seek to return to the Commons in a pre-2015 by-election, nor will he stand at the general election. Boris’s decision not to be a candidate in 2015 indicates that he expects Cameron still to be Prime Minister and party leader after the general election. He has told friends that he has no desire to spend three years serving under Cameron. He reasons that if Cameron loses, creating a Tory leadership vacancy, he’ll be able to persuade an MP to rapidly stand aside for

Charming little spat between the Conservative Party and George Orwell’s old literary haunt, Tribune. The magazine, which is edited by a former Labour councillor, is up in arms because the Tories will only give it one free pass to their autumn conference. Given that the periodical has only three members of staff and is the chosen reading matter of what’s left of the very left, Steerpike can see why the Tories reckon that one freeloading tribune of the people will be enough. But former Tribune editor Mark Seddon says: ‘It’s an outrage that they should pick on a small paper because it happens to be left-wing.’ A Tory insider hit back this afternoon: ‘This is typical of

Any MP will tell you that the summer recess is not a holiday. Colleagues on all sides of the House spend the long break working very hard in their constituencies, they say. So here’s a way to take a break from those pesky voters. All MPs were recently emailed the following: ‘URGENT | HMG Election Observation Mission | Maldives | 5-9 September 2013 (exact dates to be confirmed) ‘We are urgently looking for four Members (party/gender balance) to take part in a proposed HMG election observation mission to Maldives for the forthcoming Presidential elections due in September. As part of the mission Members will join FCO staff from the British

In the last few months, the Tories have–quite deliberately—behaved like an aggressive opposition. They’ve sought to constantly attack Labour, trying to force them onto the back foot. Even with David Cameron and George Osborne away on holiday, the Tories are determined to keep doing this. On Wednesday, Grant Shapps will launch the Tories’ summer offensive against Labour. He, in the kind of language more commonly used to promote summer horror films than a political agenda, will invite voters ‘to imagine a world where Ed Balls and Ed Miliband end up back in Downing Street.’ This is all part of the Tories’ efforts to link Miliband to Gordon Brown and memories