Politics

Ben Brogan reports that David Davis has put off resigning as an MP. The word in Westminster is that he is waiting until Wednesday as he intends to go out with a question to Gordon Brown at PMQs. (Considering that the Speaker refused to let Davis announce that he was standing down as an MP in the chamber, he really should—in the interests of fair play—call on Davis on Wednesday.) This is probably Davis’s last moment when he will be in full command of the news agenda and a killer question would keep the issue in the headlines for the next few days. Leave your suggested questions in the comments,

Hm. I’m not sure about Cameron’s ‘green’ speech today. Not because I have anything hugely against the green agenda per se. But I am concerned about how the current Government’s environmental taxes have trickled downwards and hit the public hard in the pocket. Of course, Cameron says that he is too. Although this passage, in particular, could create the opposite impression: “I understand that right now the cost of living is the number one concern for Britain’s families. And I understand, with that backdrop, why people might think fighting climate change seems a costly diversion. But those who say we’ve got to choose either the environment or the economy, who say, ‘look, we can’t tackle

The Irish “no” vote just gets better and better. The Plan B, as Wolfgang Müünchau says in today’s Financial Times, probably is to carry on without Ireland and create what many countries have wanted for some time: a two tier Europe. So the obvious question is: how do we sign up? Suddenly, Brown’s decision to ratify the Lisbon Treaty becomes more than just a futile act of arrogance. It would wrongly place Britain amongst the enthusiasts, whereas the British public’s position is identical to Ireland’s: yes to EU, no to Lisbon. If this is an option, it is one that British government is honour bound to seize as this is,

The Irish no vote provides the Tories with a golden opportunity to make Gordon Brown’s trustworthiness the defining political issue of the summer. Brown stood in 2005 on a manifesto that promised a vote on the European Constitution he then reneged on that promise; the Lisbon Treaty is nowhere near different enough from the constitution to justify going back on that manifesto commitment. When Brown did this he was popular enough to ride out the ensuing storm. Now, the situation is very different. David Cameron’s statement on Friday night was strong, accusing the government of the “height of arrogance” for pushing on with ratification. But on Wednesday when the House of

The split between the Westminster Village and the public at large over whether David Davis’s resignation was a moment of madness or an act of profound principle is rapidly becoming the story. Matthew Parris turns his attention to it with his typical eloquence in his column in The Times today. Most people in Westminster think that Davis has made a huge mistake because they can not see how he keeps 42 days and his fight against it in the news 10, let alone 100, days from now. Indeed, his resignation has already been eclipsed as a story by the Irish no vote. I suspect that the fuel strike will push

Is Davis’ action really unprecedented? The latest issue of The House magazine has a piece by Vernon Bogdanor, perhaps the best politics academic in Britain. He names all previous by-election candidates, almost all of which changed party and believed they had a moral duty to seek a new mandate (Quentin Davies take note). Duchess of Atholl, 1938, Conservative to independent, Richard Acland, 1955, Labour to independent. Dick Taverne (now-Lord Taverne), 1973, Labour to Democratic Labour. Bruce Douglas-Mann, 1982, Labour to independent SDP. Of the above, only Taverne kept his seat. Bogdanor says the closest comparison is when 15 Ulster unionists resigned in 1986 over the Anglo-Irish agreement, ie to reinforce the