All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Trouble continues to brew inside Iran. The ordinarily supine Attorney-General, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, has defied Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by preventing him from visiting an imprisoned aide. Ahmadinejad is viewed as having acted against the country’s powerful clerical establishment, with whom Ejehi is closely aligned. Indeed, Ahmadinejad’s aide is currently being detained over charges of publishing
The BBC management cannot have it both ways. They cannot simultaneously insist that the decision to drop the Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile was made by the editor of the programme, Peter Rippon, and Peter Rippon alone without pressure from above – and then announce that Peter Rippon’s blog which explained why he had made
The government suffered an awkward defeat in the House of Lords this afternoon on its changes to council tax benefit. Rebels on an amendment to the Local Government Finance Bill calling for an independent review of the changes to be carried out within three years of their introduction included 16 Liberal Democrats. Labour has dubbed
Because our Parliament discusses little of significance anymore, most of the public tend to ignore it. The perception that the weekly silliness of Prime Minister’s Questions constitutes Parliamentary business is enough to put any normal person off. And apart from that weekly bun-fight, even the media barely bothers to report on the work of either
Throughout his statement on the European Council, David Cameron seemed slightly irritated. One sensed that the headlines of the last few days have rather got under his skin. Cameron began by declaring that the Council meeting had made ‘limited progress’, which is hardly much to report to the House. He also was unable to resist
Plenty of newspapers have been following the scent of my magazine report that Lynton Crosby is about to return to the Tory fold. Here’s something to help them along. One Tory government source tells me that the Tory leadership ‘are trying to twist his arm’ because ‘there’s a recognition that he would bring some focus,
David Cameron appears to be looking for a suite of examples for his party that he’s still fighting their corner. He’s about to deliver his speech on offenders, and his spokesman has just suggested he’s up for a real scrap on the European Union budget, too. The FT’s splash this morning is that Angela Merkel
It’s clear the government has had a bad week when the Prime Minister pops up on a Monday with a crowd-pleasing policy announcement. Recent re-launches have been shared by senior Lib Dems and Tories following the collapse of Lords reform, for example, to demonstrate that the Coalition is still working well. But today, the Lib
In between confusing the Chamber just a little bit more on his European policy this afternoon, David Cameron appeared to be auditioning to work as his own press officer, reading out a list of the government’s achievements such as falling unemployment and lower inflation figures over the past week to MPs, just in case they’d
It has to be another example of The Mandelson Mephistopheles Effect. One by one, all of Peter’s friends have cosmic awfulness visited upon them – the latest being the millionaire Nat Rothschild. His mining company is in trouble and he’s been forced to resign from its board; one unnamed city broker said he would never
I don’t suppose too many Coffee House readers will have noticed, but the EU is currently without a dedicated health commissioner. This is because the holder of that important office, a nondescript former Maltese politician called John Dalli, resigned last week in connection with an alleged lobbying scandal. So, until they can find another nondescript Maltese politican
The Scottish National Party conference in Perth ought to have been a festival of ideas, showcasing solutions that only be applied by independence. Instead it has reminded everyone that the SNP is bereft of ideas* – and why the union is not in as much danger as Alex Salmond makes out. Salmond’s speech laid into
Theresa May’s political stock has risen this week. Announcing an intention to opt-out of EU law and order directives pleased Tory MPs while her decision not to extradite Gary McKinnon was popular. But we’ve also seen the Home Secretary operating -rarely for her – beyond her brief. She played a key role in pushing Andrew
Ed Miliband has adopted a rather simple strategy: do nothing, and wait for your opponents to screw up. It’s lazy, but undoubtedly effective. The Tories are playing along perfectly. The last week has given plenty ammunition for his new theme — which he repeated during his union Sponsored Walk yesterday — ‘they think they are
Underlying this week’s media mess on the government’s energy policy was a good intentioned pitch by David Cameron to his ‘strivers’: hard-working people who struggle to make ends meet. His speech at last week’s party conference was the launchpad for this new mission, and included the Prime Minister telling members that ‘it’s not enough to
Ed Miliband’s speech to the anti-cuts rally today was well-pitched. The lines about how any government would have to make cuts guaranteed him the jeers that he needed to show that he wasn’t pandering to his audience. What should worry the Tories, though, is not the generic anti-austerity and pro-NHS rhetoric but the direct pitch
Class is back with a vengeance, and not just thanks to the Andrew Mitchell saga. Today’s newspapers are chock full of stories across the news spectrum linked back to class. The Mail, for example, has declared all-out war on the government, with a splash of ‘Who do you they think they are?’ — a front page
At Prime Minister’s Questions this week, David Cameron referred to today’s TUC rally as the ‘most expensive sponsored walk in history’, a joke that the Tories have now taken one step further. Ahead of Ed Miliband’s speech to marchers at tomorrow’s anti-cuts demo in central London the Conservatives have launched Red Ed’s Sponsored Walk, a satirical
Last week there were reports that Unite were going to be offering unemployed people a chance to join their trade union for as little as 50p a week. In doing so, they would be offered services such as legal support and education facilities. Instead of welcoming this as a brilliant Big Society idea to help the
Andrew Mitchell has just announced his resignation as chief whip following the row about his altercation with a police officer at the Downing Street gates. His resignation letter, which you can read in full here says: ‘Over the last two days it has become clear to me that whatever the rights and wrongs of the
Sir George Young’s appointment as chief whip is testament to both the respect David Cameron holds him in and the Prime Minister’s intense dislike of reshuffles. This is the second time that Cameron has asked Young to step in after a colleague has imploded, the first time was in 2009 when Alan Duncan was caught
Andrew Mitchell’s resignation does not leave David Cameron looking weak, as Labour is claiming tonight. The weekend press will have plenty fun with all this. But in the longer run, it’s the best option – and for everyone involved. The Prime Minister had an unattractive choice: he could cut his Chief Whip adrift, and give
David Cameron is determined to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership. But to get a good deal and to show his own eurosceptics – let alone UKIP voters – that he’s serious about this, he is going to have to be prepared to say that he would be prepared to leave if the rest
ITV’s Rachel Townsend had a more exciting train journey into Euston than she might have expected this afternoon. She discovered George Osborne sitting in first class with a standard ticket. CLASS. His aide tells ticket collector he cannot possibly move and sit with the likes of us in standard class and requests he is allowed
David Cameron was very grumpy with Labour’s Chris Bryant at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, sniping that as Bryant hadn’t apologised to him for speaking in the Commons about embargoed information, he wouldn’t answer his question. Bryant and his colleague Harriet Harman have made a bit of a stink about this, and today the Prime
David Cameron’s announcement in the House of Commons on Wednesday – that he would force energy companies to give people the lowest tariff – caused a stir. The Downing Street comms machine has been trying to clarify the new policy ever since and we’re only just starting to see a clear idea taking shape. So
Though the government’s planning reforms will make it easier for developments supported by local communities to gain planning permission, one of the big blockages in the system is made up of developers themselves. The government is becoming increasingly aware of this, and one ministerial aide close to housing policy has come up with a solution.
Getting into arguments with people on the internet about selective quoting is generally a waste of time. But sometimes the intellectual dishonesty is such that one can’t help but respond. Political Scrapbook ran a post yesterday headlined ‘EX-CHAIRMAN OF POLICY EXCHANGE SAYS SAVILE SHOULD KEEP HIS KNIGHTHOOD’, though the headline now seems to have changed.
Today’s borrowing figures show that the government has borrowed £2.6 billion more so far this fiscal year than it did in the same six months last year*, allowing Labour to continue to claim that the deficit is rising. This is, of course, embarrassing to a Chancellor who defines himself by deficit reduction — but, all things considered,
The Treasury Select Committee has published a stinging report this morning on the failings of the Financial Services Authority’s oversight of RBS. The MPs on the committee was unimpressed, concluding that the FSA could and should have intervened in the bank’s takeover of ABN Amro. Its members believe the regulator should have stopped the takeover,
I have a piece in this week’s magazine on the fall of Barack Obama. I’m not saying he may not still win, just that even if he does he will be a diminished President. It’s available online here.
How hard can it be to tell the difference between a samurai sword and a white cane? Relatedly, how difficult is to be accepted as the kind of person qualified to serve as a member of the Lancashire police? The news that a 61-year old blind man was tasered by police searching for a “suspect”
The Daily Telegraph is the paper that broke the expenses scandal and its splash tomorrow threatens to become the latest chapter in this sorry saga. Holly Watt reports that ‘at least eight MPs are either letting properties to, or renting from, another MP’. Now, it is worth stressing that this is not against the rules.
David Cameron has arrived in Brussels for a meeting of the European Council, and has offered further helpful clarification of what exactly he means to do about energy bills. The Prime Minister said: ‘I want to be on the side of hard-pressed, hard-working families who often struggle to pay energy bills. That’s what I said
