Conservative party

The latest twist in the Andrew Mitchell story is particularly intriguing. The Guardian is reporting that news of the confrontation between the police and the chief whip was passed onto Downing Street by the deputy chief whip John Randall. Now, Randall and Mitchell were known not to get on and Randall played a key part in forcing Mitchell out by indicating that he was not comfortable working under him. This latest news threatens to inject yet more poison into the Tory bloodstream. If brother whips can treat each other like this, what hope party discipline? But one longstanding Conservative MP made the case to me just now that Randall’s behaviour is

There’s nothing wrong with Nick Clegg putting some distance between his party and the Conservatives. Today the Liberal Democrat leader is going to open up about the gory details of government, explaining where his party has held the Tories back, and heralding a new era where he and colleagues are honest about what they actually think of policies. On Friday, I argued that this sort of honesty about the workings of coalition government was a good thing. But there is one caveat to this. Conservative MPs are pretty unhappy at present, and it’s not just that they are overtired before the Christmas break. Their unhappiness stems partly from the splits

This week’s developments over gay marriage have left a febrile atmosphere in the Conservative party. As Fraser wrote yesterday, David Cameron seems to have driven his party ‘quite mad’ by pursuing the policy, and the mood in the tearoom after Maria Miller’s statement on Tuesday certainly seems to have underlined that. I understand from a number of MPs that there was an ‘excitable’ confrontation between a member of the 2010 intake and one of the members of the Freedom to Marry group. The new MP was irritated by the position that his colleague had taken and was jabbing his finger angrily as he spoke. One of the names on the

Ever since the issue of gay marriage returned to British politics, we have seen the debate become crazier and crazier.  When Tony Blair handled this with his Civil Partnerships Act 2004, he did so with care and discretion, mindful of deeply-held opinions on either side of the debate. David Cameron seems to pursue gay marriage as some kind of defining mission statement, and seems to have driven his party quite mad. Nick Clegg released a speech drawing a distinction between the supporters of gay marriage and ‘bigots’. He revoked the b-word, but his tactic was clear. We are witnessing an attempt to bring American-style culture war to a country that

What do people take away from the 2011 census? I cannot help but see the clearest possible reason for why trust of politicians is at an all-time low. Perhaps other voting members of the public remember as far back as 2004 when the Labour government predicted that fewer than 20,000 people would come to Britain from those Eastern European countries given full access to the UK labour market. As of last year the Office of National Statistics confirmed at least 669,000 people from these countries working in the UK. Or they might remember Labour immigration minister Phil Woolas promising in an interview with the Times in 2008 that, ‘It’s been

After giving her statement to the House of Commons on the government’s plans for gay marriage, Maria Miller held a meeting with Tory MPs. I understand that the meeting was a question-and-answer session designed to help reassure Tories about the ‘quadruple lock’. It was well-attended, although apparently the Secretary of State was around 25 minutes late, which meant Peter Bone left early to make another appointment. This was immediately interpreted as a walkout in protest from Bone, who is one of the more vocal opponents of the legislation. I spoke to Bone this evening, who said ‘I wasn’t storming out: it was a private Q&A meeting with Maria Miller who

Liam Fox sparked a row with a former diplomat today after accusing the Foreign Office of an institutional bias towards greater integration with the European Union. The former Defence Secretary is building up a reputation for himself as a rallying figure for the eurosceptic right wing of the Conservative party with a series of speeches on Britain’s relationship with Europe, and today he attacked the civil service for having a weak spot for the continent. He told an Open Europe event at the Royal United Services Institute that the government’s desire to renegotiate its EU position was impaired as a result of the FCO being ‘totally wedded to the concept

Eric Pickles is one of the few characters in contemporary British politics. In an interview with The Spectator this week, he chides Vince Cable for not deregulating enough, admits that he gets ‘occasionally irked’ by George Osborne’s impatience on policy, and reveals that ‘‘I was asked by a senior member of the government, two weeks after the National Planning Framework had come into being, why it hadn’t worked.’ But Pickles also gives us a glimpse of a coming Tory split. He says that it is ‘ridiculous’ that individuals can appeal their cases all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. He wants to stop this, which

I’ve been passed the Tory ‘lines to take’ for MPs to use in media interviews for the Autumn Statement today. As I blogged a little earlier, the words ‘global race’ will be cropping up a lot over the next couple of years as a key Conservative phrase, and it looks as though today will be no exception, with the Chancellor using the image in his autumn statement. I note that MPs will also be expected to use it. The lines also focus on the decision to switch revenue to capital spending: ‘Today the Chancellor and Chief Secretary have told Cabinet that they will announce at the Autumn Statement over £5

Last week we had Nick Boles extolling the virtues of concreting over what green space we still have in order to tackle an alleged housing shortage. And now, in today’s FT, we have Conservative ‘Climate Change Minister’ Greg Barker claiming that wind farms are not merely ‘wonderful’ and ‘majestic’ but so much so that those near his Sussex constituency have become a ‘tourist attraction.’ What an extraordinary vision of the Conservative future he summons up. Has Mr Barker ever considered, among other things, the law of diminishing returns?  I suppose it is possible that someone might get in their car once in order to gawk at the despoliation of our

Kelvin MacKenzie wants a British version of the Italy’s Northern League. His aim is to have a Southern Party that would push for home rule for London and the South East and oppose fiscal transfers from the South East to the rest of the country. The piece is classic MacKenzie polemic. But it does speak to the growing regionalisation of British politics, a subject that Neil O’Brien addressed for us in his final piece before becoming an adviser to George Osborne. Outside of London, Labour only have four MPs in the South East and in the European elections, Labour came fifth in the region — behind even the Greens. For