Conservative party

The benefits debate in Westminster will rage on long after today’s vote in the Commons. It’s not just a straight row between the government and opposition over who is really on the side of hard working people, nor is it just a debate within the two governing parties. It seems that divisions are now opening in the higher echelons of the Tory machine over just how hard to push the rhetoric. More outspoken MPs — like Dr Sarah Wollaston — have taken to the airwaves to decry the term ‘scroungers’ and ‘skivers’, but most surprisingly even Lynton Crosby, who Labour are desperate to paint as a rather rash and extreme

David Cameron and Nick Clegg will launch the coalition’s mid-term review tomorrow. There will be some announcements in it. But I understand that some of the most interesting, new coalition policies are being held out from it. The government wants to keep some of its powder back for later. There are also some final details to be worked out in certain areas. I’m informed that there’ll be a Quad on childcare this week. The coalition is close to agreement on a package which, as I say in the Mail on Sunday, would see working mothers receive thousands of pounds of help with childcare costs for the under fives. This will

David Cameron’s New Year message is a rather sober one, but it’s not downbeat. The theme is ‘realism and optimism’ and the Tory leader’s aim is to demonstrate to voters that his policies are putting the country on the right track, and to that end he makes some strong points on deficit reduction, unemployment, education, welfare, tax and pensions. Encouraging optimism about Britain’s trajectory is important because 2013 is going to be a difficult year, not just for the Conservative party internally on issues such as Europe and gay marriage, but for the Coalition, as new cuts come in and critics call on the government to change tack. Ed Miliband’s

The Andrew Mitchell story has always been about class. If all Mitchell was alleged to have said was ‘you supposed to f’ing help us’ there would have been some clucking and some mockery but no serious calls for his resignation. But the word ‘pleb’ and the phrase ‘know your place’ made the charge toxic. This was also what made some in Number 10 so queasy about any kind of robust defence of Mitchell; the Cameroons believe that whenever the conservation is about class the Tories are losing. This class angle is also what enabled the Labour Party to make political hay out of the issue. But the more we find

In spite of the best efforts of its ministers in the Lords, it looks as though the government is going to face a vote on the dreaded boundaries legislation early next year, with the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill returning to the Upper Chamber in January. The big story is that the Lib Dems will be able to kick the reforms away until 2018 using an amendment, but it isn’t just the members of the smaller Coalition party who will be rebelling against government policy. Tory MP Glyn Davies has now come out as an opponent of the reforms, too. On his blog, he writes that he is ‘contemplating voting

Whose fault is it that the Tory party is so rebellious? Some think it’s the beastly backbenchers, while others argue it’s the Tory leadership. I was amused to watch a beaming Brian Binley lead David Cameron into the 1922 committee on Wednesday, given the backbencher was only recently penning an angry letter to the press about how the Prime Minister was ruining everything. There will always be people like Binley in every party, and Downing Street has made very clear that it would answer his desire for a move to the right by staying firmly in the centre ground. But are there really are so many other Conservative MPs who

If the Tories are to win a working majority at the next election, they are going to have to take seats off Labour. Even if the Tories won every single Liberal Democrat seat they are targeting — something that is highly unlikely to happen, they would still only have a majority of one. Doing this after five years of austerity government is going to be extremely difficult. The Tory strategy for it, involves boosting the party’s vote among groups that the party traditionally underperforms with. Tellingly, Grant Shapps is launching the Tory target seats campaign today in a Hindu temple in Harrow West, a seat where the Tories underperformed last

David Cameron’s appearance before the 1922 committee was designed to reassure his party, and he tried to do this by promising them that the Conservative party would be strong on Europe in 2015. It has been a hard term, and today’s PMQs was savage, so the Prime Minister decided to start his speech by telling them to think about the Conservative party’s record in government. He touched on welfare, on schools, on the NHS – in particular mixed sex wards and waiting times – and income tax. He is clearly looking forward to the next election, too, as he mentioned the appointment of Lynton Crosby, to cheers from those listening,

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