Conservative party

The government’s humiliating defeat on purdah is the first major victory for Eurosceptics in the battle on how the EU referendum is fought. Bernard Jenkin, one of the lead Tory rebels, appeared on the Today programme to explain why his gang took on the government last night: ‘They initially wanted to abolish the purdah rules altogether, which would mean going to back to the kind of referendum that Wales had in 1997 which was so roundly criticised by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, where the government was spending money and ministers were being deployed by the civil service to conduct the campaign. In the general election and local election, there is a very strong tradition that that

So as predicted on Coffee House earlier, Tory rebels and the Labour frontbench did manage to conspire together this evening to defeat the government on purdah. The Commons voted against amendment 53 to the EU Referendum Bill 285 ayes to 312 noes, and then did not oppose Labour’s amendment 4, which means that a ‘full fat’ version of purdah has been approved by MPs. The Labour celebrations of this defeat were notably muted: it’s difficult to get too excited when your own party is in turmoil. But David Cameron has just suffered a defeat on a matter that the whips and ministers had been scheming over for months. First they snuck

Was there ever a more unilluminating political idea — for voters rather than practitioners — than triangulation? For those readers so pure and high-minded that they have not followed politics for 20 years, I should explain that triangulation came from Bill Clinton, was imported by Tony Blair, and is now practised by David Cameron. Clinton’s adviser, Dick Morris, put it thus: ‘The President needed to take a position that not only blended the best of each party’s views but also transcended them to constitute a third force in the debate.’ The Tories’ adoption of the Living Wage is the latest example. This concept, almost as mystically bogus as the medieval

Will the Tories scrap the Lib Dems’ silliest vanity project, free school meals for infants? The Daily Mail reports today that they might, amid spiralling costs and with the spending review approaching. Nick Clegg announced this daft scheme at his party’s conference in 2013. It sounded ever so wholesome when the Deputy Prime Minister promised a ‘healthy lunch’ for every child in reception and years 1 and 2. But the scheme – which also cost a lot more than intended to implement – was daft because it didn’t improve life for poor children. Sure, it was a nice ‘retail offer’ to parents who can afford to pay for lunch for their

A Jeremy Corbyn victory in the Labour leadership race now seems like a racing certainty. The consequences of this for Labour have been much discussed but in the magazine this week, I look at what it would mean for the Tories. The first, and most obvious, thing to say is that it would make 2020 the Tories’ election to lose — and they would have to make an epoch defining mistake to do so. But some Tories are worried about the prospect of a Corbyn victory. This isn’t just because they fear that bad opposition leads to bad government. But because they fret that Cameron and Osborne’s response to it will

Will ministers really avoid a defeat on the question of purdah in the EU referendum bill on Monday? They hope that amendments, tabled today (and attached in full here in advance of their publication tomorrow), will stop Conservative MPs flocking to Labour’s new clause that it has tabled to add to the Bill. But Labour sources tell me that they’re still considering voting against the amendment which brings back purdah but with a substantially narrowed scope. And given it only takes a handful of grumpy eurosceptics to vote against to make a defeat, the whips can’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet. Some eurosceptics I’ve spoken to think this

In this week’s Spectator, I profile the 2015 intake of Tory MPs: a bright, pragmatic bunch who don’t like to call themselves Thatcherite. Ministers who have sat in the Commons Chamber and heard maiden speeches from this new bunch have been seriously impressed, with some remarking that they’ve wondered what they’ve done with their own lives after hearing the extraordinary experiences that the new intake have brought with them into the Chamber. Those extraordinary experiences include working as postmen, teachers, doctors, rural auctioneers, and nurses. There are very few political animals who’ve slaved as special advisers before becoming MPs, or whose families are political dynasties. But the bulk of these

Watching the very pleasant Liz Kendall on television this week, I was struck by how extraordinary it is that more than 40 years have now passed since the Conservatives selected a woman leader and still the Labour party cannot bring itself to do so. (Although, come to think of it, it took Labour 142 years to catch up with the Conservatives in selecting a Jew, so perhaps we have another century to wait.) I am not necessarily saying that Ms Kendall is the answer — she seems able, but inexperienced — but there does appear to be a serious barrier to women at the very top of the Labour party.

What are the best political positions for Labour and the Conservatives to take to win back more voters? The Tories want to maintain and extend their victory, while Labour is trying to work out how to unite the left and encourage more people to turn out for the party. These two parties used to focus their attention on swing voters in the centre-ground, but politics has fragmented too much for that now. Things are, naturally, more difficult for Labour. The scale of its 2015 defeat means that just taking votes and seats from the SNP, Plaid and the Greens is insufficient to give the party a majority in 2020. The

Will David Cameron really consider staying on as Prime Minister for the 2020 election as well? Ever since the Sun on Sunday reported that some of the Tory leader’s colleagues were agitating for him to continue, there has been feverish speculation about whether he will. Those MPs in favour of a longer reign from Cameron claim that he made his commitment to go before the next election while chopping vegetables in his kitchen and that he wasn’t really thinking. But he has reiterated that commitment since the election, and so clearly doesn’t think it was a mistake worth correcting. But the chatter about the PM going ‘on and on’, as

The Tories are on a mission to brand themselves the Workers’ Party while Labour messes about with its leadership contest. The party has got the energetic Robert Halfon as its Deputy Chairman, and he is fizzing with ideas on how to improve the Conservative appeal to working class voters to the extent that they start seeing the Tories as their natural home, not Labour. Labour types might scoff, but if the past few months have taught us anything, it’s that you cannot take ‘your’ voters for granted as staying ‘yours’, with Scotland being the prime example. As I explain in the Sun today, the party has plans to get on

Without wanting to dispel the utter euphoria that Tories are feeling at the current state of the Labour party, they do have a tricky autumn to get through which they don’t seem to be thinking much about. In today’s Times I set out some of the looming Tory rebellions on a range of different policies due for Commons scrutiny this autumn. There is, of course, the possibility that the whips pull many of these votes, which means that there will be problems in Parliament, but not actual rebellions in the Commons. The Tories may be trying to pass various policies that aren’t particularly popular, but they’re being nimble about it,