Theresa may

Who is taking all the big, difficult decisions in government at the moment? Not Theresa May, who seems to be caught up in a particularly bad bout of prevarication. Sajid Javid’s announcement today that there will be a review into the use of medicinal cannabis came just 24 hours after his boss said there was a ‘very good reason’ for the current rules being in place. Yesterday May had also tried to block Javid from raising the matter at Cabinet, arguing that it hadn’t been on the agenda. It’s just one example of Cabinet ministers mounting very public campaigns for a policy change which they then get all the credit

So the Tories have, as The Spectator predicted last month, announced an extra £384 million a week for the National Health Service – something Theresa May was perfectly happy to sell this morning as being the ‘Brexit dividend’ that Boris Johnson had been pressuring her for. This is an odd choice, given it is impossible to know what the real ‘Brexit dividend’ will be when we haven’t yet left the European Union. Indeed, May couldn’t say very much at all about how this extra NHS money will be funded: that’s presumably because no Prime Minister wants to tell voters how much more tax they’ll be paying, regardless of whether that

Next week, Theresa May will announce a massive cash injection for the NHS. As I say in The Sun this morning, in normal times, this would be one of the defining moments of her premiership. But this announcement will be overshadowed by the latest parliamentary drama over Brexit. Westminster will be waiting to see if May can win her Wednesday showdown with the Remain Tory rebels over how much control parliament should have over the Brexit process. Those close to May admit that they just don’t know if they have the votes to win. One of those intimately involved in trying to see off the rebels admits that they are

How did the government manage to engineer a ‘compromise’ amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill that’s left it in greater danger of a defeat? On Tuesday, Theresa May gave the pro-Remain rebels assurances that there would be an amendment that they could support in order to avoid defeat on that day, but the amendment published by the government clearly hasn’t met those assurances. It also initially seems bafflingly clumsy that the key figure on the Remain side, Dominic Grieve, was not consulted about the final wording of the government’s amendment. Why drop something on the chief rebel when you want to avoid a rebellion? The explanation for this seems to

This week Brexit reached its Somme. The government has been bogged down in votes on amendments inserted into its Brexit bill by the House of Lords. Theresa May saw off the threat of cabinet resignations only to have a more junior minister resign, as he put it, in order to voice the concerns of his constituents (although, as has been pointed out, a majority of them actually voted to leave the EU). It all looks a mess. The Brexit process would have been unpleasant enough with the small majority which the Prime Minister inherited from David Cameron. After losing even that, it has become a game of internal pork-barrel politics

I hate to take issue with a fellow Spectator writer, but Robert Peston’s revelation that a “no deal” Brexit is now off the table strikes me as a prime example of Westminster’s ability to ignore the bleeding obvious for months on end then talk cobblers in an authoritative voice when finally forced to confront reality. Robert is far from alone in his conclusion about last night’s Commons vote. To be honest, I’m just taking issue with his post because the spectacle of Spectator writers disagreeing seems to interest some people, probably because they struggle with the idea of one publication publishing multiple and contradictory viewpoints. I’m happy to oblige that

Given this morning’s ministerial resignation, all looked set fair for an afternoon of high drama in the Commons over the EU Withdrawal Bill. In the end, though, the drama was rather quieter, with the government managing to persuade the Remainer rebels to stand down – temporarily – on the matter of a ‘meaningful vote’. Chief Whip Julian Smith spent the majority of the debate buzzing about the Chamber, consulting with ministers and backbenchers and also beckoning MPs out of the room in little groups. It is since clear that Smith was negotiating the compromise that Solicitor General Robert Buckland started offering during the debate. Initially, Buckland offered the rebels ‘structured

Tomorrow marks a year since Theresa May sat her dejected parliamentary party down and promised that ‘I got us into this mess and I’ll get us out of it’. She was speaking amid the chaos of the snap election that she’d called, and it wasn’t clear whether the Prime Minister was going to be able to form a government, let alone survive as leader for very long. Tonight, she’s still here but still appealing to Conservative MPs for unity as the ‘crunch stage’ of the EU withdrawal bill arrives in the Commons. The briefing over the weekend did suggest that the Prime Minister was probably going to be ok, though

Unity is the buzzword in the Conservative party this week. With a series of crunch votes due on Tuesday and Wednesday over the EU withdrawal bill, senior Tories have been at pains to tell unruly colleagues it’s time to put their differences aside and come together. Over the weekend, Amber Rudd and ex-leader Iain Duncan Smith warned that any Commons rebellions would be a win for Labour – and therefore bring Corbyn closer to entering No 10. It was a message echoed by David Lidington on the Andrew Marr show. No 10 are increasingly confident that this new comradely spirit will prove contagious. Within government, concerns have eased over the two

After a morning of high drama in Westminster, the UK government now has a backstop proposal to put to the EU. Last night, the backstop text said that it was time limited but didn’t specify an end date. In two meetings with the Prime Minister this morning, David Davis demanded changes. He has got some concessions: the text now talks about how ‘The UK expects the future arrangement to be in place by December 2021’. But there is no hard cut-off date in the text. Theresa May was acutely aware that if one had been included, the EU would have rejected it out of hand. We now wait to see