Uk politics

With the upcoming teaching unions’ strikes, is Michael Gove battling the teachers? Just days after the new school term has begun, the unions have announced the dates of the strikes — including one in the middle of the Tory conference — while blaming the Education Secretary for not listening to the concerns of their members. As Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT, said on the World at One today: ‘With pay, pensions and working conditions being systematically attacked and an education secretary who refuses to listen or negotiate teachers now have no other choice’  listen to ‘Michael Gove & Christine Blower on the teaching unions’ strikes’ on Audioboo

Iain Duncan Smith was in an aggressive mood when he appeared before MPs this morning to explain the latest awkward report on universal credit to the Commons. He combined his anger with a plethora of jargon. This made for an interesting debate, as it’s very difficult to sound punchy and angry while talking about ‘agile processes’, ‘roll-outs’ and ‘pathfinders’ (although mercifully he didn’t use ‘pathfinder as a verb’, as he and other colleagues have in the past). listen to ‘Iain Duncan Smith defends his welfare reforms in the Commons.’ on Audioboo At one point the Work and Pensions Secretary forcefully told MPs that he was looking at ‘rolling out in the

In this week’s Spectator, columnist Toby Young toys with the idea of standing as a Conservative candidate in in Hammersmith. He examines the factors stacked against any chance of success, and the reasons he has for standing: Suppose I won. Then what? I’d be faced with the pride-swallowing siege that is the life of a newly elected MP. Forget about affairs of state. The only decision I’d have to make would be who to suck up to more, George Osborne or John Bercow? Neither prospect fills me with joy. Being a backbench MP is drudge work for the most part and I’d have to take a salary cut to do

Jesse Norman’s departure from the policy board hasn’t come as a huge surprise to many Tory MPs: I was with one after the vote who was subjecting his twitter feed to a lengthy examination to work out whether Norman was stranded overseas. The only evidence available was that Norman went to a beer festival on 26 August and found out about the recall from the BBC and Easyjet. ‘I love beer festivals, but I also know when to turn up,’ grumbled the MP. It would have been a terrible message to send to other backbenchers if Norman hadn’t been moved from his job. This is a sign of Number 10

Jesse Norman is to leave the Number 10 policy board after abstaining in last week’s vote on Syria, I have learned. It was made clear to the Tory MP, who is known to have disagreed with the government’s position on Syria, that this was an inevitable consequence of avoiding a three-line whip vote. But I understand that the decision was made more in sorrow than in anger, and sources hope the path back for Norman will be a quick one. An announcement on his replacement will be made shortly. The policy board hasn’t, as I revealed in the politics column last week, gelled brilliantly yet, but colleagues found Norman impressive

Ed Miliband needs to reassure his backbenchers that he does indeed have a good plan after the GMB union announced it was cutting its affiliation funds to the party by 90 per cent. But someone else already has a plan: and it looks strangely like one that will cause the Labour leader a bit of grief. Tom Watson has this morning written a blog in which he suggests that ending the link between the party and the unions ‘is a very serious development that threatens a pillar of our democracy that has endured for over one hundred years’.  He writes: ‘Over the next year we have been asked to consider