Uk politics

Yesterday the Prime Minister made a point of showing his backbench how very willing he was to listen to their concerns about the European Union. Today, as he gave evidence to the Liaison Committee, David Cameron made a point of suggesting his Liberal Democrat coalition partners are a little less willing when it comes to reviewing the EU’s powers.  Asked when he would launch the balance of competencies review, which will examine the impact of EU law on Britain, the Prime Minister said: ‘I hope that we will be able to start the process before the summer, but we need to seek full agreement before we launch it.’  He added:

Pressure has been building all weekend for the Prime Minister to give some form of concession to his eurosceptic backbenchers in his statement on the outcome of the Brussels summit. James blogged shortly before David Cameron stood up in the Commons that Tory MPs were being reassured that they were going to like what they would hear him, which a pro-European MP suspected would be ‘feeding a beast with an insatiable appetite’. This is the meat the Prime Minister threw to the eurosceptics: ‘Far from ruling out a referendum for the future, as a fresh deal in Europe becomes clear, we should consider how best to get the fresh consent

Tory MPs are plotting to oust Speaker Bercow, the Sun on Sunday reports today. They are apparently furious that Bercow allowed Chris Bryant to brand Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt a ‘liar’ in his party’s opposition day debate calling for a full investigation into Hunt’s conduct. The Speaker refused to censure Bryant because he argued the unparliamentary language mirrored the wording of Labour’s motion for the debate. This attempted coup is another sign of the fierce loyalty that backbenchers feel for the Culture Secretary. You insult Hunt, and you insult the party: the Lib Dems learned that after they allowed their MPs to abstain on that motion and lost any goodwill

The Libor scandal is both a threat and an opportunity for Labour. The threat is that the abuses took place under a regulatory system that was devised by the last Labour government and by a Chancellor who both Eds worked for. As I said yesterday, the Tories are determined to hammer Balls — a former City minister — on this. But the opportunity is that it offers Ed Miliband a chance to act as if he is the tribune of the people, the leader brave enough to take on the powerful. So as with News International and phone hacking, we’ve seen Miliband getting out in front in terms of calling

At the first meeting of the 1922 Committee following the 2010 election, I was the only new MP to speak. I used my time to set out why I would support a coalition: the country was in an economic crisis and at war; we knew what needed to be done – deal with the debt and radically reform education, welfare, local government, healthcare and defence; and we knew no one else was going to do it. In the following two years my rebelliousness has stretched as far as two abstentions on votes against opposition amendments. The first was on a Labour amendment to extend national insurance contribution holidays for start-ups