Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator and author of Why We Get the Wrong Politicians. She also presents Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.
Labour had an aggressive session at Work and Pensions Questions today, attacking the Conservatives on disability benefit cuts, and on whether they had any morals. Normally questions in the Commons are supposed to be about the design of policies, but today Owen Smith appeared to be taking a leaf out of Jeremy Corbyn’s book, asking
As the EU referendum campaign wears on, the rules of engagement from both sides are becoming clearer – or at least the rules that both sides would like to use for engagement. The Inners are in favour, unsurprisingly, of throwing everything they can at the campaign to keep Britain in the EU. The Outers are
Based on the tone that he took on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, we can expect George Osborne to take a rather defiant tone as he unveils this week’s Budget. The Chancellor has had a difficult few weeks, not least because of the retreat on pension reforms and defeat on Sunday trading, but he
What is Labour’s biggest obstacle to getting back into government any time soon? Those who’ve spent any time thinking about the general election result – and the party still doesn’t talk that much about May 2015 – will say that until voters trust the party on the economy, it is not going to succeed. John
David Cameron’s referendum campaign trail continued today, with the Prime Minister visiting Chester and giving a speech defending Britain’s membership of the European Union. And on the other side his Cabinet colleague Chris Grayling gave a speech warning about the dangers of continuing to stay in the bloc. Neither speech today was particularly angry with
One of the poorest lines in Dan Jarvis’s speech this morning was not the pre-briefed line about being ‘tough on inequality, tough on the causes of inequality’, which has already endured sufficient mockery. It was this seemingly innocuous proposal: ‘Let’s be honest – MPs who represent areas along the HS2 route or in the Heathrow
Over the past few weeks, talk of a potential coup against Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader has grown, with most expecting some sort of move from some section of the party in the summer. The chance of that move not dying the same embarrassing death as most Labour coups is still pretty slim, no matter how
In the past few minutes, the government has lost its attempt to relax Sunday trading laws in the Commons 317 votes to 286. The rebellion has been brewing for months, with ministers playing a game of chicken with angry Tory backbenchers right up to the vote. A last-minute attempt by George Osborne to stave off
Some ministers are in full-on campaign mode in the EU referendum, even as the normal business of Westminster continues. David Cameron continues to make visits around the country to make his case for Britain remaining in the European Union, while pro-Brexit ministers seem to be constantly giving speeches, interviews and penning angry op-eds about the
For the past few weeks, Labour MPs have been ratcheting up their plotting against Jeremy Corbyn. As I explained here, they have detailed planning sessions for a potential coup in the summer, and have broken their parliamentary party down into groups so that they can develop strategies for persuading each group to accept that the
One of the striking things about the European Union referendum debate so far – apart from how cross everyone is with each other – is how blokey the whole thing has been. There are high-profile women on either side of the debate – Theresa May (who has been rather quiet since her announcement that she
There is no small irony in the fact that Labour MPs were this evening reminded by their colleagues not to brief details of tonight’s parliamentary Labour party meeting before a spokesman for Corbyn went out into the Committee Corridor to, er, brief journalists about what happened at the meeting. The official account is that there
Education Questions in the Commons is a chance for MPs to ask questions about Education – or at least to suck up to ministers by asking them questions about what a good job they are doing. But today Nicky Morgan seemed to be talking about something that wasn’t so much tenuously related to her department as
Conservative eurosceptics are trying to hammer Number 10 on the suspension and resignation of British Chambers of Commerce Director General John Longworth over his comments about the EU referendum. David Davis has announced that he is putting in FOI requests to Number 10, Number 11 and the Business Department for details of conversations between ministers,
After a few weeks of banging on about Europe, Downing Street hopes that there will be more of a domestic focus in Westminster for a little while at least. The Budget is approaching, and George Osborne is already coming to terms with what he can and can’t do. It turns out that now is not
Boris Johnson’s admission to Andrew Marr that Brexit ‘might’ cost people their jobs has quite inevitably been seized upon by the ‘In’ campaign as a sign that a vote to leave would put people’s livelihoods at risk. The Mayor of London came on the show to make the positive case for Britain leaving the European
Boris Johnson’s attack on David Cameron’s EU deal as achieving ‘no real change’ is part of the very high-profile campaign that the senior Tories campaigning for Brexit are waging. They have covered the media over the past week with interviews, quotes and rebuttals to every claim that the Prime Minister and his allies have offered.
Iain Duncan Smith’s attack on the ‘In’ campaign today doesn’t just show us how febrile the referendum campaign is going to be for the next few months. It also shows us that ministers like the Work and Pensions Secretary are so peeved with the way the Prime Minister and others are conducting the campaign that
This is from tonight’s Evening Blend email, a free round-up and analysis of the day’s political events. Subscribe here. Today in brief François Hollande warned that there would be ‘consequences’ for the British-French border deal that keeps migrants at Calais. Boris Johnson responded to the warnings that Brexit could lead to a ‘Jungle’ on UK
Even if Jeremy Corbyn isn’t making waves in Labour’s EU campaign, the rest of the party is trying to knuckle down and get on with what is essentially an enthusiastic get out the vote operation. The party knows that the bulk of its voters are in favour of Britain staying in the European Union, and