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.
The Yes campaign’s response so far to the story that Standard Life would consider transferring some of its operations to England from Scotland in the event of a ‘Yes’ vote has been to argue that what the company wants is ‘exactly what the Scottish government has proposed’. Some Nats think this is another example of
The Coalition is merely cohabiting now – that much has been clear for a while. But one partner doesn’t seem to acknowledge quite how unreasonable its behaviour is. The Lib Dems have been cheesing off the Tories with what have appeared to be an increasing number of increasingly heated attacks: from David Laws wading into
Something strange is happening in the world of green Conservatism. After the PM decided to take out the ‘green crap’ last year, greeny Tories might have been forgiven for beating a bit of a retreat and licking their wounds. Well, if they did, they didn’t take much time to do it: now they’re fighting hard
So after all the to-ing and fro-ing over whether the minimum wage will get a big fat rise, the Low Pay Commission has recommended that the rate rise by 3 per cent to £6.50 an hour from October 2014. George Osborne had said that he wanted to ‘see an above-inflation increase in the minimum wage’,
What’s the problem with that Balance of Competences report on Freedom of Movement that still hasn’t been published? Nick Clegg gave his monthly press conference today, and was asked whether he had a problem with the report, which is believed to have been delayed because it painted too positive a picture of immigration. Clegg said:
The Sun’s report that pensioner benefits will be included in the overall cap on welfare spending highlights an interesting shift that this policy will cause. George Osborne will set out the detail of the cap on Annually Managed Expenditure in the budget in a few weeks’ time. It will put pressure on all Work and
Much hilarity among those of a leftish persuasion in Westminster that the Conservatives might dare call themselves the Workers’ Party, as Grant Shapps enthusiastically did yesterday. Mind you, when Shapps gave his speech making this claim alongside Sir John Major yesterday, journalists were excluded, so he might not have said it at all. But assuming
Go to war with the Daily Mail at your peril: Ed Miliband did it over its ‘the man who hated Britain’ column and now perhaps the Labour party is seeing the revenge for that with the paper’s ongoing insistence that Harriet Harman apologise for the National Council for Civil Liberties’ links to the Paedophile Information
While Number 10 is pouring cold water on suggestions that the Prime Minister might rule out a second coalition in the 2015 manifesto, his MPs have given it a rather icy reception. If the hints about him preferring a minority government to governing with the Lib Dems were supposed to reassure those on the Right
Angela Merkel is, as James explains in this week’s magazine, central to David Cameron’s hopes of getting anything meaty at all from his renegotiation and reform of the European Union. Her address to Parliament later this week will be scrutinised for every hint that she might support one reform or another – and for her
That David Cameron is reportedly considering committing to minority government above coalition is a strong message to his backbenchers that he’s not preparing to hop back into bed with Nick Clegg and co in 2015. They have been growing a little feverish about the idea, and ministers have made it known in the party that they
David Cameron says he wants the case that he makes for the Union and against Scottish independence to be ‘unremittingly positive’. Is it? In an interview with BBC News, the Prime Minister said: ‘That’s my whole argument, which is go back to the big picture, and I think this family of nations is better off
Russia has been presented as one of the bad guys in the coverage of the turmoil in Ukraine. But today, Sir Menzies Campbell told the Commons that the one thing that linked the three countries mentioned in William Hague’s urgent statement on Ukraine, Syria and Iran was that ‘progress, however limited, was made as a
One of the regular duties of a Work and Pensions minister is to defend his or her programme of reform against criticisms from all sides about how it is administered. At today’s Work and Pensions questions in the Commons, Mike Penning didn’t try all that hard, though, to defend Atos Healthcare and its contract to
There’s not much the Cabinet can do about accusations by the SNP that today’s visit to Aberdeen is a typical Westminster attempt to bully Scots by flying up to make yet another tranche of negative announcements about the consequences of independence, focusing this time on North Sea oil. If Cabinet ministers didn’t make this trip,
The government’s legislative programme is pretty light at present. But the Bill that is going to spark the most interest this week is destined to go nowhere at all. It’s a Ten Minute Rule Bill, introduced by Tory MP Ben Gummer this Tuesday, and calls for National Insurance to be renamed the ‘Earnings Tax’. What’s
A rite of passage for any Opposition leader these days is to promise to make politics more decent and connected to people’s lives. One recent Opposition leader said this, for example: ‘And we need to change, and we will change, the way we behave. I’m fed up with the Punch and Judy politics of Westminster,
What will happen to the much-maligned contractor that carries out the government’s work capability assessments which determine whether a sick or disabled person is fit for work or needs long-term disability benefit? Atos Healthcare is reported to be seeking an early end to its contract with the Work and Pensions department, which certainly won’t dismay
Today’s borrowing figures are, on the surface, not good for the Tories. The surplus on the public finances in January 2014 was lower than for the same month in 2013, at £4.7 billion compared to last year’s £6.0 billion figure (although it’s worth pointing out that the difference could get even smaller with subsequent revisions).
Was the church right to intervene in the debate about food banks and benefit cuts? I argue in my Telegraph column today that it was – but that the way the 27 bishops (more have since spoken out to support the letter to the Mirror – and Justin Welby has agreed with their argument that