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.
When Margaret Thatcher passed away and the broadcasters, newspapers, and casual drinkers in pubs picked over what her legacy really was, one of the key policies mentioned – and praised – time and time again by those from all sides of the political spectrum was the Right to Buy. It was an iconic housing policy
If Ed Miliband wanted to use this speech – rather than the one he gave two weeks ago to the Trades Union Congress – to set up a confrontation with the trade union barons, then he’s got a funny way of doing confrontation. His section on party reform, which he rather built up by joking
For three years, though we’ve been told all about who Ed Miliband is, we’ve often wondered whether we’re getting his real thoughts when he speaks. The Labour leader has often given the impression that he doesn’t trust his instincts, that he thinks that he should be speaking from the centre ground rather than as ‘Red
Naturally, the leader’s speech is the most important part of the Labour conference, but the general feeling behind the scenes is that things are going pretty well. Sunday was a bit of a messy day, although strategists think the childcare announcements are still an overall win. But yesterday went extremely well – good speeches from
So now there isn’t just uncertainty over Labour’s support for HS2, but also uncertainty over the uncertainty after Maria Eagle tried her best to deliver as upbeat a speech as possible about the high speed rail link. The Shadow Transport Secretary did deal with the issue, and she made clear that Labour’s support is now
Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary Maria Eagle has the unenviable task this morning of standing up in front of the conference and trying to espouse Ed Balls’ new We-don’t-know-to-HS2 strategy. The Shadow Chancellor didn’t say he was dropping Labour’s support for it yesterday, but neither did he say that this new North/South railway is going to
Far be it from anyone to criticise a party that wants to build more homes, but Ed Miliband’s plan to announce in his speech that Labour would build 200,000 new homes a year by 2020 isn’t a particularly interesting one. It’s not that it’s not a good idea to fix our broken housing market, but
So far the tensions in the Labour party over Ed Miliband’s plan to reform the link with the trade unions have stayed below the surface at this conference. The closest it came was, unsurprisingly, when Len McCluskey took to the stage. The Unite leader made another plea for the unions to ‘set our vision of
Ed Balls is currently addressing the Labour conference, and we’ll post full analysis of his speech once he’s done. But as he continues, it’s worth highlighting that the Shadow Chancellor has just given his strongest indication yet that Labour will drop its support for HS2. He said: ‘David Cameron and George Osborne have made clear they
When Ed Miliband dropped his support for the government’s motion on military intervention in Syria, it was seen as a convenient way of the Labour leader avoiding the thorny question of what his party really thinks about the principle of intervention. He and his team were astonished when David Cameron said ‘I get that’ and
listen to ‘Ed Balls on Today: ‘This recovery is not working for working families’’ on Audioboo
Congratulations to Jon Cruddas, Labour’s policy review chief, for managing to produce a front page headline. Cruddas is famed for holding lengthy fringe events and interviews where he manages either to say nothing of interest or else says something that needs translating several times before it makes sense – one special adviser recently told me
The cost of living may well appear to be a rich seam for the Labour party to mine, but it isn’t entirely risk-free. As shadow ministers talk about Expensive Things in their speeches and fringe discussions this week in Brighton, they will be aware that voters might sympathise with their theme without fully trusting that
‘Your day will come,’ said Godfrey Bloom rather threateningly to David Cameron by way of ending his speech to the Ukip conference. Unfortunately for Bloom, his day came a lot sooner. Just a couple of hours later, in fact. Nigel Farage has announced that the Ukip whip has been removed from the outspoken MEP: listen
Debate the relative merits of the two speeches from Nigel Farage and Paul Nuttall all you like, but the headline from today’s Ukip conference won’t give voters any impression that the party has grown up at all. Godfrey Bloom (who I’ve had my own run-in with before) decided to turn up to a fringe on
Even if Nigel Farage’s speech was, as Fraser blogged earlier, a wasted opportunity for the Ukip leader to impress the voters that he really needs to attract, it still pleased the members in the hall. In fact, there was more of an excited, energetic atmosphere at this conference than at any party political conference I’ve
Damian McBride’s memoirs will naturally make uncomfortable reading for the Labour party, but the current occupants of Downing Street will also be feasting on his lesson in the dark arts, and wondering if there is anything they can take from it too. This sounds like an odd thing to say when so much condemnation for
Ever since the publication date of Damian McBride’s book was set for the week of the Labour autumn conference, it was clear that the party would find itself lugging a bit of the past around as it tries to talk about what it wants to do in the future. But perhaps it wasn’t clear quite
1. The Lib Dems think they will be in power again after 2015 This whole conference was aimed at making that easy by encouraging activists to back grown-up policies rather than argue about goldfish. The Lib Dem leader placed great emphasis in his speech on his party’s ability to work with any party, arguing that
Nick Clegg’s speech was supposed to be about how the Lib Dems are the modifying party. They stop the nasty Tories doing lots of nasty things, and under different circumstances, they’d stop Labour being incompetent. The text of the speech suggests that Clegg is trying to say that what the Lib Dems stand for more