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.
MPs from all parties who want a referendum are meeting this week to discuss how to get a pledge into the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos, I hear. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for an EU referendum will meet tomorrow, partly to look ahead to James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill on Friday, but also to draw
Liam Byrne chose an interesting line of attack at a very testy Work and Pensions Questions today. The whole session had been rather like a mounting pile of passive aggressive notes on a fridge, with ministers rising to answer questions by saying ‘I’m glad the honourable member has asked me about such and such a
It was entirely predictable that any MP who opposes a pay rise or wants to show how in touch they are with the public would seize the opportunity to say so today. Nick Clegg said he wouldn’t take the raise himself at his new monthly press conference this morning, followed by Vince Cable, who told
The Tory campaign on James Wharton’s EU referendum bill has been very slick but very partisan – I examined some of the problems with this last week when eurosceptic Labour MP John Cryer announced he had been put off by the Let Britain Decide campaign and would abstain on the bill. So today campaigners in
Coffee House readers will be unsurprised by the interest taken by the newspapers and the Today programme in MPs’ pay: this blog predicted that it could be the next big row in the Conservative party at the start of June. It is politically sensible for the Prime Minister to say that he disagrees with a pay
Are food banks a scandal? For this week’s Spectator, I visited the Salisbury food bank, set up in 2000, to find out what causes families to turn to these charities. I must admit that when I arrived at the headquarters of the Trussell Trust, which runs many of the food banks in this country, I was
The very existence of food banks is taken as proof of something rotten in Britain. If Brits are queuing for charity food parcels, the state has failed. Labour MPs brim with righteous anger: they call the rise of these charitable centres a ‘scandal’. David Cameron, for his part, wishes people would stop talking about them.
listen to ‘Spending review 2013: the Coffee House analysis’ on Audioboo Ed Balls had a rather shouty time in the Commons this afternoon when he responded to George Osborne’s spending review statement. It was a shame, because his lack of variation in tone and pace from ‘angry bellow’ level made what wasn’t a bad response
listen to ‘Spending review 2013: the Coffee House analysis’ on Audioboo George Osborne loves a good dividing line: he sees it as his job to ‘weaponise’ policies in a way that benefits his party. So what were the key divisions that he set out in today’s Spending Round statement? 1. The full package Clearly the
Should the West intervene in Syria? This week’s Spectator debate on this topic saw an impressive swing of opinion in the audience once the speakers had made their cases for and against intervention. All agreed that the first part of the motion debated – ‘Assad is a war criminal: the West must intervene in Syria’
Julia Gillard has lost a leadership ballot in the Australian Labor Party to former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. She called the contest to bring an end to the battles in her party – and in doing so has lost her job. Before the vote, she said: ‘Anybody who enters the ballot tonight should do it
One set of businesses are already feeling the pain from the successful completion of the spending review. Westminster pizza outlets have come to rely on large orders from the Treasury the night before a spending review or Budget announcement, but the deal was sealed on Sunday night, and so all was calm last night in
The Tories are putting off Labour MPs from backing their Private Member’s Bill on an EU referendum with an overly partisan campaign, Coffee House has learned. John Cryer, who chairs Labour for a Referendum, tells me that he won’t be voting for the Bill because the Conservatives have turned it into a party political campaign
David Cameron will come under increasing pressure in the next few months to publish his ‘shopping list’ of reforms he wants from a renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Europe. Even those who want to know what the Prime Minister is really thinking accept that this is not a good idea, as he would neither satisfy
Strangely, both sides at Treasury questions today wanted to talk about something that does their own party no favours at all to mention. The Labour whips had sent their loyal backbenchers out in force to ask about Friday’s borrowing figures, while George Osborne and Conservative colleagues were very happy indeed to talk about how much
Sir Mervyn King held an emotional farewell with the Treasury Select Committee this morning ahead of his move from the Bank of England to the House of Lords. Committee chair Andrew Tyrie was as keen to recruit him as a supporter of banking reforms going through Parliament in the future as he was to grill
There’s talk this morning of the intelligence budget taking a cut in tomorrow’s spending review announcement, but what about the legislation that the spooks say they really need to do their jobs properly? The row about the Communications Data Bill has calmed a little in the past week or so, but that’s not to say
David Cameron was quick to condemn the alleged attempt by police to ‘smear’ the family of Stephen Lawrence this morning, while Home Secretary Theresa May was quick to tell Parliament of the government’s plans to ensure that these claims are properly investigated. You can listen to May’s statement here, and read it in full here.
Michael Gove and his colleagues have enjoyed poking Labour on education policy recently. His catty letter exchange with Stephen Twigg last week left Twigg with the victory for style with a supremely bitchy reply, while Gove won on substance (largely because he asked whether Labour’s education frontbench possessed any). Today he tried to assemble his
The health service that employs you is under more scrutiny than ever before, with shocking cases of bad care, ‘never events’ and serious lapses crawling out of the woodwork. The regulator that was supposed to keep an eye on all of this is under attack, not just for missing it, but also for apparently deciding