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.
What is the political impact of the Chris Huhne/Vicky Pryce case? It’s a question that you’ll hear a lot from those who view everything through what Edward Leigh might call the merciless prism of politics. And yet, as James Kirkup points out on his Telegraph blog, this is more about a terrible family breakdown than it
The only Tory more Tiggerish than Michael Fabricant is the party chairman Grant Shapps, and perhaps that’s why the two work so well together on campaigns. But even the jovial Conservative vice chairman is exhausted after the full-throttle Eastleigh by-election. Fabricant was shouted at in the street by a voter who, thinking he was a
It is only towards the tail end of his lengthy New Statesman essay on ‘the long economic stagnation of post-crisis Britain’ that Vince Cable lets off one of his bombshells. He’s clearly freelancing, and not at a bad time, either, given it’s his party’s Spring Conference this weekend. Although it’s possibly not enormously helpful for
After today’s slightly confusing PMQs line from the Prime Minister about unidentified ‘people’ who ‘should be thinking of their positions’ after the Mid-Staffs scandal, ministers and loyal backbenchers have gone out to bat for the government. After PMQs, the Prime Minister’s sources refused to say who these ‘people’ were who needed to consider their positions.
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions highlighted the problem Cameron has on high earners and bankers. Ed Miliband chose to attack on George Osborne’s opposition to the EU’s bonus cap, and he had some pretty good jokes to back it up, too. He started his attack with a case study, which tricked Tory MPs into thinking he
Today is, according to the party’s own institutional memory, the first time Labour has talked about immigration in a party political broadcast. As I blogged yesterday, the party struggles to raise its voice when this policy area is debated in parliament because of the mistakes ministers made on migration when in government. Ed Miliband knows
Norman Lamb’s announcement today that the government will re-write regulations on competition in the NHS seals up one source of grief for the Lib Dems ahead of their spring conference this weekend. Activists had been threatening an awkward showdown with the leadership on the section 75 regulations, and instead ministers (its notable that Lib Dem
Sir David Nicholson didn’t deliver the most confident performance before the Health Select Committee this morning, but he didn’t leave the session looking fatally wounded. Here are the key points from his evidence: 1. No-one knew what was going on. The NHS is such a big organisation that, as Nicholson admitted, it was perfectly possible
‘Oooh, your statement was so much more partisan than mine!’ Iain Duncan Smith almost said to Stephen Timms this afternoon as the pair sparred over Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. The Work and Pensions Secretary was answering an urgent question from Labour’s Frank Field on the government’s readiness for the end of transitional controls. The debate
It is significant that Iain Duncan Smith wouldn’t resist further cuts to the welfare budget in the 2015/16 spending review. This makes him one of the supporters of the National Union of Ministers movement. The Times reports that he has prepared a package of additional cuts, although I understand this doesn’t involve new ideas such
The government won all four votes on the report stage of the Justice and Security Bill last night, but there was still a crop of Coalition rebels when each division was called, and a number of abstentions from both parties too. The issue has excited the group of Tory MPs you see listed below, but
Liam Byrne launched Labour’s campaign on the ‘bedroom tax’ today, while Helen Goodman, who was the Labour minister responsible for the party’s own attempt at cutting the housing benefit bill when in government, raised the cut at Education Questions today. Tory MPs groaned a little. Michael Gove pounded the despatch box, and shouted ‘this is
No matter how bad the economic news, government ministers can always take heart that an attack from Labour will always be blunted by the simple line that ‘Labour would borrow more’. It’s why David Cameron managed to sail through Prime Minister’s Questions last week relatively unscathed even though Ed Miliband chose to make his attack
So the Conservative party’s refusal to lurch to the right has, in the past few days, resulted in stories about the European Court of Human Rights, EU referendum legislation, limiting access to benefits for migrants, and NHS tourism. All of these issues preoccupy the right wing of the Conservative party. David Cameron yesterday said the
One of the lessons from last week’s Eastleigh by-election – and indeed the Italian elections – is that voters don’t like politicians at the moment. It’s easy for those like Nigel Farage to mop up this anti-politics sentiment in the same way as Nick Clegg could say before the 2010 election ‘the more they attack
Don’t panic, don’t panic! But are the Tories actually panicking about the Eastleigh result? Coffee House readers will have seen Stewart Jackson’s call on the government to get more robust on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants, and Gavin Barwell’s plea to his colleagues to stay calm. But backbenchers aren’t really flapping their arms in terror today,
So in the end Eastleigh went for the ‘crisis for Cameron’ option by putting the Tories in third behind UKIP. For those opponents of the Prime Minister, last night’s result represents a line through another one of their ‘five key tests’ for his leadership. I understand that those close to Adam Afriyie already expect the
So now that the polls have closed in Eastleigh, here are the likely scenarios for tonight’s Eastleigh by-election result, and what each combination will mean: A) 1. Tories 2. Liberal Democrats 3. UKIP It’s stating the obvious that this is the best outcome for David Cameron, showing that the Tories can win in those target
Ken Clarke tabled a series of amendments to the Justice and Security Bill last night, aimed at getting the legislation through the Commons when it reaches Report Stage next week. This is the ‘secret courts’ bill, the one that has upset a group of Tory MPs, the Lib Dem grassroots (and, to a lesser extent,
MPs are debating that Cut With the Awkward Name, the Under-occupation of Social Housing: Housing Benefit Entitlement, also known by its opponents as the ‘bedroom tax’, this afternoon. I’ve already posted about some of the problems that this policy might throw up, however well-intentioned, but there’s also an important political point here. When I talk
