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.
Nick Clegg’s head is spinning, apparently, now that quite so many media outlets are involved in pursuing the allegations about Lord Rennard. That’s what he told ‘self-appointed detective’ Cathy Newman when she managed to get through to his LBC phone-in this morning. Perhaps it was this dizzy sensation of his party being embroiled in a
The Lib Dems say Danny Alexander spoke to Lord Rennard when ‘indirect and non-specific concerns’ about inappropriate behaviour reached Nick Clegg’s office in 2008. But the alleged behaviour continued after that, too, I have learned. A well-placed source tells me that long after that 2008 conversation with Alexander in which the then chief executive was told
So Nick Clegg is annoyed with those ‘self-appointed detectives’ who are ‘trying to piece together events that happened many years ago’ on the Lord Rennard allegations. It’s not a surprise, really, that the Lib Dem leader is annoyed with journalists at the moment: after all, if it hadn’t been for Cathy Newman’s report last week,
Italian voters are clearly cheesed off: with the Establishment, and with the country’s austerity programme. The explosion onto the scene of Beppe Grillo – which Freddy examined in his post from Rome on Sunday – shows quite how cheesed off they are, and it also has wider lessons for the eurozone and for UK politics,
George Osborne was playing historian today as he responded to Ed Balls’ urgent question on the credit rating downgrade, charting Labour’s role in the UK’s loss of the AAA rating; particularly the deficit it bequeathed the Coalition. But he was in revisionist mood when it came to his own stance. As Ed Balls repeatedly leant
Labour has been granted an urgent question in the Commons on the loss of the AAA credit rating this afternoon, and we can expect George Osborne to reiterate his comments over the weekend that this downgrade was a ‘clear message that Britain cannot let up in dealing with its debts’. But will he suggest that
What effect will the Rennard allegations have on the Eastleigh by-election? Channel 4 has been working on the story for months, but it is obviously taking off at an inconvenient time for the Liberal Democrats. There is also – for both Coalition parties, although particularly for the Tories because this was a key pledge for
As James observed last night, Nick Clegg’s statement on the Rennard allegations raised more questions than it answered. Lord Rennard continues to strenuously deny the claims of sexual harassment made on Channel 4 News last week and in other reports since. But the problem is that when allegations were being made and rumours were circulating,
There are over 3,000 pages of evidence in the cache of transcripts, emails, statements and texts for the Pollard Review released by the BBC today. Some of the interviews covered familiar old ground, such as Jeremy Paxman telling the inquiry that it was ‘common gossip that Jimmy Savile liked, you know, young – it was
All the evidence is pointing to a Lib Dem win in Eastleigh, but those Tories visiting are continuing to fight to the bitter end. Eric Pickles was down there today, and wasted no time at all in sinking his teeth into his Coalition partners. The Communities Secretary said: ‘The Lib Dems are taking the people
The BBC has released its (redacted) transcripts and other evidence from the Pollard Review, which examined the decision to drop Newsnight’s Jimmy Savile investigation. There are thousands of pages of evidence, which you can read here, some with large sections which have fallen foul to the censor’s black pencil, even though Jeremy Paxman in particular
Remember those menacing HMRC eyes that Fraser found staring out at him from a cashpoint last month? Well, it turns out they’re a pretty expensive pair of eyes. A Freedom of Information request by the TPA’s Matt Sinclair returned this week, revealing that this cashpoint campaign on tax evasion cost just under £100,000. The response
George Osborne is getting used to the twice-yearly battle that precedes an autumn statement or a budget when motorists, newspapers and some of his own MPs start haranguing him on fuel. It’s the Times’ splash today, with petrol prices expected to rise to their highest-ever levels, and campaigners calling once again for the Chancellor to
Labour’s current plan to embarrass the Lib Dems over its clothes-stealing mansion tax policy is an Opposition Day debate in the Commons. But, in a mark of how serious the party is to score a political point on this matter, I understand that it is also considering tabling an amendment involving a mansion tax to
It seems I rather underestimated Labour when I said their forthcoming Opposition Day vote on the mansion tax would be boring and unlikely to attract any Lib Dem support. The Staggers reported last night that Labour sources were planning to make the vote as amenable as possible to the Lib Dems by dropping any awkward
David Cameron is making noises about further welfare cuts as he tours India, reports the FT’s Kiran Stacey. This isn’t surprising: the PM has got a gaggle of Cabinet ministers pecking at him and squawking about cutting DWP spending even more in order to protect policing and defence in the 2015/16 spending review, which will
One of the key strands of the Conservative campaign in Eastleigh is trust: not just because campaigners can remind voters about Chris Huhne, but thanks to a contrast they can draw between Maria Hutchings and Lib Dem candidate Mike Thornton. The party’s latest poster underlines this: it accuses the Lib Dems of ‘facing both ways
To govern is to choose, wise people like to say when talking about policies which annoy voters but which might make good sense. Today we have another example of what happens when governments don’t choose. The Public Accounts Committee has published another one of its fierce reports on tax, arguing that tax avoidance companies ‘run
So Labour is going to force a vote in the House of Commons on the mansion tax. It’s the key announcement trailed as part of Ed Miliband’s visit to Eastleigh today, and yet it’s the sort of thing that only really excites people who look forward to hearings of the Public Accounts Committee rather than
So far, MPs have only been able to raise concerns about the effects of the end of transitional controls for Bulgarian and Romanian migrants in departmental questions in the Commons. But one Tory is calling for a full backbench debate on the issue after recess. I understand that Mark Pritchard wants the government to extend
