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 Nick Harvey was sacked in September’s reshuffle, leaving the Ministry of Defence without a Liberal Democrat minister, anti-nuclear campaigners and the SNP claimed the move put the future of the review into alternatives to the current Trident nuclear deterrent in doubt. To underline the review’s security, the party announced at the start of its
David Cameron now appears to have been outfoxed by his own backbench and the Labour party on the European budget. A Downing Street spokeswoman confirmed this morning that while the opposition and a group of rebellious MPs will campaign for a real-terms cut in the multi-annual budget, the Prime Minister remains committed to negotiating for
David Cameron is already irritating European leaders with his refusal to support any real-terms increases in the multi annual EU Budget, but this week, the Prime Minister is going to come under pressure to go even further and force a real-terms cut. This morning, he has Ed Balls and Douglas Alexander breathing down his neck,
The coalition wants to remove blockages to people returning to work, and one of the most complex problems is the cost of childcare. The Observer covers a report due out this week by the Resolution Foundation, which claims that it is barely worthwhile for a second earner in a family to work full-time because of
It was not a huge surprise when Ken Clarke rowed back this afternoon on his comments to the Telegraph about tax breaks for married couples. The minister without portfolio was hardly going to get through the first interview he has given since the reshuffle without saying something he would later have to ‘clarify’. But he
To be fair to Kevin Brennan, he seems to have updated his attack line on Michael Gove since his ‘don’t-call-teachers-names’ press release that Labour sent out overnight. The party’s shadow education minister is now attacking the Education Secretary for inconsistency, arguing that his announcement today on improving teacher training contradicts the decision to allow academies
EDF’s announcement that it is raising gas and electricity bills by nearly 11 per cent will increase pressure on the government in two ways. The first is that these sorts of hikes in the cost of living mean that while ministers have been cheered by recent pleasing statistics on growth, jobs and inflation, voters might
Michael Gove is announcing tougher tests for trainee teachers today, with calculators banned from maths assessments, and the pass mark in tests for English and Maths being raised to the equivalent of GCSE grade B (which still doesn’t sound that taxing), along with a new test in verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning. The Education Secretary
David Cameron’s taunt at Ed Miliband yesterday during Prime Minister’s questions that the ‘good news will keep coming’ was taken by some as a hint at today’s GDP figures, which the PM has early access to. Now the chair of the UK Statistics Authority Andrew Dilnot has written to Cameron to rebuke him for the
David Cameron had lunch with Herman van Rompuy in Downing Street today to discuss the UK’s position on the EU budget. Despite the Prime Minister’s tough talking in public about his determination to veto any real-terms increases in the money available for the multi-annual budget, the Downing Street spokeswoman refused to confirm that there was
It is strange that the government has chosen to trail a speech by Iain Duncan Smith on an issue popular with voters on the same day as good economic news. The Work and Pensions Secretary has already reached an agreement with Chancellor George Osborne that it is possible to cut a further £10 billion from
Whether or not he did accidentally suggest that he knew what tomorrow’s GDP figures will be at Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron did have a jolly good point about the way Labour responds to good news on the economy. He told Ed Miliband: ‘It’s only a bad week if you think it’s bad that unemployment’s
Last week David Cameron found himself in trouble after Prime Minister’s Questions over a slip of the tongue about energy bills: this week he’s managed to get himself into trouble over what looks like yet another slip of the tongue at PMQs. The Prime Minster appeared to suggest that tomorrow’s GDP figures, which are under
Nick Clegg is giving a speech this evening in which he will try to re-sell the Liberal Democrats as friends of business. Admitting that he hasn’t ‘said enough’ about the party’s pro-business policies, he will tell the guests at Mansion House: ‘Many in the corporate world do not – automatically – see the Liberal Democrats
Quantitative easing isn’t an eternal elixir of economic health. That was the admission from Bank of England Governor Sir Mervyn King last night at a speech in Cardiff. Sir Mervyn said there were limits to the BoE’s policy of printing money to buy bonds, which could not ‘continue indefinitely’: ‘One thing we can see clearly
It has been a disastrous day for the Scottish National Party. Its majority at Holyrood has been cut to just one this morning after two MSPs – Jean Urquhart and John Finnie – quit the party in protest at its decision at its conference in Perth this weekend to end its opposition to Nato. Then
George Entwistle seemed rather mild-mannered at his first appearance before the Culture, Media and Sport select committee this morning. But after listening to him for two hours, MPs were starting to suggest that the BBC director general was making a quietly savage attack on one of his juniors. It will be astonishing if, after Entwistle’s
Conservative backbenchers will be wondering this morning whether they should bother replying to any letters from their constituents about any unpopular government policy. Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is to announce today that the planned badger cull will be postponed following concerns about its mounting cost. Defra is insisting that the delay, until next year at
George Entwistle is appearing before a select committee for the first time this morning. It won’t be a gentle start for the new BBC Director General, though. He is giving evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport committee from 10.30 on the Jimmy Savile scandal, and will face a slew of awkward questions from MPs.
The government suffered an awkward defeat in the House of Lords this afternoon on its changes to council tax benefit. Rebels on an amendment to the Local Government Finance Bill calling for an independent review of the changes to be carried out within three years of their introduction included 16 Liberal Democrats. Labour has dubbed
