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.
There’s a great temptation for an opposition leader to give answers praising motherhood and apple pie when taking part in a Q&A with members of the public. Especially when that session marks the start of your party’s conference season and your party has set out very few formal policies so far. But Ed Miliband today,
The results of stress tests on Spanish banks will be revealed at 5pm, and the rumour on the trading floor is that the country may also announce that it is asking for a bailout at the same time. Yesterday’s budget caused the markets to rally amid hopes that the country was preparing to ask for
Three months after it was sent, the Prime Minister has replied to a letter signed by over 100 backbench Conservative MPs calling for legislation in this parliament for an EU referendum in the next. John Baron, who co-ordinated the letter, is not releasing David Cameron’s response as the original message was private, too. But I’ve
Martin Wheatley published his final report into Libor this morning, concluding that though the rate should stay for practical reasons, it needs someone to ‘press the reset button’. It would have sent a strong message out to scrap the rate and replace it with something new, but Wheatley feared that doing so would ‘pose an
Ed Miliband’s speech in Manchester next week is going to be one of the toughest gigs of the party conference season. As James writes in his column this week, the Labour leader needs to give the country a glimpse of what he would be like as Prime Minister. Alan Johnson agrees: in a piece for
David Cameron looks set to address backbench concerns about Britain’s relationship with the European Union over the next few weeks. Nick Robinson reports today that though the Prime Minister will not use his party conference speech to talk about Europe, he is considering making a ‘major speech about Britain’s future relationship with Europe’ before EU
William Hague has a rather awkward meeting in his diary today with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. The pair were due to discuss Syria, and now they can also discuss David Cameron’s provocative comments at the United Nations last night. The Prime Minister told the UN General Assembly that the ongoing atrocities in the country
Now the Lib Dems have finally reached the end of their autumn conference in Brighton, here’s a summary of the most important points from the week: 1. The Lib Dems will struggle to work with Ed Balls in the event of a possible Lib-Lab pact in 2015. Nick Clegg made this clear in his speech
Like the whole of this Liberal Democrat conference, Nick Clegg’s speech to delegates did the job, but didn’t exactly lift the roof from the Brighton Centre. Those watching were happy: they applauded warmly and laughed at all the jokes (which hasn’t always been the case this week in Brighton), and they were utterly overjoyed when
Nick Clegg’s speech this afternoon will include a big push for his party to accept that they are a party of government, not of protest and that coalition is a good thing. He made some choice comments to that effect in an interview with regional journalists, which the Birmingham Post has covered. Clegg said: ‘There
Danny Alexander was the star guest at Policy Exchange’s party on Sunday night. He was clearly so excited that he arrived before anyone else, and found himself standing at the bar looking a little bit forlorn. Still, when it came to the speeches, he found there was plenty of thoughtful advice in the offing. Tim
Nick Clegg will round off this week’s Liberal Democrat conference with an announcement that neatly illustrates the ‘proalition’ phase that the government is in at present. In his speech this afternoon, he will tell delegates that every year seven child who does not meet required standards in English and Maths will qualify for catch-up tuition.
As predicted earlier, the Lib Dem leadership has just suffered an embarrassing defeat on the conference floor this afternoon on a grassroots motion on the Justice and Security Bill. The wrecking amendment which removed the call for parliamentarians to defeat the legislation received just a smattering of votes, and the overall motion was carried unamended.
The Liberal Democrats do love a good policy motion, and the tradition at most party conferences is for the attending media circus to stay well away from the debates and votes on the conference floor as they are rarely game changers. But this afternoon, the party’s leadership could face its first defeat on the conference
Nick Clegg’s attack on universal benefits such as the winter fuel payment and free bus passes this afternoon was a nice little morsel of red meat to his party, as he said it would be ‘difficult to explain’ a failure to reform these payments when other benefits are being slashed. He told the World at
Lib Dem internal documents leaked to the Spectator warn that the party has no branding strategy, staff ‘lack research literacy’ and campaigns are based on ‘received wisdom’ rather than any evidence that current tactics are working. I’ve been passed a presentation seen by aides close to Nick Clegg, staff at Lib Dem HQ, MPs and
Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president, underlined his popularity with grassroots as he jogged up to the stage at the Independent’s fringe event to the fervent cheers of activists. They were eating out of his hand as he answered questions for an hour with Steve Richards. Farron threw his weight behind Nick Clegg as leader,
One of the areas Conservatives and Lib Dems are more than happy to distinguish themselves on is Europe, although the issue always gets far less attention at Lib Dem conference than it does at Conservative gatherings. A Conservative might find this odd: surely a party so wholeheartedly in favour of Britain remaining within the European
Never a man to avoid confrontation, Vince Cable decided to tackle gossip about his conversations with Labour head on when he appeared on stage at the Lib Dem conference this lunchtime. He has ‘excellent communications with politicians across the spectrum’, he joked, then reached into his pocket for his phone, joking that he had a
I’ve long believed that Boris is a particularly powerful blond jellyfish, swimming along under the radar, looking quite harmless, before delivering a series of painful stings to an unsuspecting victim. Normally the poor recipient of these verbal stings is David Cameron, whose face now forms a classic mask of horror whenever the Mayor approaches, knowing
