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.
Here’s a policy that looks like it could be a vote winner while helping to solve Britain’s housing crisis: selling off expensive council homes. Think tank Policy Exchange has published a paper this morning proposing that local authorities be allowed to sell luxurious properties in their boroughs as they become vacant in order to raise
It’s not unusual in politics for what would in abstract seem a sensible policy to become hugely unpopular when it hits Westminster. Most Conservative MPs would agree, in principle, that placing the burden of the cost of rail travel on the shoulders of those who actually travel by train is far more sensible than the
Julian Assange appeared in public for the first time in two months this afternoon to make a statement about his continuing resistance to attempts to extradite him. The Wikileaks founder made a number of claims and arguments which it’s useful to have a look at in further detail: 1. ‘If the UK did not throw
‘Unless you do something now it will be years before we recover.’ This morning those words come from former chancellor Alistair Darling in an open letter to George Osborne, but they could just as easily be from a member of his own backbench, or from Boris. Darling’s letter, published in the Sunday People, accuses both
The staggeringly low turnout that the Electoral Reform Society is predicting for November’s Police and Crime Commissioner elections comes as little surprise to those involved in organising the vote. In fact, I was quite surprised that the ERS expects a turnout as high as 18.5 per cent, and I suspect the Home Office might be,
The Treasury Select Committee published its stinging report into Libor today, and it makes uncomfortable reading for all involved. ‘That doesn’t look good,’ committee chair Andrew Tyrie said when describing the failure of both the FSA and the Bank of England to spot the manipulation at the time. His committee’s report also pointed out that
Moving people off sickness benefits and back into the workplace was never going to be an easy job. It’s a sensitive process dealing with all the grey areas that complex illnesses and disabilities throw up, and has always needed careful handling. But today ministers came under fire for the way they hold the company that
The two best fights to watch in Westminster this autumn will be about land: the shape of constituencies, and where developers will be allowed to build the new homes that ministers are increasingly seeing as the best solution to Britain’s growth problem. Tim Shipman reports in the Daily Mail today that the Quad is ‘thinking the unthinkable’
If you’re a minister, or even the Prime Minister, and you take to the airwaves holding a page of figures aloft, it’s always a good idea to make sure the figures are actually correct before you enter the studio. When David Cameron read out a break down of playing field sales on LBC radio during
William Hague took a robust line on Julian Assange at his press conference this evening. He made clear that the British government would not allow the Wikileaks founder safe passage out of the UK, and warned against using diplomatic immunity as a means of ‘escaping regular process of the courts’. Assange is wanted in Sweden
If ministers needed any more encouragement to improve the supply of new homes in this country, today’s figures on house building starts and completions from the Communities and Local Government department might just do it. Housing starts in England in the three months to the end of June fell by 10 per cent on the
This year’s coverage of A-levels has been a little different to that in previous years. Sure, there are still plenty of blonde twins coming out of the woodwork to take impressively high jumps in the air but there are no headlines about results breaking new records for the proportion of top marks awarded, and that’s
Last week Boris Johnson was in jellyfish mode, drifting along and delivering the occasional sly sting to the coalition. Now that the Olympics are over, the Mayor has launched something of a shark attack on his Westminster colleagues. In an interview with the Evening Standard, Boris accuses ministers of ‘pussyfooting’ and calls for the government
Ministers are generally cautious in welcoming falls in unemployment in case they represent a blip for just one quarter. But Iain Duncan Smith was pretty chipper this morning when the Office for National Statistics announced a fall in the jobless stats for the fifth quarter running and the strongest employment rise since the middle of
When Nick Clegg announced he was giving up the struggle on House of Lords reform, he named a number of policy areas that could fill the huge legislative void left by the collapse of the plans to overhaul the upper chamber. One of them was banking, and the Deputy Prime Minister told journalists it might
Living legend Usain Bolt is an unlikely mascot for those who campaign for reform of our tax system, but by confirming that he will continue to avoid competitions in the UK because of the amount of tax he would have to pay, he’s now the poster boy for the movement. If he attended races here,
John Bercow’s interview with the World at One was guaranteed to raise a few hackles across Westminster, and he certainly delivered on that by attacking ‘totally low-grade, substandard’ ‘no-hopers’ in the media. But well as revealing that he told his mother to stop reading the Daily Mail after reading something unpleasant about him in the
This morning’s announcement that the retail prices index rose to 3.2 per cent in July, up from 2.4 per cent in June, means commuters will see a 6.2 per cent rise in their train fares in January. Fares rises are currently calculated using RPI + 3 per cent. Analysts had predicted RPI would be 2.8
‘That’s just boring waffle!’ shouted Evan Davis on Radio 4 this morning when policing minister Nick Herbert refused to give direct answers to his questions on the turnout expected in the police and crime commissioner elections. Herbert repeatedly argued that ‘any turnout will confer greater legitimacy’ than the current system of unelected police authorities. But
The Liberal Democrats published the agenda for their autumn conference today, and one of the motions on the paper is on ‘a sustainable future for aviation’. Conference will debate the motion, tabled by Julian Huppert, on Sunday 23 September, and you can read it in full here. In essence, it rejects new runways at Heathrow,
