The Harman and Hague duel
Here’s footage of the back-and-forth between Harman and Hague in PMQs earlier:
Peter Hoskin
Wednesday
Bertie Ahern resigns
Bertie Ahern is to step down from his twin role as Irish taoiseach and leader of the Fianna Fáil party on May 6th. He’s departing under something of a cloud – his personal finances are being sifted through by a corruption tribunal, although he denies any wrongdoing. History, though, will most likely remember him for his role in the Irish
Harman holds her own at PMQs
A bit of a damp squib, really. Harman held her own against those PMQs titans that are Hague and Cable. And all my anticipatory drooling was for nought. Hague opened by congratulating Harman on being the first female Labour MP to lead the House at PMQs. An invite for Harman’s only cringeworthy moment, as she
Two greats
Cinema is losing its heroes in pairs at the moment. After Bergman and Antonioni passed-away in quick succession last year, the past week has seen the deaths of Richard Widmark and Jules Dassin – my favourite screen actor and one of my favourite directors, respectively. Apart, they were involved in some sublime movies. Together, they created one of
Ken Livingstone has no shame
Ok, so Political Betting covered this yesterday – among others – but the words “Magpie Mayor” emblazoned across the front of last night’s Evening Standard reminded me to give it a Coffee House mention. Basically – as this Standard article details – Ken Livingstone is planning to steal Boris’s policy ideas, including that of the “Payback London”
By design, not by accident
Simon Heffer serves up a bracing cup of invective in the Telegraph this morning. His message is that we shouldn’t be too quick to label the Government “incompetent”, as doing so suggests they’ve reached this point by accident rather than by design: “The element of deliberation and deliberateness in what Labour has done makes an accusation
Tuesday
More misery for Clegg
Nick Clegg’s in line for more misery over Europe. Today, Lord McNally announced that Lib Dem peers would go against Clegg’s orders by not abstaining from the upcoming referendum vote. Instead, they’re set to vote against a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Many of the pro-referendum brigade had pinned their dwindling hopes on the Lords. But McNally’s revelation makes it extremely
90 years of the RAF
The Red Arrows and four Typhoons fly over London today, to mark the 90th Anniversary of the Royal Air Force.
Mugabe to step down?
Many fear that the delay in Zimbabwe’s presidential election results getting released is a sign that Mugabe is working out how he can rig it. But Centre Right flag up a New York Times article which says differently: “Advisers to President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe are in talks with the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai,
Cameron & friends
A perennial problem for Opposition leaders – and particularly those that have never been in Government – is how they put forward their party’s defence credentials. They haven’t been in the high-level security meetings; they don’t have access to all the confidential data; and they haven’t made any of the key decisions. Why in a time
The failure of Brown’s third way
Steve Richards has a typically excellent piece in today’s Independent. In it, he paints Brown’s effort to push through longer detention times for terror suspects as another instance of Blairite grandstanding. Unfortunately for Brown, though, it’s left no-one happy: “Last summer, when he was successfully portraying himself as the apolitical father of the nation, the
A present from Harriet to Boris
Will the gaffes ever stop coming? Just a matter of weeks after Jacqui Smith admitted she has police protection when walking around London, the Daily Mail have caught out Harriet Harman for wearing a “stab-proof” vest whilst touring Peckham, in her own constituency. The image is gold for Boris, particularly as he majored on violent crime at his campaign
Immigration nation
A Lords’ committee today claims that record levels of immigration have had no economic benefit for the UK. But what about that £6 billion figure the Government likes to wheel out? According to the committee report (pdf. here), it’s misleading. What should really concern us is how immigration affects the living standards of the existing
Monday
Harman vs. Cable
As James reported last week, Harriet Harman will be standing in for Brown at Wednesday’s PMQs. Her Tory opponent will most likely be William Hague. And now Red Box confirm that she’ll also be faced by Vince Cable. Harman against a Hague ‘n’ Cable tag-team? One shudders to think…
End of a circus?
So there we have it. According to Lord Justice Scott Baker, there is not a “shred of evidence” that Diana was assassinated by the Royal Family or by anyone else. A line can finally be drawn through the conspiracy theories of Mohamed Al Fayed. (Although will his supporters be placated? I doubt it. To paraphrase Karl Popper: a Diana
Another considerable lead
More encouraging news for Boris, on the day that he formally launched his mayoral campaign. The latest YouGov / Evening Standard poll puts the Spectator’s candidate 10 percentage points clear of Ken Livingstone. He also leads Ken on second preference votes. Admittedly, it’s a bit down on his 12-point lead of two weeks ago. But at least
Unhappy to pay more tax
Do check out Janet Daley’s comment piece in the Telegraph today. On her account, we’ve reached a political landmark: “Something has snapped. I feel it in the air just as surely as I did in 1979 when the population of Britain decided, quite suddenly, that it had had enough. There is now – as there
Sunday
An issue for debate
A quick post to recommend ConservativeHome’s list of which political debates the left and right are winning in the UK. Among the right’s triumphs are crime, welfare and schools reform. And among the left’s are tax & spend, the NHS and climate change. Do CoffeeHousers agree?
Is the curtain falling on Mugabe?
The results of yesterday’s elections in Zimbabwe aren’t due out for few more days. But the opposition MDC party is already claiming victory. According to their own counts at polling stations, they’ve “massacred” Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party. Says the MDC secretary general: “We’ve won this election. The results coming in show that in our
Saturday
A life of luxury
£1.7 million of taxpayer’s money. That’s how much Michael Martin’s spent on his home and garden since 2001. Of that, some £700,000 went on merely prettifying the Speaker’s official residence. Well done, Mr. Speaker. You’ve now outdone Lord Irvine. The worst thing is that the system allows all this. But that doesn’t excuse Martin. The
