How could I have forgotten to mention this in my last post? In that YouGov poll on the Labour leadership race, Ed Balls finished in a resounding last place. Yep, the former Schools Secretary is stuck on 11 percent of first preference votes – behind both Diane Abbott and Andy Burnham, who are tied on
One thing’s for sure: the Labour leadership contest is a lot more uncertain than a lot of people expected. Polls such as that by YouGov today, and analysis by Left Foot Forward last week, suggest that the Brothers Miliband are pushing each other all the way to the finishing line – particularly when second preference
For some time now, we on Coffee House have been raving about Iain Duncan Smith’s plans for reforming benefits. And, today, it finally looks as though they – or something like them – will soon be put into action. The DWP is releasing a consultation document which aims to simplify and straighten out a benefits
Nick Robinson’s documentary on the coalition negotiations is just under four hours away, but I suspect we’ve already heard about one of its key moments. As various outlets are reporting this afternoon, Nick Clegg tells Robinson that he had changed his mind about the pace of spending cuts sometime before the coalition agreement. Or as
What do we have here, then? Another public disagreement between Downing Street and Liam Fox? Certainly looks that way, as George Osborne assures an interviewer in India that the entire cost of Trident should be borne by the Ministry of Defence’s budget. As the Telegraph reminds us, Fox suggests that the running costs of Trident
Westminster has rewound the tape today, in anticipation of Nick Robinson’s documentary on the coalition negotiations tonight. There’s speculation about what Nick Clegg did or didn’t say back in May; Anthony Seldon has a piece on Gordon Brown’s side of things in the Independent; and Robinson himself has a summary article in the Telegraph. Much
Is it just me, or is there something deeply unsettling about Julian Assange’s comments in the Times today? After the paper revealed yesterday that the leaked Afghan War files could easily put informants’ lives at risk, the WikiLeaks founder sets about defending his decision to publish them – and he does so in dangerously complacent
How many incapacity benefit claimants could actually work? Well, we get a sense of the answer with some figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions today. They show that, of the people who have gone through the new Work Capability Assessments so far, some three-quarters are able to look for a job. Scale
And there’s me thinking that David Cameron’s overtures to Turkey were newsworthy enough, when he drops this into his speech in Ankara: “Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison
How striking that, as another Parliamentary term draws to a close, all the talk is of some sort of union between the Tories and the Lib Dems. There was Mark Field’s blog post about an electoral pact, yesterday, of course. But now Rachel Sylvester follows it up with an article in the Times outlining a
Well, Mark Field has certainly got Westminster talking with his suggestion that the Lib Dems and Conservatives might not oppose each other in marginal seats come 2015. It’s the kind of idea that has been sloshing around for a few weeks now, but having it relayed through a Tory MP’s blog post gives it a
There has been an inevitability about Tony Hayward’s departure from BP ever since the first aftershocks of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But now, despite BP’s peculiar denials this morning, that inevitability has reached fever pitch – and it’s widely expected that Hayward will be booted out of his job tomorrow morning. As a thousand comment
Oh look, Gordon Brown has continured his return to public life with a sizeable interview in today’s Independent. It’s a generous portrait which seems designed to dispel any rumours about the former Prime Minister’s wellbeing. Apparently, he “looks healthy and fit … seems quite cheerful.” And we’re treated to descriptions of his face, “like a
Memory Lane always looked so unthreatening to me. But this is Bret Easton Ellis, so a cast reunion for the characters he first wrote about in Less Than Zero 25 years ago is bound to end in tears, screaming and blood. And so it does, with grim efficiency. No sooner has our protagonist, Clay, checked
Remember when David Cameron said that Britain “cannot be [in Afghanistan] for another five years“? Since then, the coalition has expended a good deal of energy trying to clarify this statement. The latest formulation was something like that given by William Hague to the Telegraph a couple of weeks ago: “By the time of the
Nick Clegg is a liberal, and just in case you’d forgotten that fact he gave a speech today in which the word features some 64 times. As it was made at the think-tank Demos, it’s a touch more wonkish than his recent efforts on cutting back the state – but still worth a read for
Bear with me, CoffeeHousers, while I return to the Labour leadership contest. You see, the GMB has this afternoon announced that it is backing Ed Miliband for the job – which is a fairly significant intervention. This is first endorsement from one of the major trade unions, and it overshadows the support that David Miliband
If only PMQs were more like select committee sessions. Sure, the latter aren’t completely free from tribalism, even if it takes a subtler hue – but they are still considerably more insightful than Wednesday’s pantomime in the chamber. Frequently, they play like a demonstration of how democracy can, and should, work. Such was the case
All of a sudden, the coalition partners can’t get enough of their backbenchers. Last night, it was David Cameron meeting the 1922 Committee to reassure them about their mutual relationship. And, today, Nick Clegg is going on an “away day” with that half of his party which isn’t in government, all to explain his close
Much ado about the Office for Budget Responsibility’s growth predictions in the Treasury Select Committee earlier, especially as an OBR official admitted that the cuts and tax hikes in the Budget could conceivably tip us into a double-dip recession. So are the OBR’s official forecasts too optimistic, as some are now claiming? Only time will
