So MPs have until the end of today to declare whether they’re appealing against Sir Thomas Legg’s request that they repay certain expenses claims. Three have already done just that, one from each of the main parties: Jeremy Browne, Frank Cook and Bernard Jenkin. You imagine that more may follow throughout the day, especially given
If PMQs today showed anything, it’s just how eager the Tories’ opponents are to bring up the issue of Lord Ashcroft. Vince Cable set the ball rolling by referring to the Tory deputy chairman as a “non dom”, and Harriet Harman gleefully followed up by firing questions in William Hague’s direction. She was cut off
It’s snowing in Westminster; Gordon Brown’s off saving the world; and PMQs will see Harman facing off against Hague and Cable. Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1200: Have MPs gone on holiday already? There are plenty of empty seats in the chamber… 1202: Here’s Harman now. Condolences for fallen soldiers, first, and then
Of all the findings from today’s ICM poll for the Guardian, I imagine this one will concern the Tory leadership most: “Just two months ago, 49 percent of voters said they thought Cameron and Osborne would do better than Darling and Brown, but that figure is 38 percent today.” They’re still ahead of Brown and
An argument put forward by some Labour types is that we’re not really facing a debt crisis at all. “Yes, the national debt levels are bad,” they say, “but we started off at a low level in comparison to other countries, so we can absorb the deficits we’re racking up.” Well, you can take issue
As Andrew Sparrow says, it’s well worth reading Iain Dale’s interview with John Bercow in the latest issue Total Politics. It’s a fun read, mostly because the Speaker is remarkably candid – a quality that’s normally to be admired in a politician. But I can’t help thinking that he made a mistake in admitting this:
Oh, look, Ed Balls is talking about “investment” again. This time it’s an address on the Government’s Children’s Plan, and, judging by the preview in today’s Independent, it’s all going to be about how much more money his department is spending. I doubt Alistair Darling will be impresssed – especially as much of that money
Considering the fiscal crisis we face, this revelation in Andrew Rawnsley’s column is particularly dispiriting: “[Gordon Brown] has been egged on by Ed Balls [to make more spending promises], partly because the schools secretary is also obsessed with that old dividing line, partly because he wanted to be able to boast that he had won
Major bad language warning on the video below, but this incident in the Irish Parliament yesterday is too extraordinary not to post. Maybe the Tories will take notes for their new, more aggressive approach… Hat-tip: Tim Montgomerie
For any Kremlinologists among us, Peter Oborne’s latest column in the Mail sure is a juicy read. It claims that Mandelson and Brown are “at war again” – only, this time, insiders say the damage to their relationship is “irreparable”. The Business Secretary is said to be “bitterly unhappy” with Labour’s class war strategy, and
So the protracted, wheezing death of ID cards continues, with Alistair Darling admitting in today’s Telegraph that: “Most of the expenditure is on biometric passports which you and I are going to require shortly to get into the US. Do we need to go further than that? Well, probably not.” The government are letting it
Is it just me, or have the Tories developed a slightly harder edge in the couple of days since the Pre-Budget Report? We had an unusually acidic address from David Cameron yesterday, in which he likened Brown ‘n’ Darling to “joy-riders in a car smashing up the neighbourhood,” and criticised the PBR for its “irresponsibility,
We all know how bureaucratic and convoluted a lot of Parliamentary practice is, but this reminder from Heather Brooke of the bodies involved in reforming MPs’ pay and expenses is still pretty astonishing: “Currently we have: the senior salaries review body (which makes recommendations on MPs’ salaries and pensions); the committee on standards and privileges
Well, it seems like Paul Richards – a former aide to Hazel Blears – wants to corner the market in quietly persuasive demolitions of his own party’s strategy. If you remember, he wrote a perceptive piece on Labour’s shortcomings in the aftermath of the Norwich North by-election, which we highlighted here on Coffee House. And,
Has Brown got away with his horror Budget? Reading the Populus poll in this morning’s Times, you might be tempted to say he has. Sure, there’s some bad news in there for the government: trust in Dave ‘n’ George’s ability to manage the economy has hit an all-time high, and only 12 percent of respondents
If you’re looking for some sort of light relief after yesterday’s horror-PBR, then can I recommend the joint article by Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy in today’s Wall Street Journal. Yep, the two men have put their recent spat behind them, and have cemented their relationship by huddling over a typewriter and bashing out just
Well, as expected, the IFS have put the lie to Darling’s claim that the budgets of non-ringfenced departments would be “pretty much flat”. Here’s how Nick Robinson reports it: “The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that government plans imply £36bn of cuts in departmental spending ie over 19% from 2011-2014 in order to protect schools,
And so the expenses scandal rumbles inevitably on. If you want the latest on all the dubious claims our, erm, honourable representatives made in 2008-09, then I’d recommend Andrew Sparrow’s live blog over at the Guardian – and Guido’s got a good round-up here. But, behind all that, there’s a u-turn which is almost as
Alistair Darling normally strikes us as an honest man dropped into an impossible situation. But whether he misspoke, or whether he set out to mislead, he told a lie on the Today Programme this morning which needs to be highlighted. So what was it? That non-ringfenced departmental budgets would remain “pretty much flat” rather than
It’s the set of headlines which Labour must have dreaded after their recent progress in the polls. The Times: “The axeman dithereth … but the taxman cometh”. The Guardian: “Darling soaks the rich … and the rest of us too”. The Mail: “The Buck Passer’s Budget”. And so on and so on. It doesn’t look