Conservative party

As Obama and Cameron played table tennis yesterday, a considerably more furious game was being waged between the government and Tory backbenchers. It related to a Parliamentary motion tabled by Mark Reckless – and described here – that sought to stem UK involvement in any future bailouts for eurozone countries. All well and good, you'd think, until a rival amendment percolated down from on high to dilute Reckless's proposals. This new amendment would only go so far as to "urge the Government to raise the issue of the [bailout mechanism] at the next meeting of the Council of Ministers of the European Council". The green benches were set for a violent back-and-forth 'tween one side and the other. The outcome of all this was revealed yesterday evening.

This evening, an event will occur that will make all the controversies and scandals of the last week seem somewhat irrelevant — at least according to American evangelical Harold Camping. He says that 6pm today is the time of the Rapture, as foretold in Thessalonians 4:17: all those "true believers" who accept Jesus Christ as their one true saviour will be taken up to heaven. For those of us left, we might wonder who will lead us through the "chaos and awful suffering" following both the loss of 40 per cent of the UK population and the earthquakes that will accompany it. Our Prime Minister — with his "sort of fairly classic Church of England faith" — would be gone.

Britain is going to stay in the EU for the next ten years at least. Of that I'm sure. But after that, when David Cameron's retired, William Hague has taken to writing books, George Osborne's had his chance and the 2010 intake run the party, the Tories are going to be more openly hostile to the EU. Labour will too; it has a larger reservoir of pro-EU sentiment among its ranks, but one that is shallower than it was. Focusing on the Tories, it is worth noting that nearly all of the names being bandied about as future Tory leaders have a visceral dislike of the EU. By and large they will, by then reflect popular opinion (if they don't already): as veteran EU watcher Charles Grant notes, there is a limit to how long an elite can cross the population.

There is a debate in the Commons this afternoon, urging the government to spare the BBC World Service from cuts. The resistance is being led by Richard Ottaway, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and author of a report condemning the Foreign Secretary’s decision to cut funding for the service.   Ottaway is likely to be well supported, as the Tory right is exercised by the effect that cuts are having on Britain’s standing in the world. John Whittingdale is on side, and there were plenty of backbenchers (among them, David T.C.

It is hard to overstate the fury with Ken Clarke in the Cameroon circle today. One well-informed Tory source just told me, ‘they [Cameron and Osborne] just can’t wait to see the back of him’ before pondering whether Clarke was now just too old for frontline politics. Another bemoaned that Clarke had managed both to deepen the party’s problems with women and further undermine its reputation as the party of law and order. While one more couldn’t believe how on a day when unemployment fell, two men were charged with the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the Queen and PM were marking a new era in Anglo-Irish relations, the coalition had managed to get a series of bad news stories to top the bulletins.

‘Constitutional reform is a waste of time, pure and simple. It never actually achieves its avowed end of reconnecting the voters with democratic institutions,’ wrote John McTernan, the former advisor to Tony Blair, recently. There are signs that the current government agrees.   Nick Clegg has unveiled the next stage of his constitutional reforms today by revealing draft plans to reform the House of Lords. The coalition speaks in unison in public: the Cabinet discussed reform last and apparently there was “very strong support for the proposals around the table”. But dissenting voices must have sounded in private.   The inestimable Rachel Sylvester reveals (£) that Clegg’s draft is very rough.

As I wrote on Friday, there is a sense that some on Labour's benches want to soften the party's education policy. It seems that the first subtle shift may have come over the weekend. Total Politics' Amber Elliott reports on a Fabian Society meeting where Andy Burnham apparently dropped his blanket opposition to free schools. Amber writes: 'Speaking at the Fabian Society conference at the weekend, Burnham signalled that he is not against free schools such as the one former-No10-strategist-turned-teacher Peter Hyman is setting up. Labour blogger Anthony Painter tweeted from the conference: "@andyburnhammp supports Peter Hyman's free school as a Labour alternative to the Tory concept. But also says whole system matters #Fabians.