David cameron

That should have been a tap-in. London is currently crippled by a Tube strike thanks to the noted beach enthusiast, Bob Crow, and his high-earning chums at the RMT. So David Cameron had a superb chance to tip a bucket of manure over Ed Miliband’s head. The political connections are self-evident. Red Ed, union militancy, London throttled, all Labour’s fault. But Cameron was nutmegged by Miliband’s tactics. Ignoring the strike, the Labour leader asked about the newly formed inland sea which used to be known as the West Country. He accused the government of a slow, tight-fisted and shambolic response. Cameron assumed the facial expression of pumped-up severity that he usually reserves for Syria.

The EU referendum bill has just been knocked on the head in the House of Lords. The peers, led by Labour and Liberal Democrat Lords, have denied the bill the time it needs to get through. So the appointed house has defied the elected house and denied the public a say on a matter of fundamental constitutional importance. This poses a problem for David Cameron. The bill was meant to be one of the ways that the Tories would try and halt Ukip’s advance ahead of the European Elections. The last thing Cameron wants is the Tory party getting in a bate about Europe and complaining that this should have been government legislation not a private member’s bill. So, the Tory leadership has been quick to try and channel Euroscpetic ire.

As we revealed on Twitter earlier, David Cameron and the Tory payroll vote will abstain on Dominic Raab’s amendment. Downing Street’s logic is that they are sympathetic to the amendment’s aims but believe it to be non-compliant, eg not compatible with the law, and so are barred from voting for it by the ministerial code. But the Liberal Democrats will vote against the amendment, which is another sign of how the two coalition parties are now merely cohabiting . Inside Downing Street, they hope that this position will prevent a split in the Tory ranks and I suspect that this will help the whips persuade a few more MPs not to vote for the Mills amendment.

Cunning work from Milband at PMQs. He played Syria like a fixed-odds betting machine and came away with a minor jackpot. Last week he had urged the prime minister to accept a few hundred of the neediest Syrian refugees. Cameron duly said OK. Today Miliband was quick to claim a victory for decency, for humanity, and for Miliband. ‘I welcome this significant change of heart,’ he said. Choice word, heart. He’s got it. And Cameron hasn’t. That’s the implication. Miliband tried the same tactic with the 50p tax rate. When Ed Balls unfurled this this new policy he got a mixed bag of reviews. Economists put their fingers in their ears and ran around wimpering. The popular response suggested it was a top ten hit.

David Cameron has been summoning Tory backbenchers to Number 10 today to personally persuade them not to back an amendment to the Immigration Bill that would reintroduce controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. I have learned that a number of possible waverers who could be persuaded to change their mind and drop their support for Nigel Mills' amendment have been called to Downing Street as part of a serious whipping operation by the government. The whips and party leadership have also been trying out a number of unusual tactics to minimise Thursday's rebellion: 1.

[audioplayer src='http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_January_2014_v4.mp3' title='James Forsyth discuss the NHS with Charlotte Leslie MP' startat=1430] Listen [/audioplayer]Pinned to the wall of Jeremy Hunt’s office in the Department of Health is an A1 piece of paper detailing that week’s ‘Never Events’. It catalogues the mistakes that have been made in NHS hospitals that should never have happened: people having the wrong leg amputated, swabs being left inside patients after surgery and the like. This grim list is a rebuke to the glib, Danny Boyle-style rhetoric which dominates all political debate about the NHS and treats any attempt to examine the failings of British health care as heresy.

Syria overshadowed PMQs today. The chamber was quiet and sombre. And both leaders were clearly about to do their world-statesman bit. Ed Miliband rose to his feet with an air of ineffable goodness. He looked like St Peter on his way to donate the dead Judas’s sandals to a charity shop. He asked about Britain’s readiness to accept Syrian refugees in accordance with a UN directive. Britain, said Cameron, is already the second largest donor to Syria. And the crisis can’t be solved by few hundred refugee placements. Miliband used two more questions to press the case for ‘orphans who had lost both parents.’ Cameron said he was prepared to ‘listen to the arguments’. ‘I feel we are gradually inching forward on this issue,’ said Miliband.

Mr S was in the bath thinking 'My word, isn't nature wonderful?' when he heard the pleasing sound of an email hitting his inbox. It contained the photograph above. The man in the picture is none other than Richard Royal, who is on the Conservatives' candidates list for the 2015 general election. RR is what we euphemistically call a "political consultant", and he is also a former male model. Mr S hears that RR is a bit of hit with the ladies. Is this broody, Heathcliffe-esque figure the answer to Young Dave's seemingly insoluble woman problem?