Uk politics

Monday

Sebastian Payne

The MPs who will benefit from George’s marvellous marginals medicine

'The biggest, boldest and most far-reaching roads programme for decades' — or the biggest, boldest marginal constituency programme? George Osborne has magicked up £15 billion for 84 new roads, some 100 overall improvements, totalling 1,300 miles of new lanes across the country. Unsurprisingly for an overtly political chancellor like Osborne, a majority of these roads will benefit marginal constituencies. The Telegraph has figured out all of the MPs who will benefit from the road spending and has calculated as many of 2/3 of the proposed improvements will help marginal constituencies. These are the most marginal Tory seats who will benefit  from George's marvellous marginal medicine: A34: Nicola Blackwood [datawrapper chart="http://static.

Isabel Hardman

George Osborne’s roads bonanza is the most fun he’ll have for a while

George Osborne has been looking forward to this particular Autumn Statement for a while because it is the opportunity for him and other colleagues to tour the country like Santa with a large infrastructure sack, handing out £15bn of road improvements to marginal constituencies and helping voters feel as though the recovery is making their lives better. Today is a day of jostling between the Chancellor and his Lib Dem colleagues who also want to take lots of credit for the goodies that they are handing out. But Wednesday looks as though it will be a little less cheerful, given the warning from the Ernst & Young Item Club that ‘the improvement in the public finances is in danger of not just stalling but going into reverse’.

Sunday

Sebastian Payne

Oo-err! Top five gags from Penny Mordaunt, minister for innuendo

Tory MP Penny Mourdant has caused a stir in Sunday's papers over her confession at our Parliamentarian of the Year awards that she said 'cock' in Parliament as a bet with her colleagues in the Royal Navy, where she serves as a reservist. As winner of our Speech of the Year award, Mourdant clearly has a way with words. Here are her top five gags (so far): 1. Caring for your kit in the field One of the highlights of her award-winning Loyal Speech earlier this year was a gag about her Royal Navy training: 'I have benefited from some excellent training by the Royal Navy but on one occasion I felt it was not as bespoke as it might have been.

James Forsyth

Tories to shut up about immigration and talk about the economy instead

There is a simple political test for the autumn statement, does it make the economy Topic A again? The Tories’ election strategy relies on the economy being the dominant issue of the campaign. If it is not, it is very hard to see how Cameron and co can win.   The Tories want everything to be seen through the prism of the economy. Hence Osborne’s emphasis this morning that he can only put an extra £2 billion into the NHS because the economy is strong.   In recent months, immigration has supplanted the economy as voters’ top concern. This has been to Ukip—and not the Tories—benefit. This is why Cameron’s speech last Friday was designed to shut the issue down.

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

The menace of memes: how pictures can paint a thousand lies

It’s very fashionable these days to be despondent about the quality of our politicians. They’re all lazy liars who look only to their interests and neglect their duties to their constituents because they’d rather be grunting and snorting around a trough before sticking their snouts in it. And while the expenses scandal, resignations and court cases show that a lot of anti-politics sentiment has been provoked by the politicians themselves, it’s worth remembering that not every accusation levelled at Westminster is fair. Over the past couple of years, a trend for internet memes about politicians has grown.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Tory backbenchers talk out ‘revenge evictions’ bill

Fridays in the House of Commons Chamber are rarely edifying experiences, and today a number of MPs and campaigners are very exercised that two backbenchers managed to talk out a private members’ bill which claimed to give tenants better protection against so-called ‘revenge evictions’. These evictions are when a tenant complains about the leaking bath or mouldy wall and finds themselves being turfed out by their landlord. Sarah Teather had introduced the Tenancies (Reform) Bill to prevent landlords issuing no-fault eviction notices if they had failed to meet safety standards and their tenant had formally complained about them. The government decided to support it and so did Labour, though many MPs were out of the Commons doing their normal Friday constituency work.

Isabel Hardman

Enraged euro-rebels threaten trouble after Cameron’s immigration speech fails to satisfy

One of the aims of David Cameron’s big immigration speech was to settle the issue with his backbenchers before returning to talk about the economy. Based on conversations I’ve had this morning with the key movers and shakers in the eurosceptic wing of the Tory party, he hasn’t got very close to settling the issue at all. Indeed, I suspect that there will be trouble before long. Members of the hardcore of eurosceptics I describe in this week’s politics column are unhappy with what they think is a lack of ambition from the Prime Minister. They feel he’s been flirting with them a bit too much on this issue and has led them on to believe he would announce something much bigger than he then produced.

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron’s immigration speech in five points

David Cameron has just finished delivering his ‘game changing’ immigration speech. A lot of it was a narration of why immigration had made Britain the country it is, but why some voters were uncomfortable with it. You can read the full text here, but here’s the speech summarised in five quick points: listen to ‘David Cameron's immigration speech’ on audioBoom 1. Cameron set out an optimistic vision of immigration in the UK The Prime Minister deliberately talked at length about the benefits migrants have brought to this country for many years and Britain’s history as an open, outward-looking country.

The Spectator

David Cameron’s immigration speech: full text

Today I want to talk about immigration. Just as this government has a long term plan for where we are taking our country so within that we have a long-term plan for immigration. Immigration benefits Britain, but it needs to be controlled. It needs to be fair. And it needs to be centred around our national interest. That is what I want. listen to ‘David Cameron's immigration speech’ on audioBoom And let me tell you why I care so passionately about getting this right – and getting the whole debate on immigration right in our country. When I think about what makes me proud to be British yes, it is our history, our values, our creativity, our compassion but there is something else too.

Isabel Hardman

Will Cameron please his backbenchers and EU leaders with his immigration speech?

If David Cameron’s speech today is more about backbench management than it is about his desperate desire to talk about immigration, then he needs to make sure that what he says is enough to satisfy most in his party. His aides and PPS Gavin Williamson were calling round key MPs last night to give them a briefing on what the speech would include, presumably in an attempt to persuade them that this really is a good speech with good policies that they can sell on the doorstep. MPs I’ve spoken to overnight and this morning seem reasonably happy with what they’ve heard before the speech. Andrew Bridgen, long a thorn in the Prime Minister’s flesh, says: ‘This will focus minds.

Thursday

Dot Wordsworth

Why ‘respect’ is the last thing we should want from politicians

‘Respect!’ cried my husband, drop-kicking a cushion with a picture of the Queen Mother holding a pint of beer on it (a present from Veronica) across the drawing-room. I might as well be married to Russell Brand and be done with it. His little satire was set off by Ed Miliband’s remarks about Emily Thornberry’s notorious Cross of St George tweet. ‘What is going through my mind is respect,’ the Labour leader said. ‘Respect is the basic rule of politics and I’m afraid her tweet conveyed a sense of disrespect.’ This seems to me deranged. If Mr Miliband knew about life ‘down in the street’ he’d realise that ‘respect’ is the gangland correlative of honour.

Isabel Hardman

Cameron to demand migrant benefit curbs in ‘game-changing’ immigration speech

David Cameron will make his ‘game-changer’ speech on immigration tomorrow in which he is expected to say that the UK will leave the EU if it does not secure reforms that allow the government to deny benefits to migrants. He will say: ‘If we cannot put our relationship with the EU on a better footing, then of course I rule nothing out.’ This is not the emergency brake or points-based system that the PM seemed to hint at previously and therefore unless there is more in the speech, some of his MPs may feel rather let down. Many were today saying that they expected it to be reasonably small beer, but others will be pleased at the conditionality Cameron is now attaching to Britain’s ongoing membership.

Isabel Hardman

What next for Andrew Mitchell?

Toby Rowland didn’t have the ‘wit, imagination or inclination’ to invent the account he produced of Andrew Mitchell calling police officers ‘plebs’ at the gates of Downing Street. In any other circumstances that description would be rather devastating, but today it must have sounded rather sweet for the police officer when Mr Justice Mitting uttered those words as he ruled that Andrew Mitchell probably ‘did speak the words alleged or something so close to them as to amount to the same including the politically toxic word “pleb”.’ Mitchell has lost his libel case against News Group Newspapers and must pay £300,000 in costs.

Steerpike

Theresa May pulls out all the stops at the Spectator Parliamentarian awards

If ever there was a tell-tale sign of who won the Great War between the Speaker and the Clerk of the Commons, it was today's Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year awards. Sir Robert Rogers picked up the top prize, declaring: 'Common sense and good governance will prevail before very long'. Mr Speaker failed to show up. The guest of honour, Home Secretary Theresa May, delivered her own comedy turn making jokes about George Osborne's haircut. She had a point. Her barbed comment that her 'special advisers had told her' this would be a 'good idea' had a particular resonance given her starring role on the cover of this quarter's edition of Spectator Life; a profile that features her advisers heavily. Wasting no time, May attacked both of her obvious future rivals for the Tory crown.

Isabel Hardman

Net migration target fails as Cameron prepares to make more immigration pledges

We are still waiting for David Cameron’s immigration speech, expected ‘this week’. The Conservatives tried to get their apology in early for failing to meet their target to get net migration into the ‘tens of thousands’, with a series of interventions starting this summer in which top Cabinet ministers started to highlight the problems with having a target when you can’t control EU migration, ahead of today’s figures showing that the target is an ex-target, or a ‘comment’, as Theresa May tried to pass it off as recently. Fraser looks at why missing that target is a good thing for this country in his post here. But it is bad politically for a number of reasons. Firstly it’s another broken promise.

James Forsyth

Will the Smith Commission proposals help or destroy the UK?

The phrase ‘Britain will never be the same again’ is overused. But today its use is justified. The Smith Commission proposals on further devolution for Scotland are a huge step towards a federal United Kingdom. All income tax, with the exception of the personal allowance, will be devolved to Scotland—so north of the border there could be different bands and rates. With more devolution to Scotland, the West Lothian question becomes more acute. So, David Cameron has been quick to stress this morning that he will bring forward his proposals on English votes for English laws before Christmas. The fundamental question is whether this move to federalism will save or destroy the Union. On balance, I’m hopeful it will save it.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Tory detox mission continues as Liz Truss speaks softly to ‘Green Blob’

One of the major themes of this year’s big Tory reshuffle was the attempt to detoxify certain policy areas where a minister was involved in a stand-off with certain groups the Tory party would quite like to vote for them. Michael Gove lost his job as Education Secretary for this reason, and so too did Nick Boles find himself being moved from Planning to Skills. Owen Paterson’s departure was a bit more complicated: his aide warned in the days before the reshuffle that to move the Environment Secretary would be to leave 12 million voters in the countryside without a voice, but he was in the midst of pretty high voltage rows with animal rights and environmental groups. And he lost his job.

Isabel Hardman

Will Cameron talk to his MPs before his ‘game-changer’ immigration speech?

We still don't know when David Cameron's long-awaited 'game-changer' speech on immigration will be. Downing Street is only saying that it will be 'before Christmas', but it is still expected to be this week. Nick Clegg certainly thinks it is soon, as he's been putting his own thoughts about today, saying he'll support benefit curbs for migrants but not changes to freedom of movement. Some Tory MPs also think they should engage the Prime Minister in a spot of last minute lobbying, with varying levels of success. The Europhiles represented by European Mainstream have asked to meet David Cameron this week to put their views across but have been told that no-one is being allowed in to Downing Street from either side of the party.

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Ukip’s Mark Reckless begins his battle to hold his seat with local question

‘Oooooh!’ shouted MPs when Mark Reckless got to his feet today at Prime Minister’s Questions for his first chance as a Ukipper to grill David Cameron. The newly-re-elected MP had looked rather nervous for most of the session as he bobbed up and down trying to get the Speaker’s attention, but he probably didn’t need to be so anxious given Bercow is normally very happy to call new MPs, especially ones the Prime Minister doesn’t like. When his chance came, he asked the following question: ‘I’m grateful to the Prime Minister for spending so much time in Rochester and Strood. Dr Philip Barnes, acting chief executive of Medway Hospital, said this morning that what our hospital needs is a period of patience and stability.