Uk politics

So, after the horsetrading of the past few days, the Conservatives appear to have won their battle to add relocation powers to the terrorism prevention and investigation measures. In his statement in the Commons this afternoon, David Cameron said: 'We will introduce new powers to add to our existing terrorism prevention and investigation measures, including stronger locational constraints on suspects under TPIMs either through enhanced use of exclusion zones or through relocation powers.' The Prime Minister also confirmed: Police will gain the power to seize passports at the border temporarily so that they can investigate an individual. This power will include safeguards and oversight arrangements.

The Coalition parties are gearing up for a week of minding the gaps. Tomorrow, David Cameron plans to tell MPs about measures that he feels are necessary for plugging the gaps in Britain's armoury. They're gaps highlighted to him by the intelligence and security services, and where the Tories once said they would be very sceptical about gaps, whether they existed, and whether it was right to plug them, the Prime Minister seems pretty keen to listen to the spooks. But the Lib Dems are still cross about the gaps, and possibly cross about another change of heart from the Conservatives.

I have had to suspend my 'No Thanks' independence referendum tour of Scotland. It was back in June that I announced my plan to tour the country.  A hundred events.  All outdoors in Scotland's summer.  Me, my makeshift stage of two upturned Irn-bru crates, a microphone, one of those small speaker-amps, a one or two-strong road crew, take it to the streets. 'From Barrhead to Barra' was my catchline.   Barrhead is in my constituency and is synonymous with an industrial Scotland, a half hour’s drive from Glasgow.  Barra is another Scotland, twelve hundred largely Gaelic-speaking fishers and crofters at the southern end of the Western Isles archipelago.  The tour is old school politics, reconnecting. Thousands of people have taken part.

Monday will be a busy day in the Commons. Speaker Bercow is expected to give a statement on the swelling row over his plan to appoint Carol Mills as Clerk of the House (or another mysterious new role that he's considering concocting in an attempt to calm the feud with backbenchers). That feud is getting more and more vocal, so Bercow had better have something decent to tell MPs when he does speak. The early day motion tabled by Jesse Norman and Natascha Engel will only appear on the order paper on Monday, but the campaign has 84 supporters now (not all will sign the motion as some avoid EDMs out of principle). Since Coffee House revealed the original list, Nigel Dodds, Cheryl Gillan, Rob Wilson, Nigel Evans, Kwasi Kwarteng and Peter Bottomley have all added their support.

As well as saying his decision is regrettable and counterproductive, the other Tory response to this morning's shock defection by Douglas Carswell is to point people to instances where Carswell has said that only David Cameron as Prime Minister in 2017 will guarantee a referendum. In April, he wrote on his Telegraph blog: 'In order to exit the EU, we need David Cameron to be Prime Minister in 2017 – the year when we will get the In/Out referendum, our chance to vote to leave the EU.'   Suggesting he is inconsistent is at least a little more nuanced than smearing him as a 'headbanger'. But what Carswell's defection today tells us is that he doesn't actually think that referendum will be worth it anyway.

The cross-party group of MPs opposing John Bercow's appointment of Carol Mills as Clerk of the House have now submitted their early day motion designed to stop the Speaker going ahead without scrutiny. The motion is co-sponsored by Tory Jesse Norman and Labour chair of the Backbench Business Committee Natascha Engel. Coffee House understands that 66 MPs from the three major parties have signed the EDM (all the more impressive given MPs are still on recess) and at least a further eight MPs will support the call for a debate on select committee pre-hearings before any appointment is made. The list of those 74 MPs who support this campaign is below.

Boris Johnson has confirmed that he is going to apply to be the Conservative candidate for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. His announcement comes on the same day that Nigel Farage is expected to be confirmed as the Ukip candidate for South Thanet, which suggests that the Conservatives are keen to use Boris as their anti-Farage weapon. More to follow...