Uk politics

We certainly didn’t learn much new about David Cameron from his flooding press conference this afternoon. We already knew that his approach to crises is to let things get rather bad for a little while, and then, with his back against the wall, to perform well as a statesman taking control of a messy situation. He did that again today, with a clear line that ‘money is no object’ as a means of countering the Ukip line on diverting some of the aid budget to flood victims. Cameron set out specific examples of the extra spending on flood relief, a bigger role for the military – with 1,600 service men

So is the ban on smoking in cars with children, backed by MPs this evening by 376 votes to 107 against, a good idea? As James observed earlier, it is fascinating to see how quickly opinions have shifted even in the past few weeks. The PA division lists have 100 Conservative MPs voting against, and only four Liberal Democrats opposing a ban that their own leader described as ‘illiberal’. But it is worth reflecting that the Cabinet ministers who voted against it included Theresa May and Chris Grayling (the others were Iain Duncan Smith and Theresa Villiers). Grayling was voting reluctantly on the basis that the ban was unenforceable. Which given

It’s a week since Harriet Harman claimed it was ‘raining men’ in the Tory party, and yet the debate still rages about whether the Conservatives have a ‘women problem’. Tory backbencher Tracey Crouch has written a forceful piece for the Mail on Sunday on why she felt Ed Miliband’s intervention at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday was patronising. It’s worth a read, not least because she tries to dispel the myth that women are being turned off Parliament just because it’s rowdy: ‘Some of the loudest and, in some cases, most effective hecklers in Parliament today are women MPs. Even the most unruly Labour men think twice before taking on

Immigration Minister Mark Harper has resigned after being informed that his cleaner was working illegally in this country. Here is the exchange of letters between Harper and David Cameron: Letter from Mark Harper to the Prime Minister 7 February 2014 Dear Prime Minister In April 2007 I took on a cleaner for my London flat. In doing so, I was very mindful of my legal and financial obligations and undertook a number of checks beforehand. This included consideration of the HMRC tests as to whether the cleaner was performing her work under a contract for services on a self-employed basis which I concluded she was. However, even though there was

David Cameron will tell Scots this morning that the UK wants Scotland to stay a part of the Union. That he’s giving this speech at all is being read in some quarters as a sign that he’s at least underwhelmed by the show put on so far by Better Together leader Alistair Darling. The PM’s intervention certainly marks a change of tone from the most recent speeches, particularly Mark Carney’s, which George Osborne praised as a very good ‘technical’ speech. Thus far the ‘no’ campaign has relied more on the technical argument which Alex Salmond has brushed away as minor objections to the great principle of independence. So Cameron is

What are the Coalition parties going to do for the next few months in the run-up to the general election? Judging by the way the Liberal Democrats have behaved this week, they’re going to spend a great deal of time talking about Michael Gove, which isn’t encouraging for anyone who got a little bored of that particular ding-dong around the time of the childcare debacle. They’re certainly not planning to do much in the way of legislating, either. At today’s Business Statement in the House of Commons, Angela Eagle mocked Andrew Lansley for announcing very little in the way of government business: ‘I thank the Leader of the House for