Uk politics

Compassionate Conservatism has taken a bit of a kicking in the past few months: from leftwing critics who want to claim it is dead (but who always disagreed with its central premise anyway) and from certain Conservatives such as George Osborne who prefer a nice political dividing line. But today, as previewed in the Spectator last week, Iain Duncan Smith restated the need for this key strand of Tory thinking, and he set it firmly within the Conservative reforming tradition, saying: 'As Conservatives, that is part of our Party’s historic mission – just look at Wilberforce and Shaftesbury – to put hope back where it has gone, to give people from chaotic lives security through hard work… helping families to improve the quality of their own lives.

Mike Hancock has been suspended this afternoon as a Liberal Democrat councillor following the leak of the report into his conduct. The report, which was published in a redacted form, does not make comfortable reading at all, with some very unpleasant allegations from the constituent about his behaviour towards her, including that he forcibly kissed her, 'asked for a wank or a quick suck' and that he asked to be 'the first one to road test drive' her after a hysterectomy operation. You can read the report, sections of which have been redacted, here. Its author, Nigel Pascoe QC, has already expressed his concern about the redaction: 'I have now seen for the first time the redacted version of my report, Public and Private Conduct, concerning Mr Michael Hancock MP.

The Tories have always denied rumours that they might give their coalition colleagues an easier ride at constituency level in the 2015 general election. But even though all three parties are very much on an election war footing now, the Conservatives have, strangely, yet to select candidates to fight two of their favourite ministers. The constituencies for Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander currently have no candidates, along with 28 others (including MPs the Tories aren't quite so keen on working with in Coalition, such as Lynne Featherstone), while the other 27 have candidates in place. Alexander is easy to work with in the Treasury (I reported before Christmas that he'd been scolded by Lib Dem high command for using the Tory term 'global race').

Ed Miliband tends to enjoy success when he's either stealing someone else's clothes or offering a possibly unworkable policy that sounds catchy. This morning on the Andrew Marr Show he tried both tactics. Having nicked One Nation from the Tories and repeated the phrase so often that they probably don't want it back, Miliband is now trying to ape a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt. His close colleague Lord Wood sets out why Labour thinks this is a space it can jump into in a piece for Coffee House. listen to ‘Ed Miliband on the Andrew Marr Show’ on Audioboo The catchy line from this Roosevelt-style crusade is that Labour is now the party of competition, with Miliband planning to appoint consumer groups such as Which?