Isabel Hardman

Tory eurosceptics are threatening to cause the first government defeat on a Queen’s Speech since 1924 by joining forces with Labour MPs over an amendment expressing regret that there is no bill exempting the NHS from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. It’s the second time the eurosceptics have worked with Opposition MPs to try to force an embarrassing and historic defeat on a major government event: the last one was on the Tampon Tax after the March Budget (which turned out to be the least embarrassing bit of the aftermath of that Budget, as it happens). But why are Tory eurosceptics joining in with this opposition game-playing?

The quiet Queen’s Speech seems largely to have underwhelmed Tory MPs - though they do predict a number of sticky moments in the Commons over the coming months. Most I have spoken to describe it as ‘pretty bare’, though they also understand why the Prime Minister isn’t trying anything particularly ambitious at this stage ‘Why waste initiatives when no-one is listening?’ asks one. Another anti-Cameron MP describes the content rather more bluntly as ‘uninspiring, managerialist and vacuous’. There will be flashpoints on the Bill of Rights and the Investigatory Powers Bill, something the whips are hard at work on.

When are Jeremy Corbyn’s enemies going to get their act together? Today’s Times poll of the Labour membership shows that they would get a rather cold reception if they tried to remove the Labour leader, with 72 per cent telling YouGov that Corbyn is doing well, up from 66 per cent in November. Members are slightly less upbeat about the party’s prospects for actually governing, with 53 per cent believing it will be in government after the 2020 election, and 47 per cent saying Corbyn is likely to become Prime Minister.

One of the big questions about the EU referendum campaign is whether the Tory leadership is running its campaign in such a way as to make it impossible to stitch the party back together again after the result on 23 June. The Prime Minister’s colleagues concerned with party management who work in Number 10 and the whips’ office are certainly very agitated about the mood in the party, with a number of pro-Brexit ministers appearing to conclude that they have burned their bridges irreparably. This has led their colleagues to worry that there will be a large group of ministers and backbenchers after a ‘Remain’ vote who still try to move against the Prime Minister.

One of the major features of the EU referendum campaign is the suspicion on the part of Tory eurosceptics that their party in government is trying to screw them over. The latest theory centres around the dates when the postal votes are sent out and when the government is forced by official rules governing election campaigns to shut up. The postal votes in the EU referendum are being sent out between 27 May and 3 June, and the official ‘purdah’ for the campaign also begins on 27 May.

It’s a good day for the Conservatives to bury bad news, when all attention is on Labour and the SNP’s election performances. So that must be why in the past few minutes Nicky Morgan has announced she is U-turning on the government’s plans to force all schools in England to become academies. The Education Secretary will no longer force good schools to change their structure, but will instead focus on selling the benefits of academies within the education community. This is a significant shift. In reality, it is all the government could do as there were too many Tory MPs opposed to the plans as set out in the White Paper for it to ever make it through the Commons as a piece of legislation.

Jeremy Corbyn’s critics may well be setting the Labour leader impossible challenges by demanding that the party wins 400 seats in this week’s local elections. But Corbyn himself isn’t exactly making things easier either, telling reporters today that his party won’t lose seats on Thursday. Independent experts such as Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher are predicting substantial net losses of around 150 seats, so unless Corbyn has better intelligence than these very reliable sources, he seems to be setting himself a challenge that he knows he will fail. Why is the Labour leader doing this?

Monday mornings are miserable enough as it is, but this morning the Leave campaign decided to treat us to the double whammy of a furious column from Boris Johnson in the Telegraph and an irritable Iain Duncan Smith on the Today programme. The Mayor is angry about Obama and the way the Remain campaign has patronised voters, while Iain Duncan Smith was annoyed not just about the accusations of racism that were hurled at Johnson for his ‘half-Kenyan’ comments last week, but also about the offer that David Cameron and his colleagues are setting out as part of the Remain case. The whole interview was rather grumpy, and the tone of the campaign this week now looks rather crotchety.

David Cameron and Barack Obama arrived at the Foreign Office for their press conference today with two clear aims. The first was to impress upon everyone how well they get on, and in a rather cringeworthy manner. Cameron in particular was desperate to mention in almost every sentence the jolly good friendship that he had with his friend Barack. His friend who he is so close to that he doesn’t even need to mention his last name. But still needs to set out all the examples of how they are good friends, just in case anyone is in any doubt.