Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator and author of Why We Get the Wrong Politicians. She also presents Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.
Tory MPs believe they have sufficient numbers of would-be rebels to be able to amend the government’s Investigatory Powers Bill, which was published yesterday. Coffee House understands that there are already around 10 Tory MPs who would be happy to join forces with Labour to change key sections of the legislation on the authorisation of
Ministers are today publishing a document that is already being rubbished as a ‘dodgy dossier’ about the options for Brexit. The report, which comes out later, concludes, funnily enough, that all of the alternatives to EU membership would leave Britain ‘weaker, less safe and worse off’ and that ‘no alternative model guarantees that British businesses
Sir Jeremy Heywood is currently insisting to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs select committee that there is absolutely nothing untoward about his guidance to civil servants about withholding documents that have a bearing on the EU referendum from ministers. ‘I’m really struggling to see what the problem is here,’ he has just argued to
Britain’s membership of the European Union is a matter of principle and emotion for most Tory MPs. But it is also a matter of party management. David Cameron would have had an easier time as Prime Minister in the last parliament had he realised that while Conservatives will always want to bang on about Europe,
Jeremy Corbyn’s much-awaited appearance at the weekly meeting of the parliamentary Labour party didn’t go particularly well this evening, which means that for the group of increasingly determined MPs trying to oust him, it was a hugely successful session. MPs were reminded that the meeting is off the record at the start, before being given
Even if there has been no mistake at all in the guidance to civil servants about what documents they can share with pro-Brexit ministers during the referendum campaign, the government has clearly made a number of mistakes at least in the presentation of that guidance, as this afternoon’s urgent question in the Commons showed. The
The one thing quieter than the quiet Commons at the moment is the Labour leadership. Even when Jeremy Corbyn speaks in the Chamber, he makes so little impact that trees falling in empty forests have excited more attention. Last Monday during his response to David Cameron’s European Council statement, Labour backbenchers nattered amongst themselves in
If the parliamentary diary for this week is anything to go by, the next few days are going to be very quiet in Westminster. There is hardly any legislation in the Commons, save for the exciting and largely pointless circus of Private Members’ Bills on Friday, and a series of votes on estimates – public
The papers report today that many Conservatives are furious with the way David Cameron is conducting the referendum campaign. MPs threaten that if the Prime Minister continues with the personal attacks that he launched at various opponents on the ‘Leave’ side this week, it will impossible for him to continue at leader after the referendum,
Jeremy Corbyn is this weekend campaigning against Labour Party policy. A year ago, it would have been quite unremarkable for the then obscure backbencher to turn up to the CND rally and give a speech against nuclear weapons. But now he’s the Labour leader, Corbyn will be speaking against the current official policy of the
Has David Cameron settled on a strategy for dealing with his opponents in the EU referendum? The Prime Minister was clearly caught on the hop by the decisions of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove to back the ‘Out’ side at the weekend, and his angry digs at the Mayor in the Commons on Monday showed
Quite naturally, those campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union have seized on today’s net migration figures as evidence that staying in won’t resolve voters’ concerns about immigration. Priti Patel has said that ‘the proposed deal will do nothing to reduce the level of immigration from the EU, and will leave unelected politicians in
The net migration statistics have, for quite a while, been an awkward quarterly occurrence that the Tories just have to sit through and pretend isn’t happening. Today’s release from the Office for National Statistics shows that David Cameron is still nowhere near hitting his pledge of driving net migration into the tens of thousands, with
Of all the publications from the Office for National Statistics this morning, the electoral statistics for the UK doesn’t sound like the most gripping. But it is the start of a very big political row, which is the boundary review. These electoral statistics will spark the formal review by the Boundary Commissions, which will then
Michael Gove’s BBC interview, in which he disagrees with his Prime Minister over whether his renegotiation deal is indeed legally binding, is a sign of how confusing the referendum campaign is going to get. The Justice Secretary is perfectly polite as he dismisses the stance of his own government, but he is still the Justice
The number of Tory MPs who have yet to declare what their stance is in the EU referendum is dwindling. Some of those are away, including Tracey Crouch, who is on maternity leave and gave this very amusing response to those asking about her priorities, while others have decided not to reveal which way they
Labour’s angst over Trident has taken something of a back seat over the past few days as the party tries – relatively unsuccessfully – to revel in the split opening up in the Tories on Europe. But this evening, those tasked with developing Labour’s foreign policy, and particularly its stance on the nuclear deterrent, are
David Cameron’s rather pointed digs at Boris Johnson in the Commons yesterday surprised his own MPs, who had thought that they were going to be ordered to be pleasant to one another, not attack senior colleagues who had taken different stances on the European Union. At the party meeting with the Prime Minister last night,
Jeremy Corbyn was still stuck in the Commons chamber when the Labour Party held its weekly meeting this evening. He had been due to attend after MPs had complained that he was avoiding them, but this has now been moved to another week. Instead, Hilary Benn and Alan Johnson gave brief speeches on the EU
The main difference between David Cameron’s statement to MPs on his EU deal and the two statements he has already given on the matter was that this one had added digs at Boris Johnson. Quite a few of them, in fact. The Prime Minister is clearly furious with the Mayor of London for his weekend announcement