Isabel Hardman

The Tories risk playing ‘petty, grubby’ politics by planning to delay the Commons vote on Trident renewal, former head of the Navy Lord West has warned Coffee House. A group of former senior military figures, ex-ministers and MPs are writing to David Cameron and George Osborne next week to urge them to push ahead with the votes on the ’main gate’ decision on the new submarines as soon as possible, after reports that the Conservatives were planning to delay until closer to Labour’s autumn conference. David Cameron this week said ‘we should have the vote when we need to have the vote and that is exactly what we will do’, which suggested he wasn’t trying to create a sense of urgency about the matter.

One of the more intriguing exchanges at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was between Julian Lewis and David Cameron on Trident. The chairman of the Defence Select Committee asked the following: ‘The debate and vote on the Trident successor submarine should have been held in the last Parliament, but was blocked by the Liberal Democrats. Given the fun that the Prime Minister had a few moments ago at the Labour party’s expense over Trident’s successor, it must be tempting for him to put off the vote until Labour’s conference in October. However, may I urge him to do the statesmanlike thing and hold that vote as soon as possible because everyone is ready for it and everyone is expecting it?

Ukip’s announcement this afternoon that it will be backing Grassroots Out in its bid for designation as the official ‘Leave’ campaign in the EU referendum has caused consternation in its ranks. The party put out a press release saying that the National Executive Committee, MEPs and its Local Councillors Association are backing GO, which was set up by Peter Bone and is supported by Leave.EU. But I understand that there was no formal NEC meeting about this, and that the last meeting that discussed the designation was a few months ago. When I asked the party how the NEC was consulted, I was told that there was a telephone discussion about the matter this morning. Some were contacted by text message.

Emily Thornberry, the new Shadow Defence Secretary, held a meeting with her fellow Labour MPs this evening. It either went 'swimmingly' or was 'worse than I thought', depending on which MPs you listen to. Based on the accounts of the meeting from MPs who've spoken to Coffee House this evening, it was less the Ian Thorpe sort of swimming, and more Eric the Eel. Naturally, those opposed to a change in Labour policy are not happy, and were unlikely to come out of tonight's meeting of the parliamentary Labour Party feeling very happy unless Thornberry had announced that Jeremy Corbyn has learned to stop worrying and love the nuclear deterrent.

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3" title="James Forsyth and Vote Leave's Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm"] This might seem impossible, but the row between Vote Leave and Labour leave has become even more complicated. This afternoon, Labour donor John Mills, who remains on the Vote Leave campaign, has put out this statement: 'I am the founder and co-owner of Labour Leave. A statement has been put out by someone called Richard Hillgrove purporting to be from Brendan Chilton, General Secretary of Labour Leave. That statement is fraudulent. Richard Hillgrove has no position in Labour Leave. Labour Leave is an independent campaign but corporately it supports Vote Leave.

The Welfare Reform and Work Bill has its third reading in the House of Lords on Monday before returning to the Commons for consideration of amendments. Jeremy Corbyn raised one of the controversial aspects of this bill, which is to cut the amount of money paid to people who are judged too ill to work currently but with the potential to return to the workplace in the future, at Prime Minister’s Questions this week. Peers have defeated this measure, but the government intends to reverse it. But there are Tory MPs who are worried about the cut to employment and support allowance, too.