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.
From our UK edition
David Cameron’s pledge to his MPs that none of them who want to stand again in 2020 will be left behind as a result of the boundary changes is a sign that the Prime Minister thinks party management will be seriously important this year. A fight between MPs over fewer constituencies would have been bad
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Labour is very cross about a knighthood going to the man who ran the election campaign that beat the party in May. Andy Burnham issued a statement about Lynton Crosby’s inclusion in the New Year’s Honours list which was supposed to highlight what his party thinks is an abuse of the system. But really, it
From our UK edition
Should celebrities really shut up about politics? Nick Timothy makes a persuasive argument on ConservativeHome that Benedict Cumberbatch et al should stop lecturing theatregoers and pontificating about Edward Snowden because they lower the standard of political debate in this country. He writes: ‘So if I had a wish for 2016, it would be that these
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There is no point in anyone trying to defend Oliver Letwin’s 1985 memo to Margaret Thatcher in which the then aide to the Prime Minister argued that white people were not prone to public disorder and that regeneration of inner city areas would only result in those from ethnic minorities setting up ‘in the disco
From our UK edition
Why should Lynton Crosby get a knighthood? The Sunday Times today reports that the Conservatives’ election chief is in line for an honour, which has provoked fury from democracy campaigners and, naturally, those aligned with the parties he helped to humiliate in May. The fury of the Labourites is quite easy to understand, and not
From our UK edition
David Cameron’s Christmas message is being reported as one of his most Christian public statements yet, with the Prime Minister arguing – as he did at Prime Minister’s Questions recently – that ‘it is because of these important religious roots and Christian values that Britain has been such a successful home to people of all
From our UK edition
Should ministers have so many special advisers? Should a party that promised to cut the number of these SpAds if it came to government admit that it got this wrong, having increased their number? The arguments in favour of more of these political staffers in government are well-rehearsed: if they’re good, they add expertise and
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If the responses to last week’s Paris agreement on tackling climate change are anything to go by, you’d think politicians were warming to the issue. David Cameron said that ‘this generation has taken vital steps to ensure that our children and grandchildren will see that we did our duty in securing the future of our
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David Cameron was in such a hurry to tell everyone about how well last night’s talks with EU leaders had gone that the crest hadn’t been properly stuck on his lectern when he gave his press conference. It wobbled off and hung at an angle as the Prime Minister reported ‘a lot of goodwill’ and
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The Strathclyde Review into the power of peers to block legislation sent up by the Commons reports today, and it is expected to strip the House of Lords of its ability to kill off secondary legislation. And the way the government will bring in this reform, which will enshrine the primacy of the Commons, is
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Today at Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron quoted Gary Porter, the Tory chair of the Local Government Association, praising reforms in the spending review that will allow councils to raise money for the cost of social care using council tax. The Tory leader was using the quote to prove Jeremy Corbyn wrong in his warnings
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George Osborne has been busily signing more devolution deals today, with five pilot schemes moving power over health policy and spending from Whitehall to London boroughs. It’s part of the Chancellor’s devolution revolution that he is making a key part of his brand. It’s also – as is always the case with Osborne – a
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David Cameron will be relived that his European Referendum Bill is finally on its way to Royal Assent, after weeks of threats from Labour peers. But Europe being Europe, there are a whole heap of other problems that the Prime Minister needs to contend with too. It’s not just the specific question of whether David
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Few really expected Jeremy Corbyn to pull out of the Stop the War fundraising dinner, which he attended last night. He used to chair the coalition, and hasn’t made any comment since becoming leader to suggest that he now disagrees with its aims and objectives. This, as Freddy wrote recently, simply shows that the new
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‘This is a government that delivers,’ declared David Cameron in a speech on Monday. It’s a good thing he wasn’t announcing the launch of a pizza delivery firm, as tonight’s announcement on airport expansion suggests that the food would be stone cold by the time it finally arrived. After initially saying they’d make a decision
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Remember food banks? They were a hot political issue about a year ago, with Labour MPs raising them again and again to wrong foot Tory ministers, but seem to have dropped off the political agenda, even though many of them are still seeing more people coming to them for emergency food help. Well, some politicians
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Though he had a reasonably good Prime Minister’s Questions for someone who hasn’t done much of it, George Osborne did stumble quite badly on one question. He ended up telling SNP MP Alison Thewliss about the importance of welfare reform – in response to a question about women who had given birth to a third child
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How do you unite the Labour party and cheer them up? Today the party’s MPs were cheering happily and laughing along at the jokes offered from their Dispatch Box for the first time in months. And on Monday, they managed to have a cheerful meeting of the parliamentary Labour party. One thing that was missing
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What do politicians find it harder to admit to doing in Britain today: smoking weed or praying? Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb thinks it’s the latter, and that this is part of a ‘creeping intolerance’ in Britain that makes our society less able to resist religious extremists. In a lecture last night to the Conservative Christian
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What if David Cameron does win his fight – staged or otherwise – with European leaders to block benefits for EU migrants for four years? In terms of his pitch to the British public that voting to stay in the bloc is a good idea, this win would be very handy indeed. But would it