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.
The political flourishes in George Osborne’s spending review were impressive. But how is the Chancellor doing when it comes to meeting targets set during previous political performances? Today the Office for Budget responsibility said that the welfare cap, which the Chancellor announced in 2014 as a trap for Labour, would be breached in three successive
Preparing for the spending review, George Osborne must have written two speeches: his own, and the one he expected John McDonnell to make. He then clearly went through that Shadow Chancellor speech, ensuring that he’d crossed off every reasonably large line of attack. Tax credits cuts: reversed. More funding for social care and mental health
One of the things to look out for in today’s spending review is the number of spending pots that have suddenly become very relevant to the international development scene. A number of Secretaries of State for unprotected departments have worked out that the best way to save some of their budgets from being slashed is
Either Len McCluskey is, in the Corbynista narrative, a Tory, or things are going badly wrong for the man his union endorsed for the Labour leadership. The York Press reports that the Unite leader told an audience in York that Jeremy Corbyn ‘has to come to terms with his leadership’, that he ‘can’t necessarily say
A number of Labour MPs are campaigning in Oldham today, with fears growing in the party that it could be in serious trouble in the by-election there. Even though Michael Meacher won the seat in May with a 14,000 majority, the fears that I reported last week about white working class voters turning away from
As David Cameron confirmed in his statement to the Commons today, he will set out his strategy on attacking Islamic State in Syria on Thursday. MPs will then get the weekend to consider their positions, with a vote expected next week. A number of odd things are happening in preparation for this vote. One is
Labour MPs have had plenty of opportunities over the past few weeks to look miserable. But today the party looked its most miserable ever as Jeremy Corbyn responded to David Cameron’s statement on the Strategic Defence and Security Review. Even the frontbenchers, particularly Tom Watson, looked unhappy. Andy Burnham looked even more doleful than usual.
Pro-intervention Labour MPs are increasingly confident that they will help David Cameron get a majority for British military action against Islamic State in Syria. They also believe that the amount of support for such action will bring what one frontbencher describes as a ‘point of reckoning’ and another describes as a ‘turning point for the
It’s quite clear what the Tory approach to a vote on British involvement in action against Islamic State in Syria will be: the Prime Minister will set out his strategy for this later this week, warning MPs that they need to choose to be ‘Churchill not Chamberlain’. George Osborne warned this morning on Marr that
The UN Security Council this evening unanimously approved a resolution calling on all countries that can do so to fight Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. David Cameron welcomed it as a sign that ‘the world has united against Isil’. It will likely form a key part of his case for British involvement in military
Cutting the police was always going to be difficult without a terror attack just before the spending review, but naturally the events in Paris have made it much more difficult for the Treasury to stand up to the Home office in a fight that was going to happen anyway. The leaked letter from one of
David Cameron has had another one of his friendly meetings with new Tory MPs today. These are regular slots where new backbenchers get the chance to raise matters that they’re interested in and the Prime Minister tells them how well they are doing. Unsurprisingly, Syria came up today. It’s interesting that Cameron is being quite
That 98 per cent of junior doctors have voted in favour of strike action over their new contract shows the extent of the stand-off between the medical profession and Jeremy Hunt. It is not possible that all the members of the BMA who turned out to vote (76 per cent) are raving left-wingers. Most of
Maria Eagle’s aides have denied reports that she is considering quitting her role as Shadow Defence Secretary over the appointment of Ken Livingstone as co-convenor of the Labour party defence policy review. But they are emphasising that she remains the lead on defence policy, and that this review will be feeding in to the party’s
Robert Frost famously defined poetry as the moment when emotion finds thought, and the thought finds words. But in the era of social media, who needs words? As several million Brits have been discovering this week, there is a way of showing your emotional sympathy with the French. Simply put a Tricolore filter on your
Senior politicians have so far been rather cautious in their response to the Paris attacks. But today David Cameron gave a much more robust and intentional statement on the British reaction to what happened on Friday night. He used his slot in the Commons to re-state the case for British involvement in military action against
A number of Labourites are very worried about the impact that Jeremy Corbyn’s shoot-to-kill comments will have on the party’s chances in the Oldham West and Royton by-election. They think it is the latest in a line of incidents that will suggest to voters in that seat that the Labour leader isn’t really thinking about
Jeremy Corbyn has given an interesting round of interviews to the broadcast media this afternoon, in which he has questioned the legality of the drone strike which is believed to have killed Mohammed Emwazi, or ‘Jihadi John’, and said he would be ‘unhappy’ with a shoot-to-kill policy on Britain’s streets. Speaking to ITV, the Labour
It was inevitable that Theresa May would face demands to rethink police cuts at Home Office questions this afternoon. And Labour did indeed make this its main line of attack in the Commons, with Andy Burnham urging the Home Secretary to reconsider reductions in police numbers that might be being considered in the Comprehensive Spending
After the attacks in Paris, what has changed? Islamic State is still a threat that world leaders don’t seem to know how to deal with, and for Britain, the House of Commons still hasn’t approved British involvement in air strikes against the terror group in Syria. But today David Cameron hopes that things have changed