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.
So far at this Labour conference, most of the fireworks have been on the Blairite side of the party, with figures such as Chuka Umunna, Ivan Lewis, Liz Kendall and John Woodcock making their displeasure known at events last night. But when it comes to Jeremy Corbyn’s frontbench, and some of the issues on which
The Shadow Chancellor’s speech at Labour conference has always been the second biggest slot after the leader. But in a sense John McDonnell’s speech today, just before lunch, is the most important slot of the whole conference because he is talking about the policy area that did the most to put voters off Labour in
In the past few minutes, the Labour conference arrangements committee has decided not to hold a vote on whether to scrap Trident. This prevents a major split in the party early on into Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. There was insufficient support from constituency party delegates for a debate and vote, and even though Corbyn was making
Jeremy Corbyn had a very good interview on Marr this morning. For anyone in the wider, non-Westminster world tuning in (and they do), the new Labour leader would have come across as reasonable, mild, and normal. When Marr pressed him on certain issues, Corbyn looked as though he was an academic having a good debate
Ukip has announced its candidate for the 2016 London Mayor elections – and it’s a surprise. Peter Whittle, the party’s Culture Spokesman, is the candidate, not the favourite, Suzanne Evans. This isn’t as much of a surprise to Coffee House readers as it might be to others. In August we reported rumblings that Nigel Farage
Shaker Aamer, the last British resident held in Guantanamo Bay, is to be released, the White House has announced. Aamer is alleged to have led a unit of Taliban fighters and have plotted with Osama Bin Laden, but he has never been charged or been on trial. His case is one that David Cameron has
Jeremy Corbyn knows he has a lot to prove at his party’s conference, which starts on Sunday. The highlight of his leadership so far has been his new tone at PMQs, which did catch attention, even if the questions he asked rather turned the session into an opportunity for David Cameron to look Prime Ministerial.
Gloria De Piero is one of Labour’s most confident performers: a former television presenter who is well-liked in her party for speaking ‘normal’, she rarely seems ruffled. But when we meet in her Westminster office, the MP for Ashfield seems oddly anxious. Her party has been behaving in a similarly unsettled way ever since it
Jon Cruddas’ speech warning that Labour is lost in England has attracted plenty of attention for that line alone. But there was another section that is worth taking note of, given the former party policy chief is keen to play such a big role in rebuilding Labour after its febrile summer. Cruddas also spoke about
Tim Farron’s speech to the Lib Dem conference seems to have gone down well with those in the hall, which probably means that it did the trick, given this was his first conference as leader and the party’s first conference since its defeat. But given Farron wants to rebuild his party by appealing to those
Jeremy Corbyn may have a Shadow Cabinet and a full frontbench team, but the Labour leader doesn’t have many genuine outriders even amongst those he has given jobs to. Most frontbenchers seem rather refreshed by how happy he is for them to have open discussions at meetings: yesterday’s Shadow Cabinet meeting, for instance, was quite discursive and friendly,
Shortly after MPs return from the conference recess, they will debate a petition that orders the government to ‘close all borders and prevent more immigrants from entering Britain’ because ‘foreign citizens are taking all our benefits’ and ‘many of them are trying to change UK into a Muslim country’. It then adds that ‘there is
John Bercow has long made clear that he would like MPs to behave a little better at Prime Minister’s Questions, which he believes is so rowdy that it upsets voters. Well, he seems to have got what he wants, or at least for the first week of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party. Last
The Conservative Party board has agreed that CCHQ will remain strictly neutral throughout the EU referendum campaign, Coffee House understands. Sources report that this afternoon’s meeting concluded that it was in the best interests of the party that its campaign machine be inaccessible to either side in the campaign. MPs had warned of a split if
Jeremy Corbyn’s first policy pronouncement as Labour leader hasn’t been all that surprising: he wants a ‘People’s Railway’ that will bring the railways back into public ownership line by line. He will have noticed the excited noises that party members made at hustings whenever he mentioned rail renationalisation – and the impatient sighs from the
David Cameron will today support calls from his MPs to keep the Conservative party neutral during the EU referendum campaign, Coffee House understands. The Times reports this morning that the Conservative party board will meet to discuss whether or not the party machine should remain strictly neutral. This would mean the campaign to stay in
Appointing John McDonnell as his Shadow Chancellor made Jeremy Corbyn’s first few days as Labour leader much harder than they needed to be. This was mainly because the Hayes and Harlington MP made some deeply distasteful comments about the ‘bravery’ of the IRA. In 2003, McDonnell told a gathering to commemorate IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands: ‘It’s
How does Labour solve the greatest crisis in its history? In this week’s Spectator, I interview party thinker and former Miliband policy chief Jon Cruddas about where his party goes next. Cruddas doesn’t think Jeremy Corbyn is Labour’s problem: he’s just the symptom of an identity crisis that the party would have suffered from whoever got
Not even Jeremy Corbyn can distract ministers from the fact that in the next few months, they’ll be announcing huge cuts to their departmental spending. They submitted their proposals for cuts for the spending review to the Treasury earlier this month. Most ministers described the process as ‘bruising’, but they didn’t seem quite as agitated
Jeremy Corbyn surfaced last night to do his first round of broadcast interviews since becoming Labour leader. The two key lines were on Europe and Trident, and though the interviewers were interested in these issues, Corbyn also had an interest in being as clear as he possibly could be on them as they play a
