Isabel Hardman

David Cameron might have had an enjoyable session teasing Labour at Prime Minister’s Questions, but as soon as he’d finished doing so in his head-to-head with Harriet Harman, he was reminded that winning an election with a majority that is so small means he can’t have fun all the time. Andrew Mitchell stood up to press the Prime Minister on human rights reform, expressing concern about any moves to leave the European Convention on human rights: ‘My right hon. Friend will be well aware that there is considerable concern on both sides of the House at the proposition that Britain might withdraw from the European convention on human rights. Will he take the opportunity today to make it clear that he has no plans for us to do so?

If you’re a Labour leadership contender, or keen for other reasons to look in touch with people - or perhaps you really do disagree with MPs getting a 10 per cent pay rise, then the fashionable thing to say is that you’ll be turning down the pay rise. This morning Andy Burnham has said he will refuse the extra £7,000 that Ipsa plans to pay MPs per year, tweeting that he ‘will turn down at source or give to local groups’. Stella Creasy, campaigning to be elected Labour’s deputy leader, has said similar. https://twitter.com/andyburnhammp/status/606007088339415040 Both MPs will have to donate to local groups because Ipsa says there is no way of refusing a pay rise.

As the new SNP MPs settle in to their new life in the House of Commons, a picture is doing the rounds on social media showing a Commons Chamber that is near-deserted, save the SNP benches, which are packed. The caption from the BBC Parliament channel is ‘MPs are debating safety at HM Naval Base Clyde where the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent is stationed’. The point that SNP supporters and some of the party’s MPs are making is that this shows that the party turns up to debates while other parties can’t be bothered. It’s a powerful image, and it is not a fake.

Number 10 has not given an official denial that David Cameron has ruled out pulling out of the European Convention on human rights, with the Prime Minister’s official spokeswoman today saying that the manifesto was ‘absolutely’ the best guide to the Prime Minister’s position on human rights reform. This is what the manifesto says on human rights: We will reform human rights law and our legal system We have stopped prisoners from having the vote, and have deported suspected terrorists such as Abu Qatada, despite all the problems created by Labour’s human rights laws. The next Conservative Government will scrap the Human Rights Act, and introduce a British Bill of Rights.

On election night, between the exit poll suggesting the Conservatives would be back in a coalition government and the slow realisation that they were heading for a majority, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon was heard remarking to colleagues that the UK might just end up maintaining defence spending at 2 per cent of GDP after all. He was banking, for a few hours anyway, on the DUP playing enough of a role in the formation of the next government that the Tories would have to commit to maintaining spending at that level - the target set by Nato and endorsed by David Cameron - in order to bring Nigel Dodds and co on board. But as today’s Times reminds us, that hasn’t happened and so now Fallon is having to find £1 billion of savings from the defence budget.

Of all the talks he will have with European leaders about his plans to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Europe, David Cameron was always likely to enjoy his meeting with Angela Merkel the most. And she doesn’t seem to have disappointed him, saying treaty change was not ‘impossible’ and that ‘we would like to be a part of the process that is going on in Great Britain at the moment and we would like to be a constructive partner in this process’. This is very encouraging for Cameron, though the feeling in Europe generally is still that treaty change is too hard or inconvenient.