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.
John Bercow has just been re-elected unopposed as Speaker of the House of Commons. Those who had been hoping to get rid of Bercow decided not to pursue this to a vote this week, and so he is back in the chair. In his speech, he cracked a joke at the expense of Labour, saying
How does the Labour party recover? Harriet Harman set out how it will try to come back from its latest election defeat in a speech this morning which told the party to listen to the customer because the customer is always right. Her basic pitch was that just like a product or a shop or
It has been alleged that Nigel Farage never formally resigned from Ukip as part of what party sources have told the Spectator was a stitch up to avoid a leadership contest. It is claimed that the Ukip leader never wrote a letter to the party’s chairman tendering his resignation. He told the media on Friday
In the past few minutes, Chuka Umunna has announced he is not standing for the Labour leadership after all, citing ‘pressure’ that he found uncomfortable. This is odd, although Friday is the day when Sunday journalists get to work on big stories, and Umunna may have got wind of something that he felt was particularly
Tonight at midnight, something will change in Parliament. All the MPs who lost their seats in last week’s elections will have their passes cancelled, to be replaced by a pass giving them more limited access to the Parliamentary estate. They’ve been sneaking through Westminster over the past few days to clear out their offices and
Now that we can’t brace ourselves for the SNP ruling over Westminster and the Labour party as we’d been warned (though they still seem to be having a bit of fun), the House of Lords has become the location of potential uprisings against the Tory government. The bulk of Lib Dem and Labour peers, along
That some Tory MPs wouldn’t like the idea of Michael Gove scrapping the Human Rights Act has been known for some time, but there is something else worth keeping an eye out for in the next few weeks as the Tories draw up their proposals. Some Conservatives, like Dominic Grieve, have long been opposed to
The Labour party has decided on a medium-length campaign to elect its new leader, the Press Association reports, with the announcement on 12 September. This is slightly odd, given NEC members were still on their way to the meeting where they’ll vote on the timetable, but there you go. If that date is approved, it is
The reshuffle seems to have gone down reasonably well with Tory MPs – though there is as yet still no position for Nadhim Zahawi or Jesse Norman, which some think rather odd. The pair organised the Lords rebellion and are both able and bright. But Norman in particular may be in a bit of a
Ukip is embroiled in an almighty row about money. It suddenly has too much of it, apparently. Guido reports that Douglas Carswell is refusing to take the full £650,000 of Short money that his party is entitled to for running a parliamentary operation that represents the four million votes the party won in the election. Ukip
With Dominic Raab’s appointment as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Justice, a pattern is starting to emerge in David Cameron’s reshuffle of reconciliations with old foes in a new parliament. Raab organised one of the most effective rebellions of the last Parliament on the Immigration Bill, which left the Tory whips in complete chaos. Now he has
As part of his new style of governing, David Cameron addressed Cabinet today with cameras recording the first bit. The idea was clearly to set out his mission for the Parliament, to set an idea in people’s minds of what it is that he stands for – just in case anyone had any doubts. Here
One of the stranger appointments of this reshuffle so far has been Rory Stewart being sent to Defra. The former chair of the Defence Select Committee does represent a rural constituency, but the obvious choice given his service in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps this wasn’t possible given his
In the last few minutes, Chuka Umunna has confirmed that he will be standing for the Labour leadership. The Streatham MP made the announcement in a video on his Facebook page while in Swindon – presumably to start undoing any claims his rivals will make that he is a candidate who only appeals to Londoners. He
David Cameron is holding the first all-Tory Cabinet meeting since 1997 today, and he is expected to emphasise his mission for this Government to be characterised by ‘blue-collar Conservatism’ in which the Tories become the natural party of working people. It is, some hope, David Cameron’s chance to show, finally, what he stands for in
David Miliband has just given a brutal interview to BBC News in which he took a few more words to say ‘I told you so’ about the way his brother led the Labour party. Some of the worst lines were about their relationship, with David saying of Ed that ‘we remain in touch’, as someone
Well, when Nigel Farage said he might come back as Ukip leader, we didn’t expect it would be quite so soon. Today the party’s NEC unanimously rejected Farage’s resignation, on the basis that the Ukip membership did not want him to go. Steve Crowther, Chairman of UKIP, said: ‘The NEC also concluded that UKIP’s general
Most of the new SNP MPs celebrated their party’s amazing result in the general election today with a photo call outside Parliament. They certainly looked an impressive bloc of parliamentarians, illustrating just how different this Parliament will look and feel from the last. But one of the interesting questions is how much freedom will these
A very chipper David Cameron has just given an impromptu press conference to journalists outside the 1922 Committee. He joked that there were more government jobs to go round than he was expecting, and didn’t seem that sad about the demise of the Lib Dems. His priority, he said, was implanting the manifesto, a copy
Lord Mandelson and his protégé Chuka Umunna ended up sitting next to one another on the Marr sofa at the end of the programme. Both had spent their interviews setting out what Labour had been doing wrong for the past five years, though Mandelson was markedly more savage than Umunna. The Labour peeer was particularly
