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.
Well, the Labour party certainly knows how to give the appearance of a fight when its back is against the wall. Many MPs and supporters have spent quite a lot of this fine autumn day tweeting frantically that this morning’s unpleasant headlines (summarised in their full gory glory by James here) are a plot by
Labour might be mired in misery this week, but at least it can take comfort that around the corner is the Rochester by-election, which the Conservatives look set to lose. Not one MP returning from campaigning against their former colleague Mark Reckless honestly thinks they’ll win, even if they tweet nice things and post aggressive
So are Tory backbenchers happy with what George Osborne claims to have brought back from Europe after his talks on that £1.7 billion bill? While the government argues with the European Commission about what it has and hasn’t secured this afternoon, the Right of the Tory party have already been working out what they think.
The Conservatives have launched an aggressive video advert for the Rochester and Strood by-election. It attacks Mark Reckless in a very direct manner – but not in a personal manner.
Labour types are in an aggressive mood this morning. Why are the newspapers and the BBC setting such store by just two MPs who apparently want their leader gone when the Tory party has around ten times that number of committed malcontents, they grumble? Peter Hain was particularly defensive this morning, suggesting that all Ed
So Ed Miliband did manage to squeeze in a few words on his leadership alongside his comments on bus regulation. This afternoon he dismissed reports of a letter calling for him to stand down as Labour leader as ‘nonsense’ and said that the party’s focus was ‘on the country’. listen to ‘Ed Miliband dismisses reports
There are apparently two Labour MPs who have called for Ed Miliband to step aside. That just two from Ed Miliband’s party are openly moving against him while some estimates put the number of letters calling for a vote of no confidence in David Cameron at 22 shows the difference in personality and practice between
In the Commons this morning, William Hague confirmed Coffee House’s story that the government will hold its vote on opting back into the European Arrest Warrant on Monday. He said the joint committee working on the relevant statutory instrument hadn’t finished working, but that the House of Commons would vote on it on Monday. But
The post-Jim Murphy Labour reshuffle has arrived, and while it’s not particularly seismic, it still tells us some interesting things about Ed Miliband’s thinking. The Labour leader has replaced the former Shadow International Development Secretary with Mary Creagh, which means it can’t be described as a consolation prize (something development campaigners were wary of as
David Cameron’s desire to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Europe means we’ll hear plenty of huffing and puffing from various bigwigs on the continent over the next few years. The trick for Cameron, as James said on Monday, is to work out when this huffing is just bluffing and when it’s actually an expression of a
Lord Ashcroft’s polls are, as a rule, very rarely good news for the Tories these days – the peer clearly hopes that he’s at least warned the party before it goes over the top – and his latest tranche of surveys in marginal seats proves that rule. The peer examined 12 marginal seats where the
If Theresa May wants to have a public row with Sajid Javid, the Culture Secretary doesn’t seem particularly keen on continuing it. He tried his best to avoid jumping into a war of words with the Home Secretary, whose leaked correspondence warning that his plan to make mobile phone companies fill in ‘not-spots’ (areas with
Ed Balls had two great lines of attack today at Treasury questions, but didn’t really manage to get any traction with either. He started his stint in the Chamber by trying once again to push the Chancellor on when the Treasury knew about the ‘surprise’ £1.7 billion EU bill, then moved on to the Conservatives’
The Tories have now accepted they’ve got a much worse chance of winning the Rochester by-election than they claimed they initially did. The plan now is to factor in a victory to the political narrative so the result doesn’t cause as much trouble when it does come, and to whittle down Mark Reckless’s majority so
Lynne Featherstone is to return to the Home Office to replace Norman Baker as Minister of State for Crime Prevention, Nick Clegg has announced. This is interesting because Damian Green named Featherstone as one of the ministers who worked effectively rather than caused trouble. The minister herself said this afternoon that she has ‘always had
David Cameron promised that the European Arrest Warrant vote would be held before the Rochester by-election on 20 November, but so far no date has been set. I now hear that the government plans to hold the vote next Monday. Nothing has been confirmed, and won’t be until tomorrow night. The size of the rebellion
What does Norman Baker’s exit from the Home Office tell us about the coalition? In many ways, the situation in that department was quite unlike any other, but if another Lib Dem does fancy going in a blaze of fury, then Justice Minister Simon Hughes was assigned to his department for similar trouble-making reasons, and
Anyone surprised by the revelation that workers manufacturing those expensive Fawcett Society/Whistles T-shirts are paid just 62p per hour will probably get a nasty shock if they research the origins of the clothes in their own wardrobes. That’s why it’s a little hard to pass judgement on Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Harriet Harman for
4.50pm – It is difficult to see how Fiona Woolf can stay on as chair of the child abuse inquiry. Labour has decided to call for her resignation, with Yvette Cooper this afternoon saying: ‘Theresa May has put Fiona Woolf in an impossible position. We had hoped the Home Secretary would be able to sort
Labour has won the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner by-election with 50 per cent of the vote, which is a tremendous relief for the party given the circumstances in which this contest was held. It avoided the contest moving to second preferences by 0.02 per cent, but it has won in every local authority