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.
This story ran first in tonight’s Evening Blend. Get more scoops, analysis and insight into the day’s political news by signing up for free here. Speaker Bercow has been accused of misleading the House of Commons over his plan to appoint Carol Mills as Clerk of the House. In a letter to the Speaker, seen
John Bercow, the self-styled champion of Parliament, is now being scrutinised by MPs via a series of increasingly hostile points of order. The Speaker’s response to today’s barrage of points was so poor that he has put himself in jeopardy. First Simon Burns asked him about a letter to the Prime Minister recommending the appointment
Ed Miliband would never have seen it coming, but he’s starting his first PMQs of the autumn term in a jolly good place. Labour MPs that I’ve spoken to over the past few days are now panicking not about how they can convince voters to back them but what on earth they’re actually going to
A second beheading of an American hostage – with warnings that a British hostage could be next – brings a fresh round of condemnations of the barbarity of Isis. Steven Sotloff appears to have been killed by Isis, with his British-accented killer accusing Barack Obama of an ‘arrogant foreign policy’ and citing his ‘insistence on
How do the Conservatives make the Clacton by-election more difficult for Douglas Carswell? I hear from two extremely well-placed sources that the selection for the Tory candidate will be an open primary. Carswell himself bemoaned the demise of this selection method when he announced he was leaving the party to join Ukip, and party sources
If the Tories did want to really fight Douglas Carswell in the Clacton by-election, then Boris Johnson would have been a jolly good way of driving a steamroller over Ukip’s chances of doing well. James explained at the weekend that when David Cameron reached the same conclusion and put the feelers out to the Mayor,
Nick Clegg had a stab at being René Magritte on the Today programme this morning, telling us that a disagreement between the two coalition parties over anti-terror measures that were sort-of announced yesterday was ‘not some argument between two political parties’. It was clear from the way the Deputy Prime Minister described the additional measures
So, after the horsetrading of the past few days, the Conservatives appear to have won their battle to add relocation powers to the terrorism prevention and investigation measures. In his statement in the Commons this afternoon, David Cameron said: ‘We will introduce new powers to add to our existing terrorism prevention and investigation measures, including
Even though he decided to call the delay in the appointment of a new Clerk ‘modest’, John Bercow has just suffered a humiliating climb down in the Commons. The Speaker was heckled as he tried to justify his decision to appoint Carol Mills. When he said ‘a number of colleagues have since expressed disquiet’, Michael
The talks between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives on the anti-terror measures that David Cameron will unveil this afternoon have finally finished. There are a few more details to be thrashed out – crossing of Ts and dotting of Is rather than major policy decisions – but the two parties are basically there. That
What should worry David Cameron more, Douglas Carswell’s defection to Ukip or reports that as many as 100 Tory MPs could go into the general election pledging to leave the European Union? The former is certainly more dramatic and promises plenty of humiliation over the next few months. But the latter could show the Prime
The Coalition parties are gearing up for a week of minding the gaps. Tomorrow, David Cameron plans to tell MPs about measures that he feels are necessary for plugging the gaps in Britain’s armoury. They’re gaps highlighted to him by the intelligence and security services, and where the Tories once said they would be very
Monday will be a busy day in the Commons. Speaker Bercow is expected to give a statement on the swelling row over his plan to appoint Carol Mills as Clerk of the House (or another mysterious new role that he’s considering concocting in an attempt to calm the feud with backbenchers). That feud is getting
It was not so much the announcements that David Cameron made in his press conference about the terror threat to the UK that were significant, but what he looks like he’s going to have to announce on Monday. The Prime Minister confirmed that the threat level to the UK has been raised from ‘substantial’ to
Stuart Wheeler has just been boasting on Sky News that two more Conservative MPs are ‘seriously considering’ defecting to Ukip. Wheeler has been the broker in any potential defections, wining and dining potential converts before asking if they want a meeting with Nigel Farage. Not all of them have said yes to that second offer.
What will be the impact on the Conservative party of Douglas Carswell’s defection? Even though there is some excitement this morning about other meetings that Ukip has held with Conservative MPs, it is worth pointing out that those meetings were firstly held a while ago, and secondly that a number of those MPs who did
Douglas Carswell’s defection today to Ukip is terrible for David Cameron. But it is also deeply inconvenient for his band of eurosceptic brothers. He was a key member of a powerful ‘cell’ of MPs who met regularly to discuss strategies for pushing the Conservative leadership further on European policy. One key colleague in this cell
As well as saying his decision is regrettable and counterproductive, the other Tory response to this morning’s shock defection by Douglas Carswell is to point people to instances where Carswell has said that only David Cameron as Prime Minister in 2017 will guarantee a referendum. In April, he wrote on his Telegraph blog: ‘In order
The Tory whips have just sent their line-to-take on Douglas Carswell to MPs. Seen by Coffee House, the email repeats the Tory spokesman line that this is a ‘regrettable and frankly counter-productive decision’ as the only way to get a referendum is to vote Conservative. It adds: ‘The Conservative party will contest the by-election vigorously,
In the past few minutes, Tory MP Douglas Carswell has announced at a special press conference that he is defecting to Ukip. listen to ‘Douglas Carswell defects to Ukip’ on Audioboo
