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.
Is Universal Credit progressing as well as it should? Yesterday Sir Bob Kerslake, who is not consistently helpful to political colleagues, dropped a bit of a bombshell during a Public Accounts Committee hearing. Discussing the Treasury and the business case for Universal Credit: ‘We shouldn’t beat about the bush: it hasn’t been signed off.’ Labour
Theresa May has just given as comprehensive a response as possible to the allegations of child abuse in the Commons. Insisting the government will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of the allegations, the Home Secretary told MPs that there will an independent inquiry panel, along the lines of the Hillsborough inquiry, which will examine
Today’s New Deal for England announcement by Labour doesn’t just underline how much of the political action is in the regions at the moment, but how the party is coming to terms with some of the mistakes that it made when it was last in government. The significant devolution of power and spending to local
What can we expect from the government response to the growing child abuse dossier row? Government sources are stressing this morning that Theresa May’s Commons statement will be ‘significant’ and that its content will be broader than simply naming the QC looking at the Home Office dossier. Based on David Cameron’s handling of previous historic
Tristram Hunt is getting a fair bit of stick from the Conservatives for refusing to condemn the strike action planned by the National Union of Teachers on this morning’s Andrew Marr Show. The Shadow Education Secretary merely said ‘it’s not up to me to tell trade unionists what to do – what I want is
There is a fair bit of excitement in Westminster today that Boris Johnson could take over the Hertsmere seat of James Clappison now that the Tory MP has announced he is standing down at the 2015 election. But one thing that this announcement misses is that Clappison has not voluntarily stood aside. MPs are being
Andy Coulson has this morning been jailed for 18 months for conspiracy to hack phones. He was sentenced at the Old Bailey along with four colleagues: Greg Miskiw and Neville Thurlberk were given 6 months, James Weatherup was jailed for four months, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to do 200 hours unpaid community work, and
David Cameron may have got away with his failure to block Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, but that doesn’t mean that his MPs aren’t agitated about the way things are going in Europe. One aspect of last week’s European Council meeting that most people missed was a document setting out what appears
PMQs taught us a number of things about Labour and the Conservatives. The first is that while Labour has a bumper economy week underway, it does not feel sufficiently confident to attack the Conservatives on this issue in an aggressive forum like PMQs. This is probably quite sensible, given the attack that Cameron launched towards
What with his victory parade to celebrate a failure in Europe and Labour’s continuing muttering and complaining, David Cameron must be feeling pretty positive about Prime Minister’s Questions today. He’s managed to annoy some of his MPs with a Downing Street hint that it will not oppose Michael Moore’s bill to enshrine the 0.7 per
The Tories are very keen to sabotage Ed Miliband’s big speech about rebalancing the British economy, which is probably a compliment to the Labour leader as it suggests that they think he might be onto something. Both parties are certainly engaged in a localism arms race at the moment, arguing that they’re the party that
How can politicians encourage this country’s economy to grow more evenly? Do you build a nice big railway line? Or try – and largely fail – to devolve greater power to cities using directly-elected city mayors? Today Labour sets out its answer in Lord Adonis’ growth review. Ed Miliband has already said that he will
Normally when Speaker Bercow drags out a statement from the Prime Minister to over an hour and a half, the PM starts to look a bit pained. Today David Cameron looked as though he’d quite like a bit more: he’d spent most of the afternoon listening to Conservatives telling him how great he is and
David Cameron is currently giving his statement to the Commons on the European Council and Britain’s new best friend forever, Jean-Claude Juncker. It’s a failure that his colleagues have given him room to spin into a success, but it’s worth watching how Labour manage it too. The party had an open goal at the weekend
Why is Number 10 pouring cold water on suggestions that National Insurance and Income Tax could be merged? This story bobs to the surface every few months: it was suggested that National Insurance could be renamed the ‘Earnings Tax’ in the 2014 Budget, but then nothing came of it. Now the Times has splashed on
David Cameron has survived the post-Juncker post-mortem without a Tory grandee briefing against him. This is comforting for the Prime Minister, although he shouldn’t assume that he has the full loyalty of his party: it is quite clear that many are simply holding their fire until after the General Election. David Davis, who will again
In an exchange so awkward it might rival Gwendolen and Cecily’s afternoon tea in The Importance of Being Earnest, David Cameron has this afternoon phoned Jean-Claude Juncker to congratulate him on his appointment after weeks of campaigning to thwart him. Here’s the Downing Street read-out of the call: ‘The Prime Minister called the Commission President-designate,
David Cameron has warned his European colleagues that there will be ‘consequences’ if they support Jean-Claude Juncker’s appointment today. He’s already seeing the consequences back home, with eurosceptics who are broadly supportive of his position still getting their advice out early on how he can deal with the disappointment of losing the battle. John Baron
David Cameron has been repeating his line about the importance of sticking to principles in opposing Jean-Claude Juncker this morning ahed of the European Council summit where his fate will be sealed. As he walked into the summit this morning, the Prime Minister said: ‘There are times when it’s very important to stick to your
Labour has supported David Cameron’s attempt to block Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, but that hasn’t stopped it getting a little pre-emptive attack in today as the Prime Minister prepares for failure at the European Council. Douglas Alexander argued this morning that ‘there was an alliance that was to be built, but