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.
From our UK edition
There are three main aims for today’s Queen’s Speech in the mind’s eyes of the two Coalition parties. The first is not to rock the boat at all, introducing pro-nice and anti-bad policies on motherhood, apple pie, childcare, ‘heroism’ and growth. In their joint statement on the Speech, which you can read below, David Cameron
From our UK edition
Angela Merkel has reportedly blinked in the row over Jean-Claude Juncker’s candidacy for president of the European Commission and is now mooting IMF boss Christine Lagarde. The Reuters report cites two French sources who say the German Chancellor has asked France whether it could put forward Lagarde. If this is true, then it does explain
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The Conservatives have accidentally emailed a database of their activists’ details to other members, Coffee House has learned. The database, called ‘volunteer record NEWARK’ was accidentally attached to a generic thank you email for those campaigning in the by-election, and contained the email addresses of activists and MPs who had signed in at a certain
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Jokes about their lock-in aside, today’s re-launch by Nick Clegg and Vince Cable apparently heralds the Deputy Prime Minister’s attempt to get the Lib Dems to take credit for policies announced in tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech. Reform of the pub sector is one of those policies – although wooing CAMRA members is a rather Lib Demmish thing
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Government sources are very keen to dispel the impression in Westminster that David Cameron’s tough guy act over the candidacy of Jean-Claude Juncker is a last-minute thing, insisting that the Prime Minister has been involved in behind-the-scenes negotiations for months. Interestingly, they’re still very bullish about the UK’s chances of getting its way, with one
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Improving the supply of new housing, adjusting the Help to Buy scheme if necessary, revaluing council tax bands and accepting that universal credit won’t solve all of Britain’ welfare ills: all ideas batted around in domestic political debate in this country by politicians and commentators who manage to secure a reasonable hearing each time they
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One of the spin-offs of Grant Shapps’ cheesy-sounding yet quite impressive ‘Team 2015’ strategy for campaigning in the local elections and now in Newark is that the energetic campaigning atmosphere seems to be making activists and MPs very happy. This sounds like a minor consideration when by-election campaigns are for winning seats, not counselling party
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David Cameron managed to extract promises from some of the more troublesome backbench MPs that they wouldn’t get up to any monkey business around this year’s Queen’s Speech. Last year’s motion of regret tabled by John Baron and Peter Bone caused all sorts of trouble, but it did lead to the Conservatives publishing their own
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David Cameron might be hoping that the eurosceptics in his party are chuffed with his tough guy stance on Jean-Claude Juncker. And by and large, they are. But they’re not wholly impressed. One eurosceptic remarks that this intervention is simply about the Newark by-election, given its timing. Another, who is minded to at least believe
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The campaign against Jean-Claude Juncker becoming President of the European Commission continues, with Martin Callanan (who might hope to benefit from another campaign against someone getting a job, namely Andrew Lansley becoming the UK’s European Commissioner), telling the Today programme that the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg is the ‘business-as-usual candidate’ who is not the
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George Osborne’s interview today with the Sun on Sunday does show the Conservatives are starting to see a little bit of sense about their net migration target. They’re starting to realise that they aren’t going to meet it when they can only control non-EU migration. It’s surprising, really, that it’s taken them so long to
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Chris Leslie’s speech today is intended to show that Labour is very fiscally responsible. It’s a noble task, and one the party knows it needs to hammer away at as much as it does on the cost-of-living, otherwise voters may not see that Labour is the trustworthy solution to the problem the party is highlighting.
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Sir John Major isn’t a fan of Ukip and thinks it will fade away from its current position on the political scene. He’s not the only one who thinks that: one of the problems that all three main parties have face is that they have continually assumed that Ukip is about to lose its head
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Jim Waterson’s BuzzFeed interview with Ed Miliband is well worth a read. But the opening paragraph stands out in particular: ‘Ed Miliband was in Nottingham last Tuesday when a man approached him to say that his part-time job at a petrol station wasn’t paying enough to take care of two children. This is an anecdote
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Nick Clegg said this morning that ‘appropriate steps’ will be taken to deal with Lord Oakeshott after the peer was outed as the ‘Lib Dem supporter’ who had commissioned uncomfortable polling about the Lib Dems’ chances in 2015. As with other difficult situations with Lib Dem peers, though, Clegg doesn’t have that much power to
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Moments of grumpiness aside, Ed Miliband’s fightback speech this afternoon was very worth listening to. listen to ‘Miliband: It’s ‘dead wrong’ that Labour has been too radical’ on Audioboo
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In the past few minutes, Vince Cable has issued this statement on the leaked ICM polling: ‘Lord Oakeshott’s actions are totally inexcusable and unacceptable. I have made it very clear repeatedly that he does not speak or act for me. ‘Commissioning and publishing polls without the consent of the Member of Parliament, as in the
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Ed Miliband has just delivered his post-European and local elections comeback speech in Thurrock, to show that he’s not afraid to confront the challenges that Labour still faces in the run-up to 2015. I’ll post on the details of the speech and what it means shortly, but one exchange in the Q&A told us quite
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Who is the mysterious ‘Lib Dem supporter’ behind the ICM poll showing that the Lib Dems would fare very badly next year if Nick Clegg remains leader? ICM have published the poll tables, saying only that the commissioning client is a ‘member of the Liberal Democrats’. The British Polling Council rules state that its members
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Will Nick Clegg survive his mauling in the European elections? The front pages this morning don’t do the Lib Dem leader any favours – although his main leadership rivals, Tim Farron and Vince Cable, did by pledging their loyalty to him. There is considerable suspicion in the party that the polling on the Guardian front