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
Nick Clegg’s strategy of getting his party to approve his position on a number of contentious issues reaches its most awkward stage today, with the votes on the economy and taxes that are causing the greatest grief with activists. It’s complicated by Vince Cable’s plan to be a no-show at the economy debate in an
From our UK edition
One of the Lib Dem leadership’s key aims for this conference in Glasgow is to move the party into a pragmatic mindset that involves accepting and moving on from certain contentious policies such as tuition fees, the Coalition’s economic policy, and nuclear power. So far that strategy seems to be working, with a number of
From our UK edition
Danny Alexander is respected by his colleagues across the coalition (except Vince Cable – James reveals today that the pair are barely speaking) for a number of things, from his bean counting ability to his aptitude for giving a lengthy interview or fringe speech without moving a story on an inch. He tried to do
From our UK edition
Ed Davey has a good story to tell his party about fighting the Tories to get a Lib Dem vision for energy policy into government. His speech today was supposed to underline that, and to a certain extent it achieved this, using the word ‘fight’ 15 times, and ‘battle’ four times. It was just rather
From our UK edition
Who would the Lib Dems prefer to go into coalition with? We know what the party’s activists think, thanks to an Independent on Sunday poll that found them in favour of shacking up with Labour, and thanks to the Observer, we know what former party leader Lord Ashdown thinks (although he seems a little aerated
From our UK edition
One of the many confrontations between the Liberal Democrat leadership and party activists this week in Glasgow is over tax. When conference debates its tax policy paper, ‘Fairer Taxes’, on Monday, it will vote on a motion that includes a reintroduction of the 50p rate of tax, should an independent review conclude that the cost
From our UK edition
Nick Clegg is, on balance, starting his party’s conference in a reasonably strong position. There has been an amusing bitch fight today between party grandees, with Paddy Ashdown saying that ‘Matthew [Oakeshott]’s self-appointed position as a sort of vicar on earth for Vince does neither of them any good’, but largely Clegg can expect to
From our UK edition
The Lib Dems have had a lot to get used to since coming into government: not least the growth of their conference from something that members could stroll in and out of with their knitting needles, and that only the most junior hacks were sent to. But only three years into holding conferences as a
From our UK edition
José Manuel Barroso’s comments about euroscepticism might have revealed something rather warped about the Eurocrat mindset, but it has also provided quite an opportunity for David Cameron to show his party where his own loyalties lie. This afternoon the Prime Minister told Iain Dale’s LBC show that he planned to have a ‘pretty robust’ exchange
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It’s two weeks since David Cameron looked rather sick in the House of Commons and Labour MPs jeered ‘resign’ following his defeat on Syria. On that night, all sorts of wild predictions were flying around about what this meant for the Prime Minister. But even some of the more sanguine commentary looked rather misplaced this
From our UK edition
David Cameron managed to win Prime Minister’s Questions today by shoehorning in a series of smart one-liners about Ed Miliband’s leadership. It says a lot about how the Prime Minister has managed to recover quite impressively from his defeat over Syria that he has been able to continue his ‘weak’ attack line. On that Thursday
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Poor Vince Cable. He just can’t help but brim with joy about the economy. He’s often spotted skipping across Parliament square to the Business department, humming ‘Oh, Happy Day!’ under his breath at the latest set of GDP figures. George Osborne and Cable’s Tory colleagues are always having to tell Vince to calm down a
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When Ed Miliband peaks, he really knows how to do it. His speech at last autumn’s Labour conference was magnificent. Given the pressure on him to convince the unions to back his reforms to their links to the Labour party, you’d expect he’d have picked today’s address to the Trades Union Congress conference to deliver
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Listen to Osborne and Balls’ exchange at Treasury questions here:- listen to ‘Osborne at Treasury Questions: ‘We’re enjoying this’’ on Audioboo ‘I hope this is not our last encounter across this despatch box,’ George Osborne said rather slyly to Ed Balls this morning at Treasury questions. ‘Because we are enjoying it.’ The Tories were in
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Ed Miliband thought he’d delivered the speech of his life at last year’s Labour conference. But though it knocked the socks off everyone in the conference hall, it wasn’t enough: the Labour leader is having to deliver to one but two speeches to save himself this autumn. Today he will try to sell his union
From our UK edition
Nick Clegg gave his monthly press conference today. It might kindly be described as ‘wide-ranging’, which is often code in journalese for ‘not offering very much’. But the Deputy Prime Minister did offer a few nuggets which are worth exploring. The first is that he was very keen to put his name on the list
From our UK edition
One of the Tories’ real failings over the past few years has been to ignore the spores of a problem, and then wait until it has mushroomed into something they can’t handle. Take the bedroom tax, food banks, or zero hours contracts: all of which Labour has managed to brand as a sign of the
From our UK edition
Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman are keen to encourage unity at the TUC conference this week, while giving the impression they are determined to forge ahead with reforming the union link to the Labour party. Harman’s speech to the TUC dinner will include a call for unity and an attempt to explain the need for
From our UK edition
George Osborne’s speech on the economy today will show how much the Chancellor’s stock has risen in the past year. It also shows that in spite of the embarrassing defeat on Syria two weeks ago, the Conservatives still feel they can be confident about their appeal to voters, because things are going well on the
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Sarah Teather’s decision to stand down at the 2015 election won’t surprise many people who know what a battle the Lib Dem MP would have had to hold onto her Brent Central seat. Her majority is only 1,345. But her public reason for standing down is interesting, too, even if some may suspect that the
