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
William Hague was as circumspect as he possibly could be about the situation in Egypt in his Today interview. He insisted that Britain would work with whoever was in power in the country: ‘We recognise states, not government and of course we recognise the state of Egypt and we have to work with whoever is
From our UK edition
As trailed on Coffee House yesterday, MPs in favour of an EU referendum met today to discuss how to advance James Wharton’s private member’s bill and how to pressure Labour and the Lib Dems to change their stance on the issue. I hear colleagues from all parties agreed with Wharton’s warning that amendments in the
From our UK edition
Peter Mandelson’s surprise rejection of high-speed rail in this morning’s FT is another sign that the wheels are coming off this project. But while the project’s critics on the backbenches – particularly those on the Tory side such as Cheryl Gillan and Michael Fabricant who are campaigning vociferously against the plan – will be thrilled,
From our UK edition
David Cameron’s statement on the European council was another example of how easy it is at the moment for the Tories to portray Ed Miliband as a weak leader. He made it perfectly clear what he wanted those watching to take away by stealing Tony Blair’s ‘weak, weak, weak’ line in 1997 when attacking John
From our UK edition
A row in Labour over union influence that doesn’t benefit the Tories in some way is as rare as hen’s teeth. But the latest revelations about Unite’s attempt at ‘transforming Labour’ (as reported by Rachel Sylvester in her explosive Times column) are even more of a gift to the Conservative party than usual because they
From our UK edition
MPs from all parties who want a referendum are meeting this week to discuss how to get a pledge into the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos, I hear. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for an EU referendum will meet tomorrow, partly to look ahead to James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill on Friday, but also to draw
From our UK edition
Liam Byrne chose an interesting line of attack at a very testy Work and Pensions Questions today. The whole session had been rather like a mounting pile of passive aggressive notes on a fridge, with ministers rising to answer questions by saying ‘I’m glad the honourable member has asked me about such and such a
From our UK edition
It was entirely predictable that any MP who opposes a pay rise or wants to show how in touch they are with the public would seize the opportunity to say so today. Nick Clegg said he wouldn’t take the raise himself at his new monthly press conference this morning, followed by Vince Cable, who told
From our UK edition
The Tory campaign on James Wharton’s EU referendum bill has been very slick but very partisan – I examined some of the problems with this last week when eurosceptic Labour MP John Cryer announced he had been put off by the Let Britain Decide campaign and would abstain on the bill. So today campaigners in
From our UK edition
Coffee House readers will be unsurprised by the interest taken by the newspapers and the Today programme in MPs’ pay: this blog predicted that it could be the next big row in the Conservative party at the start of June. It is politically sensible for the Prime Minister to say that he disagrees with a pay
From our UK edition
Are food banks a scandal? For this week’s Spectator, I visited the Salisbury food bank, set up in 2000, to find out what causes families to turn to these charities. I must admit that when I arrived at the headquarters of the Trussell Trust, which runs many of the food banks in this country, I was
From our UK edition
The very existence of food banks is taken as proof of something rotten in Britain. If Brits are queuing for charity food parcels, the state has failed. Labour MPs brim with righteous anger: they call the rise of these charitable centres a ‘scandal’. David Cameron, for his part, wishes people would stop talking about them.
From our UK edition
listen to ‘Spending review 2013: the Coffee House analysis’ on Audioboo Ed Balls had a rather shouty time in the Commons this afternoon when he responded to George Osborne’s spending review statement. It was a shame, because his lack of variation in tone and pace from ‘angry bellow’ level made what wasn’t a bad response
From our UK edition
listen to ‘Spending review 2013: the Coffee House analysis’ on Audioboo George Osborne loves a good dividing line: he sees it as his job to ‘weaponise’ policies in a way that benefits his party. So what were the key divisions that he set out in today’s Spending Round statement? 1. The full package Clearly the
From our UK edition
Should the West intervene in Syria? This week’s Spectator debate on this topic saw an impressive swing of opinion in the audience once the speakers had made their cases for and against intervention. All agreed that the first part of the motion debated – ‘Assad is a war criminal: the West must intervene in Syria’
From our UK edition
Julia Gillard has lost a leadership ballot in the Australian Labor Party to former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. She called the contest to bring an end to the battles in her party – and in doing so has lost her job. Before the vote, she said: ‘Anybody who enters the ballot tonight should do it
From our UK edition
One set of businesses are already feeling the pain from the successful completion of the spending review. Westminster pizza outlets have come to rely on large orders from the Treasury the night before a spending review or Budget announcement, but the deal was sealed on Sunday night, and so all was calm last night in
From our UK edition
The Tories are putting off Labour MPs from backing their Private Member’s Bill on an EU referendum with an overly partisan campaign, Coffee House has learned. John Cryer, who chairs Labour for a Referendum, tells me that he won’t be voting for the Bill because the Conservatives have turned it into a party political campaign
From our UK edition
David Cameron will come under increasing pressure in the next few months to publish his ‘shopping list’ of reforms he wants from a renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Europe. Even those who want to know what the Prime Minister is really thinking accept that this is not a good idea, as he would neither satisfy
From our UK edition
Strangely, both sides at Treasury questions today wanted to talk about something that does their own party no favours at all to mention. The Labour whips had sent their loyal backbenchers out in force to ask about Friday’s borrowing figures, while George Osborne and Conservative colleagues were very happy indeed to talk about how much