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.
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The debate about the Syrian crisis is now as much about shoulda, woulda, coulda, as it is about what can happen now. Douglas Alexander’s response to the G8 communique this afternoon said: ‘This statement begs the question whether a different diplomatic approach by the Prime Minister, not focusing so much effort on lifting the arms
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Remember that last communique signed at a summit of world leaders, the really challenging one that they’re all worried they will never meet in reality? You don’t? How strange. David Cameron mused at the weekend that these agreements that take days to draft end up in an ‘elephant’s graveyard’, and to try to show that
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Those cracking jokes about bears visiting the woods following Ken Clarke’s latest warning about the dangers of Britain leaving the EU miss the point. The former Chancellor and Minister without Portfolio is firstly echoing the stance of his boss, rather than briefing against him, and is secondly continuing to plug away at the case for
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Michael Gove is naturally having some fun with Stephen Twigg’s schools speech. The Education Secretary has responded to Twigg’s plan for ‘parent academies’ by saying: ‘Labour’s policy on free schools is so tortured they should send in the UN to end the suffering. On the one hand Stephen Twigg says he will end the free
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The Treasury is entering its last minute negotiations with recalcitrant departments ahead of next week’s spending review announcement. But for all the talk of ‘difficult decisions’, the settlement doesn’t look as though it will take some of the more difficult decisions about the shape of government itself. In a Free Enterprise Group paper published today,
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Stephen Twigg is, as he probably expected, coming in for a bit of flak on his U-turn on free schools this morning. Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary has launched his own plan for ‘parent academies’, which Toby Young and James Kirkup have had some fun with here. But he is basically doing what Lord Adonis has
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While the G8 begins today with splits already clear on Syria, David Cameron will be aware, as he sits down for talks with world leaders, that the splits in his own Parliament are becoming increasingly vocal. It’s not just Boris Johnson’s column in today’s Telegraph in which the Mayor of London warns that ‘we won’t
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David Cameron is far more optimistic than Nick Clegg about arming the Syrian rebels: that much has been clear for a while. He explained why he’s optimistic on Sky’s Murnaghan programme this morning, arguing that if the West doesn’t work with the ‘good’ rebels, then the ‘bad’ rebels will have more of an opportunity to
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Tony Blair has plenty to say on the crisis in Syria in his interview in today’s Times, as you might expect. But he also makes a few points on other aspects of foreign policy that are worth noting, particularly regarding Europe. The former Prime Minister tells Alice Thompson and Rachel Sylvester that David Cameron was
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David Cameron was pressed on Barack Obama’s decision to give assistance to the Syrian rebels when he spoke to journalists in the Downing Street garden this afternoon. He gave a long answer, the transcript of which you can read at the bottom of this post, along with the audio. But here are the key points
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The teaching unions have spent a lot of this week getting angry about one thing or another, but one of their number, the National Association of Head Teachers, did make a good point yesterday when reacting to Ofsted’s report on bright kids. Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers – not
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When Philip Hammond was sent to the Ministry of Defence, his skills as a bean counter were much lauded. Colleagues hoped that he wouldn’t, like other Defence Secretaries, go native. He quite obviously has done that, and quicker than many thought, holding out as the strongest shop steward of the National Union of Ministers in
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From being all over the shop in the past few months when it came to message discipline, the Tories have gone into overdrive in the last two days after the launch of the Let Britain Decide website on James Wharton’s EU referendum bill. It’s now difficult to see the wood for the tweets on how
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The Tories are chuffed with yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions (the knockabout, that is, not the serious bit), and with Labour’s continuing struggle to make any impact in the polls. Earlier this week, Lynton Crosby spoke to the parliamentary party about how they should aim to beat Miliband. He told them that while Miliband is a
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There was plenty for David Cameron to sing about at today’s PMQs when it came to the ONS’ latest labour market figures, and sing he did. He said: ‘First, it is worth announcing to the House what today’s unemployment figures show. They show that employment – the number of people in work in this country
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Helena Morrissey has published her report on the allegations of sexism in the Liberal Democrats triggered by the Lord Rennard scandal. In short, she concludes that there wasn’t a cover-up, but her report suggests the party was guilty more of a cock-up. She told journalists this afternoon that ‘mistakes were definitely made by Nick Clegg,
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Well, that was an easy Prime Minister’s Questions for David Cameron, wasn’t it? Sometimes the PM just turns up for work and knocks it out of the park. It helped, of course, that for once he had his own team cheering him along, with backbencher after backbencher leaping up to ask loyal questions. The whips
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Tories preparing the ground for David Cameron’s renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Europe are to take MPs from other parties with them as they visit European cities, Coffee House has learned. The Fresh Start Project, made up of Conservative MPs campaigning for reform of the European Union, has already visited Prague, Warsaw and Berlin to
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Credit where credit’s due to the Tory spin machine for following up a good idea and putting pressure on Labour and the Lib Dems. This doesn’t happen very often, so it’s noteworthy. The party has launched a website called Let Britain Decide, which asks the public to back James Wharton’s private member’s bill for an
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Today’s hearing of the Public Accounts Committee is going to be real box office stuff. Sir David Nicholson is giving evidence, supposedly on the NHS IT programme, but he’ll find himself confronted by Tory committee member Steve Barclay, who, armed with freedom of information evidence of 52 gagging orders in the NHS, will demand that