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.
Just because Labour has been taking a big dose of reality this week doesn’t mean the party is now refusing to make the most of any botch job by the Coalition. So we’ve come to the funny situation where the Opposition party famed for its centralised approach to planning which failed to build enough homes
For months, right-wing politicians and commentators have been licking their lips waiting for the Labour party to face up to reality. We all assumed that the sort of speeches delivered by Ed Balls and Ed Miliband this week, in which the two men abandoned the party’s commitment to universalism and promised to cap welfare spending,
‘This has done for our pay rise, hasn’t it?’ one MP muttered earlier this week after the lobbying scandal broke. I suggested on Monday that yet another row over politicians behaving badly will make it even more difficult for David Cameron to endorse a pay rise for MPs. This is a row that is just
It is not an enormous surprise that Nick Clegg has confirmed that he will block the government’s plans to relax ratios for childcare providers. The Tories working on the plans seemed entirely resigned to losing them a month ago. But what is interesting is that this row is becoming the new boundary reforms for the
What will it take before the UK decides to supply the Syrian rebels with arms? Many are cautious about whether this measure would really make the conflict any better, but William Hague has made it clear that he believes there is a strong case for at least threatening to do so. Further evidence of chemical
listen to ‘PMQs: David Cameron’s attack on Miliband’s U-turns’ on Audioboo
That Labour wouldn’t scrap the Coalition’s cuts to child benefit for higher earners isn’t a surprise. It is just one of the many admissions that the party will need to make in the next few years about policies it has bitterly opposed. This week’s admissions that the party couldn’t safeguard winter fuel payment and that
So peers have backed the second reading of the marriage (same sex couples) bill, and against an amendment from Lord Dear calling for the legislation to be dropped. Dear’s attempt to kill the bill was defeated 390 votes to 148, and the second reading passed without a vote. I’ve blogged before that the House of
There’s something about taking on a government role that makes even the most sensible man fancy himself as a vicar. It’s easy to get confused: you find yourself lurking around Parliament, which looks a bit like a church, you can give speeches that drone on a bit like sermons, and in the Commons, prayers are
Today’s row about Accident and Emergency has little to do with the issue itself, and far more about one party trying to prove a point about the other. Those rows are the most vitriolic, the most hard-fought, and to the outside world, the most pointless. The King’s Fund today finds waiting times are at their
Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock has resigned from the party to fight ‘very serious allegations’ about his conduct. He took the decision to do so after a meeting with the chief whip. The party this evening released a statement saying: ‘Mike Hancock has chosen to resign the party whip while he defends himself against very
This morning, the government’s plans for a register of lobbyists were ‘ongoing’. This afternoon, they’re well on their way to becoming law. Number 10 has announced that it will be bringing forward a lobbying bill after all, and before the summer recess. Next time we hear the word ‘ongoing’, perhaps we won’t all be so
David Cameron is giving a statement in the Commons this afternoon on, among other things, the Woolwich killing. He may well find himself answering questions afterwards about whether the government is planning to resurrect the Communications Data Bill, after a fierce debate in recess over whether it would have made any difference to the security
Sleaze scandals will crop up in politics from time to time, but what makes the latest round of allegations particularly damaging is that the government has had two opportunities to at least address faltering public mistrust in politicians, and hasn’t. Those pushing for the power to recall MPs and a register of lobbyists have had
Ed Balls has had plenty of warning about how politically dangerous this month’s spending review will be for him. James reported in April that George Osborne planned to use the settlement (when he eventually gets it) to prod the Labour party. But perhaps it’s also the party’s inability to make polling hay from the Tories
The Conservatives know that the best way of detracting from the binary In/Out? debate about Europe in the Westminster bubble is to jolly well get on with making the case for reform in Europe. It is vital that ministers give the impression that there are changes that other European leaders would quite happily sign up
In the past few weeks, the Tories have been so busy fighting each other that they appear to have forgotten about the Opposition party. But now, while things are quieter in the parliamentary recess, senior figures are starting to take the fight back to Labour. Michael Gove has written a barnstormer of an Op-Ed in
The Tories spend a lot of time and money scratching their heads about why women voters are deserting them. Today we were dropped a little clue as to why. Andy Coulson’s GQ article contains all sorts of helpful advice for the Prime Minister including this nugget: ‘There are few people in Number Ten with a
Is Universal Credit on the brink of disaster? It’s rather too early to tell whether this mammoth reform of the benefits system really is doomed, in spite of last week’s warning from the Major Projects Authority. But whether it sinks or swims will not be because of the current structure of the Whitehall machine. I’ve
If anyone pushing for reform of Britain’s relationship with Europe was hunting for an example of why there needs to be a renegotiation, they would have struggled to find a more perfect one than that served up by the European Commission. The Commission is taking the UK to the European Court of Justice, claiming its