Isabel Hardman

David Cameron warned in his Downing Street statement on the Woolwich killing against forming 'knee-jerk responses' to the atrocity. But it was inevitable that there would be many knees flying in the air over a piece of legislation that some say could either have prevented the killing, or made it easier to piece together the evidence. The Communications Data Bill - better known as the Snooper's Charter - is back in the spotlight after everyone had assumed that Nick Clegg had kicked it into the next Parliament at least. Alan Johnson called it a resigning issue on the Marr Show, Lord Carlile accused his own party of blocking the legislation for political reasons, and Sadiq Khan said that a new bill with more proportionate powers was something Labour would support.

It's fashionable to say Downing Street isn't very good at strategy. So fashionable, in fact, that sometimes journalists worry they're being unfair to the Tory leadership. But today we saw yet another example of the Prime Minister leaving an open goal for not just the opposition party but also his own Coalition partners to score. On Monday, Google's Eric Schmidt visited Downing Street for the regular Business Advisory Group meeting. He was allowed to leave by the back door, and the Prime Minister's aides were adamant that David Cameron wouldn't 'confront' the Google boss on his company's tax arrangements. All he planned to do was to take the group through his agenda for the G8, they said. So today, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband jumped into the void left by Cameron's reluctance.

Some might say it was rather audacious of Yvette Cooper to send an email to Labour activists this evening urging them to tweet something along these lines: I'm proud to be part of @uklabour today and proud that we're one step closer to #equalmarriage in Britain. — Sheila Gilmore (@SheilaGilmoreMP) May 21, 2013 I feel privileged to be a @uklabour MP today helping to bring #equalmarriage in Britain one step closer — Chris Williamson (@ChriswMP) May 21, 2013   I'm proud to have played a small part in helping #equalmarriage come a little closer with @kategreensu — Chris Bryant (@ChrisBryantMP) May 21, 2013   But then why not, if the man who has invested a great deal of personal capital in the legislation isn't making any effort to claim credit?

MPs have just defeated Tim Loughton's 'wrecking amendment' to the Same Sex Marriage Bill by 375 votes to 70, after approving the Government and Labour amendment (more on how that works here) which will introduce a consultation on heterosexual civil partnerships. Those in favour of gay marriage will, if this Bill does make it out of Parliament and into law (and we still have all the stages in the Lords to go through) give David Cameron credit for continuing to push when many faces were set against him. But Labour has played a very impressive game today, appearing to save the legislation by making a tweak to an existing government amendment. Meanwhile David Cameron is starting his damage limitation exercise with the Tory grassroots following this week's allegations about Lord Feldman.

There is always something quietly devastating about a pronouncement from Lord Mandelson. Today more polls reveal the Labour party is failing to make headway when the Tories are in an almighty flap, and the New Labour peer gave his tight-lipped, politely-delivered prescription on the Marr Show for how Ed Miliband can salvage things: 'I think that Ed Miliband has two tasks. He has one, to continue building up his economic credibility and confidence people have in Labour's ability to manage the public finances and people's own money. He has made a very good start at doing that.

There's plenty of speculation in Westminster today that Philip Hammond is busy positioning himself as a future leadership contender. Last night he had some pretty strong words about the Government's proposals for same-sex marriage, saying: 'There is a real sense of anger among many people who are married that any government thinks it has the ability to change the definition of an institution like marriage.' Meanwhile the FT identifies him as a reluctant cutter of his own department's spending in its report about George Osborne's £9bn black hole.