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.
The introduction of the Help to Buy scheme was the only very small bone of contention in this year’s successful Budget (successful politically, that is, in that no-one talks about it a month and a half later). The announcement itself was a political win for Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, who believes that the only problem
John Baron and Conservative backbench colleagues have been out and about insisting that today’s results underline the need for legislation in this parliament for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU after 2015. But Tories and Lib Dems in Number 10 were clear yesterday that this can’t come as a government bill because of
Today’s results for UKIP have re-opened the question of whether Nigel Farage should join the three political leaders in the live TV election debates in 2015. David Cameron’s allies are clear they don’t want that, and Nick Clegg was very dismissive when asked about this on the BBC. He said: ‘I’m not going to start
As we revealed on Coffee House earlier, David Cameron has now distanced himself from the ‘fruitcake’ characterisation of UKIP that he’s employed in the past. Here’s what he said: Cameron: Well I think there are major lessons for the major political parties, for the Conservatives, I understand why some people who’ve supported us before didn’t
We could see a further tightening of the reconciliatory line that the Tories seem to be adopting on UKIP when the PM gives his response to the local elections later today. I hear from very well-placed sources in the Tory party that David Cameron plans to mark an end to the name-calling, acknowledging that it
The dominant narrative in the build-up to these local elections has been all about UKIp vs the Tories, with a bit of angst about Labour’s southern mission thrown in. The Lib Dems didn’t really get a look in. They had moved to a reasonably stable position after romping home in the Eastleigh by-election, but today’s
We’ve only had a few results through in the local elections, but already the parties are giving their verdict on the way last night worked for them. One thing to watch today is the development of a Tory line on UKIP. There hasn’t been one in the run-up to polling day, but will there be
Even though there has been some reeling back today from the suggestion that David Cameron is on the brink of wowing his party with a bit of legislative red meat on an EU referendum, it won’t stop Tory backbenchers trying to force the leadership’s position on this matter. The problem is that Conservative MPs are
There’s one government adviser who still feels Steve Hilton’s absence very keenly indeed. ‘He was always thinking ahead, how do we set the debate rather than endlessly react to it, that was why he was such a delight to work for. All the time he was racing ahead. It was difficult to keep up with
Some Tories are all aquiver today after the Prime Minister’s radio hint yesterday that he might be prepared to introduce an EU referendum bill in this parliament after all. Here are David Cameron’s words on yesterday’s World at One that are supposed to set your heart pounding: ‘I think we need to demonstrate absolutely that
David Cameron’s refusal to say ‘UKIP’ on the radio today was rather entertaining, but it does highlight a strange problem that the Conservative party has brought upon itself for these local elections. Here’s his exchange with Martha Kearney, which you can listen to below, from 8m 49s in: Cameron: ‘My role is to get around
Nick Clegg is frustrated. He told callers on LBC this morning that ‘one of the most frustrating dilemmas that we have face in government is that we have thrown a barrage of initiatives at this problem to get the construction sector and house-building sector moving, it just takes longer than, I think, you or I
It’s not a case of will they, won’t they when it comes to whether Labour would borrow more, but will they admit it and try to sell this plan to voters? In the past few days, we’ve seen the party trying to work this out in public. Ed Miliband, in his awkward World at One
The government’s ‘nudge unit’ has always been regarded as radical – or a bit wacky, depending on your outlook – and now this Cabinet Office division, officially known as the Behavioural Insights Team, is getting a bit more radical. It’s going into the private sector. A source close to Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude says
Not wanting to heap worries onto the Prime Minister when he’s just about found harmony with his party, but as well as the underused backbenchers I mentioned this morning, he might want to think about his party’s PPSs as well. Some of them feel they were offered their jobs with the promise that the role
David Cameron is really trying to reach out to his party at the moment. The announcements of a policy board of MPs and a policy chief who is also an MP were intended to show that it’s not just the inner circle that calls the shots. Jo Johnson appears to have received a bigger promotion
Whether you like Ed Miliband’s latest party political broadcast depends very much on whether you’re the sort of person who openly weeps while listening to Coldplay. It’s got plenty of the Chris Martin playing Wembley factor: emotional piano music, people saying things like ‘please, give people some hope’, and the Labour leader leaning comfortingly against
How do the Tories deal with UKIP? The party likes to split on most issues, and it has got a nice little fault line running across it at the moment on whether to squash the party as ‘fruitcakes’, or, as Conor Burns eloquently argued on Coffee House this morning, engage with the problems and anxieties
Bids for the 2015/16 spending review will land on George Osborne’s desk today from Secretaries of State across Whitehall. Some, like Iain Duncan Smith and Patrick McLoughlin, are signed up to the idea that their departments need further cuts. McLoughlin, as a former chief whip, prefers to avoid conflict, while Duncan Smith has made it
If UKIP thinks it is the victim of a smear campaign in the run-up to the local elections, then it needs to have a little think about whether the chief smearers hail from UKIP HQ itself, or CCHQ, as Paul Nuttall claimed they did when he appeared on the Sunday Politics earlier today. This evening,
