Isabel Hardman

The useful thing about most court rulings in judicial review cases is that both sides can take from it whatever they want and make it into a victory. We had that last month with the work experience judgement, which was apparently both a victory for those who thought the government's scheme was 'slave labour' and for those ministers who thought it was brilliant. And today's HS2 ruling in the High Court had the same effect. The government actually won nine out of the 10 points challenged by campaigners, so Transport Minister Simon Burns could call this a 'green light' to getting high speed rail underway. But according to former Cabinet minister Cheryl Gillan, that 10th point was in fact 'the most serious of all', and shows ministers have been 'cocky'. So what has happened?

MPs were debating accountability in the NHS following the Mid-Staffs scandal today, and as part of that, the argument about who - if anyone - should be held responsible continues to rumble on. Charlotte Leslie and many of her Tory colleagues want to see Sir David Nicholson gone (and The Telegraph's Robert Winnett reports that senior government figures are considering a route by which he can exit). But the focus of Jeremy Hunt and other Conservatives is on Andy Burnham instead. Today Hunt said: '[Nicholson] does bear some responsibility. He said himself 'we lost our focus', he has apologised and has been held to account by this House and others. But I don't believe that he bears total responsibility, or indeed personal responsibility for what happened.

Nick Boles is getting a roasting in Number 10 tonight for his comments in The Times about the Eastleigh by-election, I understand. There was considerable disquiet about the interview, in which the Planning Minister said his party had run a 'truly rotten campaign' and failed to convey the modernisation message. "Where was the hope? It was as if modernisation had never happened. We screwed it up. We didn't even screw up in a new way. We screwed it up in an old way that we have been doing for a decade. It's so frustrating." This was apparently Boles doing his own thing rather than a decision from the top that someone needed to go out to the media and be clear that no-one blamed Maria Hutchings for the Conservatives coming third in the by-election.

Dominic Raab's proposal to stop jailed foreign criminals avoiding deportation on the grounds of a right to family life turns out to be very popular indeed among MPs. It's got 104 supporters currently, including 91 Conservative MPs, and will be debated as an amendment to the Crime and Courts Bill tomorrow when the legislation reaches its report stage in the House of Commons. The amendment would mean that foreign criminals can only avoid deportation if they risk being killed or tortured on their return, and is intended as a stop-gap ahead of any Tory plans to repeal the Human Rights Act or exit the European Convention on Human Rights.

David Cameron and Lynton Crosby are holding a meeting with Conservative MPs this week to discuss 2015 strategy, I understand. The party held a similar meeting with Andrew Cooper in January. One of the major topics that is likely to come up from the floor is whether the party should be trying to get legislation on an EU referendum into parliament at some point. There is of course already an opportunity for the party to do this, as there is a backbench bill already before parliament proposing just that. It's from John Baron, who was the first Tory to break ranks and criticise David Cameron's EU referendum pledge, writing on Coffee House that without legislation, the party would suffer at the hands of voters not quite ready to trust politicians on Europe.

Jo Swinson's speech to the Lib Dem spring conference highlighted her again as a confident performer who has higher to rise in the party. I was at a fringe session last night where, though scheduled to speak first, she insisted on going last so she could answer the other panellists' concerns on changes to employment law. One of the areas she touched on today was helping women to break glass ceilings in their professions. 'When Nick invited me to join the government as a minister in the department for business, I immediately asked "Do I get shared parental leave?"' she said. There was a slightly awkward pause, before she added: 'Don't worry Duncan!' adding that she meant taking the legislation through parliament.

Nick Clegg has just battled his way through a rather more grumpy than usual question-and-answer session at the Lib Dem spring conference. Normally, these sessions are an opportunity for the party to let off steam - they're obviously far more robust than the sort of thing you'll see in the House of Commons as they involve party members complaining about things that worry them, rather than telling Clegg how pleased they are with the Coalition's record. And normally Clegg performs well: Q&A sessions are his strength. But this was a more robust session than usual, with considerably more steam: activists weren't just anxious and keen to grill their leader, they were grumpy.