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.
From our UK edition
So the Lib Dems got their way in the end, teaming up with Labour and minor parties to delay the changes to constituency boundaries until 2018 by 334 votes to 292. There were Tory rebels, too, and here, thanks to the Press Association, are their names: John Baron Philip Davies David Davis Sir Richard Shepherd The
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Aside from Ed Balls’ attack on George Osborne for going ‘on the piste’ in Davos, Treasury question time in the Commons today was interesting not for what Labour did or didn’t have to say, but for some of the pushes from the Tory backbench on helping those on low incomes. Sometimes it’s the pattern of
From our UK edition
Controversial though her proposals to relax quotas for childminders and nursery staff may be, no-one disagrees with Liz Truss’ central mission to reduce the cost of childcare. The opposition know affordable childcare will form an important part of their 2015 offer, and have also been visiting countries such as Denmark to pick up some tips.
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One of the most frustrating things about being a policymaker must surely be when something that sounds so very sensible and straightforward in your ivory tower ends up being a bit messy in practice. Take the ‘bedroom tax’: it’s not actually a tax, but Labour enjoy calling anything they don’t like a ‘tax’ (odd, given
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After publishing a paper highly critical of the Justice and Security Bill this morning, Andrew Tyrie is now considering making amendments to the legislation, I understand. MPs in a Bill committee will scrutinise the legislation line by line this week, and are expected to report to the House of Commons by mid-February. Tyrie, who also
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The Tories in opposition were very keen on their ‘Green Deal’ for making existing housing stock energy efficient. It formed the cornerstone of their pledge when the Coalition formed to be the ‘greenest government ever’. It had its big full launch today, with new loans available for homeowners to insulate their properties and pay back
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George Osborne, Patrick McLoughlin and Simon Burns have been flying the flag for the second phase of High Speed Rail 2 this morning. Politically, Osborne and Co see rewards in a project aimed at closing the North/South divide, rewards clearly so great that the Chancellor doesn’t mind the second half of the route zipping through
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Nick Clegg was careful in his interview on the Marr show today to leave the door open to a Lib-Lab coalition – which bookmakers regard as more likely (4-1) than another Con-Lab coalition (6-1). It was interesting that so much of his description of coalition referred to himself: He told Sophie Raworth: ‘I’ve never, ever
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The camp supporting backbench Tory MP Adam Afriyie in a possible leadership bid have been busy, managing to get whispers of their planned coup into three Sunday newspapers (the Sun on Sunday, The Sunday Times, and the Mail on Sunday). Whether or not Afriyie is a popular backbencher who managed to soothe colleagues over toasted
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Claire Perry, the determined MP for Devizes, is very, very determined not to be set up as a 21st century Mary Whitehouse. Her job title, as the Prime Minister’s adviser on preventing the sexualisation and commercialisation of childhood, might suggest the Tory MP is yearning for a more innocent bygone era. But she’s insistent that
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Normally, it is really rather tiresome when a politician is pilloried in the media for choosing to send their children to a private school above the local state schools. There’s even an argument that if you can afford to send your kid to a fee-paying school, then at least it is one less pressure in
From our UK edition
Nick Clegg was apparently just being self-critical in his House magazine interview when he said the Coalition hadn’t got it right from the beginning on infrastructure. Those close to the Deputy Prime Minister are insisting that though speaking out on economic policy remains unusual in the Coalition, he was simply pointing out what has actually
From our UK edition
The government’s gay marriage bill is published later today, after receiving its first reading in the Commons yesterday. How it’s received by the Tory party will be an interesting indication of just how powerful David Cameron’s EU speech was this week. When Maria Miller unveiled the ‘quadruple lock’ to protect the Church of England from
From our UK edition
The GDP figures for the final quarter of 2013 are out tomorrow morning, and with them will come the usual round of commentary from government and opposition. They’re not expected to be good: Citi predicts that the ONS’s first estimate will show a contraction of 0.1 per cent in Q4. So perhaps that’s why Nick
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Finally: Number 10 admits that far from ‘dealing with debt’, the government is seeing it rise. This morning the Prime Minister’s spokesman was grilled on the party political broadcast that horrified Fraser last night in which the Prime Minister said ‘we are making progress. We’re paying down Britain’s debts.’ Fraser has explained the reality –
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The Tory spinners were in an exceptionally good mood after PMQs today. The general feeling was that Ed Miliband had messed up, and this wasn’t helped by his aides having to clarify that when he told the Prime Minister that ‘my position is no – we don’t want an In/Out referendum’, he actually meant that
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David Cameron should savour today as the moment he finally satisfied Mrs Bone. I’ve been calling round Tory MPs, and Peter Bone, often a thorn in the flesh of the Prime Minister with his probing questions that his wife wants clearing up, is happy with the speech. He says: ‘I could hear Mrs Bone singing
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Cameron has finished delivering his ‘red meat’ speech on the European Union and answering questions from journalists. You can read the full text here, but here are five key points to take away: 1. The Prime Minister is a pro-European sceptical about the current EU settlement It actually took Cameron a long time to reach
From our UK edition
Downing Street has tonight released the following extracts from David Cameron’s speech on the European Union, which he will deliver tomorrow at 8am. Here’s your guide to what we know so far: 1. An unwilling EU could sleepwalk Britain out of the union ‘I speak as British Prime Minister with a positive vision for the
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The battle between Tim Loughton and the Education department rumbles on, with new foot soldiers joining the fray. The latest shot fired in the war comes from Labour’s Stephen Twigg, who has demanded an investigation into the quotes we ran on Coffee House last week from a senior DfE source which described the former minister