James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
The House of Lords has tonight voted to give 16 and 17 year olds the vote in the EU referendum. This question will now go to the Commons, which can try and overturn it and send the bill back to the Lords—so-called ‘ping pong’. The government has already made clear tonight that it will try
One moment from PMQs today will stick in the mind for a long time. After Corbyn had asked his last question, Cameron declared ‘Hasn’t it come to something when the leader of the opposition thinks that the police, when confronted by a Kalashnikov-waving terrorist isn’t sure what the reaction should be?’ At that point, the
On a day when Jeremy Corbyn has been making clear his concerns about both the government’s use of drones and any shoot-to-kill policy for terrorists on British streets, Theresa May’s statement on the Paris attacks was striking for the level of cross-party agreement. Andy Burnham paid generous tribute to the Home Secretary and pledged Labour’s
If Islamic State is a threat to Britain that requires a military response, then surely we should be attacking it on both sides of the Syrian/Iraqi border? Our current policy of only hitting it in Iraq, when its operation there is directed from Syria and resupplied from there, makes neither strategic nor moral sense. So,
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/civilwarinthecatholicchurch/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman discuss whether MPs will ever vote to bomb Syria” startat=864] Listen [/audioplayer]David Cameron doesn’t do regret. It is not in his nature to sit and fret about decisions that he has taken and can now do nothing about. But there are still a few things that rankle with
Monday’s night defeats for the government over tax credits in the House of Lords put into lights a problem that many of Cameron’s allies have been worrying about for months, the fact that they keep losing votes in the upper house. Since the election, the government has lost more than 70 per cent of divisions there.
When you talk to representatives from friendly, non-EU countries about Britain’s referendum, two things strike you. First of all, nearly all of them want Britain to stay in the EU. I have not yet had one conversation where one of them has told me, even on background, that they think it would be better if
A few days after the general election, I bumped into one of David Cameron’s longest-standing political allies, one of those who had helped him get selected for Witney back in 2000. I remarked that he must be delighted that Cameron had now won a majority. To my surprise, he glumly replied that it would only
David Cameron’s decision to wade into the EU debate by dismissing the Norway option and warning that there is no ‘milk and honey’ alternative to EU membership is one of the most significant political moments of this parliament. It is Cameron entering the referendum fray, and long before the renegotiation has been concluded. On one
The government was defeated twice in the Lords tonight on tax credits, with the motions put down by Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hollis both passing. We are now expecting a response from George Osborne this evening on what the government will do. Considering that these tax credit changes are meant to bring in £4.4 billion
It is one of the great counterfactuals of contemporary history, what if Mikhail Gorbachev had walked out of that Chequers lunch with Margaret Thatcher in 1984? As Charles Moore explained at last night’s Spectator event to celebrate the launch of the second volume of his Thatcher biography, that lunch—where Thatcher and Gorbachev debated capitalism and
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thedeathoffeminism/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss whether Theresa May will lead the Out campaign” startat=1050] Listen [/audioplayer]Who is the most politically interesting member of David Cameron’s cabinet? There’s a good case to be made for Michael Gove. He is as intent on reforming the justice system as he was our schools. If he
Theresa May’s senior special adviser Stephen Parkinson is leaving government to go and work for Vote Leave, the EU referendum Out campaign. Parkinson, who previously worked on the No to AV campaign, will start next month. Stephen Parkinson, Theresa May’s outgoing senior special adviser The fact that someone who has worked so closely with the
PMQs was a rather ill-tempered affair today. With tax credits and steel closures dominating proceedings, the two sets of benches went at each other with vigour. This was much more like an old-style PMQs than the other Corbyn sessions. The Labour leader began on the tax credits issue. His questions were beginning to rile Cameron,
Lord Warner has resigned the Labour whip in protest at the direction in which Jeremy Corbyn is taking the party, Patrick Wintour has revealed tonight. Warner was a minister of state at the Department of Health under Tony Blair. Now, Corbyn supporters will be quick to point out that Lord Warner is hardly a household
David Cameron has just delivered a statement to the House of Commons on last week’s European Council meeting. Cameron stressed that any visa liberalisation programme for Turkey would not apply to Britain as this country is not part of Schengen. He also reiterated his condemnation of President Assad and accused the Russians of predominantly striking
Last night, George Osborne interviewed Charles Moore to mark the publication of the second volume of Charles’s magisterial biography of Margaret Thatcher. You can watch the whole thing on the Policy Exchange website but one of the most striking things about the event, apart from Charles’s subtle needling of the Chancellor, was the questions that
David Cameron is in Brussels today with the European Commission not hiding its irritation at the slow pace of the British renegotiation. One member of the Cabinet committee handling the renegotiation admits that ‘We were hoping to be further ahead than we are now’. Though, they blame the hold-up not on Britain being unclear about
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thedisasterofthesnp-silliberal-one-partystate/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the current state of the EU referendum” startat=1038] Listen [/audioplayer]Westminster may have been guilty of ignoring the Scottish referendum until the last minute, but no one can accuse it of doing the same with the EU one. No one knows when this vote will take place, yet
Jeremy Corbyn’s second outing at PMQs was better than his first. Rather than having all six questions determined by the email-writing public, he now uses a question from a member of the public to introduce a topic and then asks his own follow ups. Corbyn combined this with a few old-style put downs—mockingly declaring that
