James Forsyth

I understand that when the gay marriage bill is published, the Attorney General will make clear that the chance of a legal challenge at the European Court of Human Rights to religious institutions that don’t want to marry gay couples is ‘negligible’.  As Isabel says, what wavering Tory MPs think of this legal opinion will be key to determining how they vote. The debate inside the Tory parliamentary party about this issue is becoming increasingly rancorous. There’s real fury among some MPs about the language being used by some of the opponents of same-sex marriage. David TC Davies decision to opine on whether parents want gay children has infuriated many MPs.

Chuka Umunna’s interview on The Sunday Politics today highlighted several of the problems facing the Labour party. When Andrew Neil pressed him on whether he could name any heads of big companies backing Labour, the shadow Business Secretary could only name a Labour peer who the party ennobled in 1998. Here’s the exchange: AN: Tony Blair said that Labour can’t go into the next election without the support of a single chief executive from a big company. Can you name the boss of a big major company who’s backing Labour? CU: The Chairman of ASOS who is Waheed Alli. He has backed the Labour Party. AN: Is that a public company on the FTSE? CU: I’m not sure that ASOS is listed. It may be or it may be just outside the FTSE 100. AN: Any others? Any others?

The main topic of conversation in Whitehall today has been The Guardian’s profile of the Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood. One particular passage has raised some eyebrows in several ministerial offices: He believes, they say, that reports of his power are overstated and the very suggestion that he might be making decisions on behalf of politicians makes him "cringe". He prefers to describe himself, they say, as simply very influential. Heywood, and this irritates some in Number 10, briefs journalists personally. He is known to be particularly concerned about his image. I’m told that after The Spectator cover depicting him as the PM’s puppet-master, there was much discussion over what should be done to finesse things.

After months of squabbling and not-so-civil war, the coalition now appears to be functioning again. This is one immediate consequence of George Osborne’s Autumn Statement. The Chancellor was allowed to present a package to the House that had not been leaked earlier by coalition partners in an act of preemptive spin. This matters not only for the orderly proceeding of affairs of state but also because the Autumn Statement was the first of a two-part coalition effort to seize the political initiative. The second will come in the new year with the publication of its mid-term review. Time is running out for further radical reform. The Autumn Statement was limited in its ambitions, and the mid-term review will be the last chance.

George Osborne was in good spirits when he turned up to address the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers. He received a warm reception. The sense was that the autumn statement had avoided the last Budget’s mistakes. As one senior Tory MP said to me afterwards, ‘it shows what he can do when he puts his mind to the job.’ This backhanded compliment sums up the mood among Tories tonight. In his speech, Osborne stressed the importance of cancelling the 3p rise in fuel duty. He told them that they should tell voters that this shows that the government understands how hard family budgets are being squeezed right now and is trying to help.

Kelvin MacKenzie wants a British version of the Italy’s Northern League. His aim is to have a Southern Party that would push for home rule for London and the South East and oppose fiscal transfers from the South East to the rest of the country. The piece is classic MacKenzie polemic. But it does speak to the growing regionalisation of British politics, a subject that Neil O’Brien addressed for us in his final piece before becoming an adviser to George Osborne. Outside of London, Labour only have four MPs in the South East and in the European elections, Labour came fifth in the region — behind even the Greens. For their part, the Tories are on the verge of extinction in the urban north and hold just two seats in the North East.

It is hard to watch Chris Grayling’s interview with Andrew Neil on BBC1's Sunday Politics and not conclude that Britain’s relationship with the European Court of Human Rights needs changing. The Justice Secretary effectively concedes that he can’t, as Lord Chancellor, vote to maintain the ban on prisoners voting. But ‘Parliament has the right to overrule the European Court of Human Rights.’ So we're not stuck, Britain can do what it likes. Or, more accurately, what Parliament votes for. It looks likely that we’ll end up with Parliament resolving to uphold the ban on prisoner voting, but with the Secretary of State - as Lord Chancellor - obliged to sit out the vote.

It is testament to Margaret Thatcher’s remarkable influence on British politics that 33 years after she won her first general election victory she still has such a hold on our political discourse. One of the things that the Tory party needs to do is understand both why Thatcher was so successful and how she changed Britain. In an interview with The Spectator this week, Elizabeth Truss, the new education minister who proudly describes herself as a ‘bit of a Thatcherite’, offers an interesting take on the question.

George Osborne has recruited Neil O’Brien, the director of the leading centre-right think tank Policy Exchange, as an adviser. O’Brien will start work in the New Year with a particular focus on the next phase of coalition policy development. I also suspect that O’Brien will have a major influence on Tory thinking heading to 2015 and beyond. The Northern Lights report he commissioned at Policy Exchange is regarded in Tory circles as one of the most important assessments of the challenge facing the party in trying to win a majority. I understand that Osborne has been impressed by the work that O’Brien has produced at Policy Exchange. At Policy Exchange, O’Brien has sought to craft a more economically focused centre-right agenda.

Following this afternoon’s statements I am certain that David Cameron is in a minority in the House of Commons in not wanting to create a statutory back-stop for a press regulator. But, so far, no one can explain how even an alliance of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Eustice Tories can force the Prime Minister to provide parliamentary time for a bill that he doesn’t want. Cameron got the tone and content of his statement right. I’m reassured that Cameron appreciates that while he set up an inquiry, he didn’t outsource his judgment to Lord Justice Leveson. He is also surely correct that a press law, however brief, would have worrying consequences. Just before the statement, a visibly agitated Miliband walked over to Cameron to talk to him.

I'm informed by someone involved in the coalition negotiations on the issue that the reason the Liberal Democrats want to be able to make their own statement on the Leveson Report is that they intend to back the rapid creation of a statutory back-stop for newspaper regulation. By contrast, I hear that David Cameron doesn’t want to back any press law, at least for now. The key moment tomorrow will come with a meeting of the Cabinet’s coalition committee at noon. It is scheduled for an hour and is meant to thrash out whether a common position can be agreed. Michael Gove, the government’s most passionate opponent of statutory regulation, is a member of it as are all five Liberal Democrat Cabinet Ministers and David Laws.