Tom Goodenough

Today, after years of delay, we’ll finally learn what the Government’s answer is to the airport question. Both supporters and opponents of it expect the Transport Secretary Chris Grayling to announce that the Government is backing a third runway at Heathrow. However, it is also likely that the Government will make encouraging noises about further expansion at Britain’s regional airports. A Heathrow third runway isn’t the only option on the table though. Here’s the Spectator’s guide to Theresa May’s choices: Heathrow: A third runway? The Airport Commission threw its weight behind the option of building a new runway at Heathrow last year.

It's no surprise that the Tories held their seat overnight in the Witney by-election. Yet what seems remarkable (at least on the face of it) is the extent of the swing back towards the Lib Dems. The party saw its share of the vote jump from seven per cent two years ago to nearly a third of the vote this time around. That pushed the party's candidate, Liz Leffman, into second place and has got Tim Farron excited. The Lib Dem leader went as far as saying the result shows the ‘Liberal Democrats are back in the political big time’. That's not quite the case yet. After all, this is a party which started the night with eight MPs and wakes up this morning with the same number. But while the Lib Dems looked dead and buried two years ago, there is now, at least, the sign of life.

Sir Philip Green might not be a ‘Sir’ for much longer. MPs have just backed a motion calling for him to be stripped of his title. For now, he remains a ‘Sir’, as the vote today doesn’t have any immediate effect, and MPs are powerless to actually take his title away. Only the Honours Forfeiture Committee can do that, and the committee will now decide whether to ‘cancel and annul’ the billionaire’s beloved gong. Yet given the sentiment on display today, and the level of public anger generally, it’s difficult to see how they won’t side with MPs on this. Unfortunately, when the committee does come to its decision, we won’t know how they made their minds up, as their discussions are held in secret.

Polls have made miserable reading for Jeremy Corbyn ever since he won his first leadership election last year. And the bad news for the Labour leader is that they seem to be getting worse. The latest Ipsos Mori survey out today hands the Tories an 18 point lead, giving them a 47 per cent share of the vote. That’s the largest percentage of voters saying they’d back the Tories since before the 2010 election. It's also a clear sign that Theresa May’s leadership is going down well with voters.

Labour's current turmoil gifts Ukip an open goal. Or at least it should do. But instead of taking the opportunity to snatch disaffected Labour voters away, the party seems at pains to trip itself up. Steven Woolfe ended up in hospital after an 'altercation' with a fellow Ukip MEP, while Diane James stepped down as leader after just 18 days. Two weeks on, Nigel Farage is back in the helm and it looks to be business as usual for Ukip. Yet while Farage offers stability and familiarity, his presence suggests Ukip is simply offering more of the same - and doing little to try and broaden its appeal. The prospect of a new leader, then, offers a golden chance to do just that and to try and show Ukip is a party determined to get its act together.

Nicola Sturgeon is in a bit of a fix. After saying that the Scottish independence referendum was a once-in-a-generation event she is calling for a second one just two years after the first. But polls show Scots have no appetite for this vote. Unlike the SNP activist base, which is itching for another fight – and there have even been signs of a Momentum-style infiltration of the SNP, raising the prospect of a split in a party whose strength has (hitherto) been in its discipline. So what’s the First Minister to do? Her answer, in the SNP conference, is to assuage the activists and publish a new referendum bill. Her peg is the Brexit vote, and her shtick is simple.

Labour wants to ask the Government 170 questions about its plan for Brexit. Yet when it comes to answering questions themselves, it seems the party is much less willing to give an answer. Emily Thornberry, in her new guise as shadow foreign secretary, was quizzed on how Labour would handle migration from the EU after Brexit on the Today show just now. And in typical fashion, she did her best to dodge the question. Here's what she said: 'Our position is that we need to be open to the idea of reasonably managed migration. And we need to have it as part of a larger negotiation but we are open to that. Our position is that it is a negotiation and our position is that nobody who voted in the Brexit referendum voted to take away someone else's job.

Can someone please tell HM Treasury that the referendum is over? During that campaign, it made history by producing a claim that Brexit would make people £4,300 worse off per household. It was nonsense, debunked here at the time. It was not just a porkie, but a historic porkie: polls showed just 17 per cent believed this figure, around the same number that think Elvis is still alive. Even Sir Will Straw, head of the Remain campaign, admitted later that his case was actually damaged by this ridiculous campaign. The Treasury ought to be holding an inquiry into how such a wilfully misleading figure was eve produced by the civil service, and ever signed off. But instead, the Treasury is at it again.

Amber Rudd’s proposal to make companies publish lists of how many foreign workers they employ inflicted significant damage to one of Theresa May’s oldest aims: to shake off the Tories’ ‘nasty party’ image. And it also drew expressions of disgust from across the board, with Steve Hilton - David Cameron’s former aide - saying it amounted to ‘shaming’ of foreign workers. Grant Shapps said he would not vote for it. To the many Conservatives who spent years trying to reset the Tories' image, last week's conference was an awful setback. This was made worse because Rudd's proposal wasn't even in her speech, but in the footnotes. It suggests that May's No. 10 is unable to spot such dangers. If so, we can expect more of them.

Jeremy Corbyn's reshuffle is a clear show of intent. Having won re-election as Labour leader, Corbyn is shoring up his authority and sending out a message to critics by ousting some of those who may have helped placate the Parliamentary Labour party. Unsurprisingly, his ongoing reshuffle isn't going down well with everyone. Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop had this to say about the changes at the top: https://twitter.com/TomBlenkinsop/status/784080234077380610 Labour MP Barry Sheerman also appeared to suggest he thought Corbyn was asserting his power rather than reaching out with his reshuffle: https://twitter.

Theresa May has brought the curtain down on this year's Tory party conference with a speech in which she made a snatch for the centre ground. The Prime Minister pledged to stick up for the working class and went on the attack against the 'sneering elite', who May said looked down on others. But how successful was her speech? And did it tell us anything more about May? On the Spectator's Coffee House Shots podcast, James Forsyth says: I think she is keener on the state than most Conservatives are. I think there was a lot of aim taken at the liberal elite. There was a lot of vicar's daughter style emphasis on the obligations you owe to the other people in your family and the other people in your community.