Politics

If the Liberal Democrats stand any chance of making gains at the Conservatives expense, then Nicola Blackwood is precisely the sort of MP they need to depose. She won her seat, Oxford West and Abingdon, with a gossamer majority of 176 and its in the top three Lib Dem targets. Perhaps for that reason she has been in campaigning mode ever since she was elected. Vital statistics Seat Oxford West and Abingdon Party Conservative MP Nicola Blackwood Main opponent Liberal Democrats Majority 176 Latest Ashcroft poll 4% Lib Dem-Con swing Given Blackwood’s majority, few in 2010 would have expected her to hold onto the seat this time around. But since

The Tories are embarking on an ‘education week’, which means they won’t just be fighting Labour but also the Lib Dems, as the latter like to strike up a fight whenever something involving Michael Gove crops up. Indeed, some Tories suspect the Lib Dems in the Education department as being the source of today’s Independent on Sunday splash about Michael Gove continuing to meddle with education policy – though others point out that he’d probably receive most of them anyway through ministerial ‘write-rounds’ (more on this here). Today to launch the education week Nicky Morgan appeared on Marr, where she said she was ‘absolutely fighting for the schools’ budget to

Today’s huge Podemos rally in Madrid is a reminder that Syriza’s victory in Greece has emboldened the anti-austerity left across the Eurozone. What worries Angela Merkel and other northern European leaders is, as I say in the magazine this week, that any concessions to the new government in Athens, will lead to Podemos—a party which was founded less than 12 months ago—wining the Spanish elections later this year. But the country that most worries European policymakers isn’t Greece or Spain but France. Its economy is showing no signs of recovering and its politics are threatening to become very ugly indeed. A new poll published this week shows the Front National’s

Who wants to work with who after the General Election? It’s a question that pundits like to chew over, partly because few politicians can afford to rule anything out with the polls suggesting quite such a jumbly outcome in May. But today two parties effectively ruled out a coalition with one another, even though they’re ideologically close. Grant Shapps was first, telling his press conference this morning that ‘I can rule out… we are not going to do pacts and deals with Ukip’. This afternoon, Ukip has released this statement: ‘UKIP are not promising pacts with anyone. For us politics is about getting something done, not about stitching up deals