Politics

In recent weeks, Downing Street has been repeatedly told by Tory MPs that if proposals for an elected element in the House of Lords were brought back to the Commons, the next rebellion would be even bigger than the 91 who voted against second reading. Downing Street, as the Telegraph reported this morning, has now accepted that Lords reform will have to be dropped and there is talk of a formal announcement to this effect as early as Monday. But, intriguingly, I understand that David Cameron does not intend to abandon efforts to get the boundary reforms through. This, as Isabel noted this morning, has the potential to cause a

Let’s forget for a minute about the Lib Dems and their dire threats of ‘consequences’ for the failure of the Lords Reform Bill and focus on the Conservative party. David Cameron has failed to convince his party to support the legislation. He said he needed the summer to try to win the rebels round before he tabled a new programme motion for the Bill, and before the summer is even out, he has decided that he can’t do it. This isn’t just about a hardcore of Conservative MPs who are viscerally opposed to Lords reform, though. There are those who would always have opposed it, but many others who might

When the coalition returns from the summer recess, don’t expect a relaxed, post-holiday spirit. David Cameron has failed to convince his backbenchers to support the House of Lords Reform Bill and The Telegraph reports that the Prime Minister will announce that these reforms are to be shelved in the coming days. This triggers that new phase of coalition that Nick Clegg and his colleagues have been warning about: the era of ‘consequences’. Although Conservative ministers have been considering other policies that they could hand to their coalition partners, these will not be enough to appease them: it’s Lords reform or nothing. How this will play out is fascinating: the main

They may have failed to install one of their candidates as the Republican’s presidential nominee, but the Tea Party is having better luck in other elections. Last night, Ted Cruz — backed by Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul — beat Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst 57-43 in the Republican primary for Texas’s senate election in November. Despite being outspent nearly three-to-one, Cruz — who has never run for office before — achieved a remarkable turnaround. In the first round of the primary just nine weeks ago, Dewhurst beat him 45-34 (as neither got more than 50 per cent it went down to last night’s run-off). In the second round,

TfL have today stopped running those Boris Johnson announcements over the tannoys at Underground and national rail stations that were rather getting on commuters’ nerves. But their replacement seems to be trying to undo some of Boris’ good work in trying to scare people away from the centre of London. Last night, Westminster Underground Station played an announcement telling tourists that the city was now ‘really coming alive’ and urging them to make the most of the restaurants, museums and shops that they found around them. The station was relatively quiet at the time, save for a group of men clutching large flags. A TfL spokesperson said today: ‘We have

Oh dear: this morning Boris Johnson was being hailed as ‘unstoppable’ in his bid to be the next Conservative leader. But it turns out Westminster has been far too preoccupied with the boring details of how he can get re-elected in time to take over from David Cameron that we all failed to notice the major obstacle in the Mayor’s route to the Commons: Boris managed to get stuck on a zip wire this afternoon in Victoria Park. Eyewitnesses say that the Mayor was shouting for a ladder or a rope as he swung above the heads of the crowd. Boris knows that this sort of thing always works in