House of commons

Welcome to Coffee House’s coverage of the Syria debate in the House of Commons yesterday. Here are the best speeches in favour of and against the motion, with full quotes and audio clips. 10:15pm: The foreign secretary Philip Hammond has closed the debate on behalf of the government, making the case for the airstrikes: 9:45pm: Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn has delivered a rousing speech in favour of the airstrikes that received huge applause from both sides of the Commons. There was a standing ovation for Benn, led by former Tory Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell from Tory backbenches. Quite extraordinary. 9:10pm: former Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Keir Starmer has said he is voting against airstrikes, although he

Tomorrow, Labour will try out something curious during the Commons debate on airstrikes in Syria. The opposition side of the debate will be opened by Jeremy Corbyn, who will argue against airstrikes, and later closed by Hilary Benn, who will make the case for them. This may sound all very dynamic and different but there is a simple and important question ordinary folks will be wondering: what is Labour’s policy on Syrian airstrikes? On the Today programme, the shadow foreign secretary said he is in favour of the strikes because ‘there is a clear and present threat from Isil Daesh’ and called for respect from the opposing sides within Labour – possibly in response

[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 him. One of those is the House of Commons’ rejection of military action in Syria two years ago. This defeat was a personal and a political humiliation for Cameron. For months, he had been pushing for action against Assad. President Obama had finally accepted that something must be done following the Syrian regime’s use of

As stormclouds gathered over London, the most politically connected pooches in the country assembled by the House of Lords for the most eagerly anticipated event of the year – the Westminster Dog of the Year competition. Among the familiar faces – including Alec Shelbrooke’s Maggie and Boris, and David Burrowes’ Chomeley, Steerpike spotted a number of novice entrants. Baroness Masham had left her pack of seven dachshunds at home in Yorkshire, and had instead brought with her the soft-coated Wheaten Terrier, Theodora (aka Teddy). Having bonded with her lookalike, Hugo Swire’s cockapoo Rocco, the pair made firm friends, and proved that cooperation between the Commons and the Lords is actually possible. After Monday’s embarrassment

After the government’s humiliating defeats in the House of Lords yesterday over tax credits, how will it seek revenge on the upper chamber? Chris Grayling, the Leader of the House of Commons, spoke on the Today programme about the government’s plans. On tax credits, he said ‘the Chancellor is clear, he will look again at the transitional arrangements’. But on the relationship between the Commons and the Lords, Grayling said a more careful approach would be taken — one that will be worked out ‘in the next few hours’: ‘The first thing not to do is to react on the hoof to this. We have to have a measured look at what the

With a gossamer Tory majority in the Commons and no majority at all in the Lords, confrontation between the two chambers was always inevitable. Tonight’s defeat over tax credits will be the first of many. But it would be a great error for the Conservative government to choose this as the issue over which to go to war with the Lords. For a start, their Lordships are right: taking tax credits away from low-paid workers, rather than phasing them out, is cruel and and unnecessary. Next, this was not in the Tory manifesto: the party said they would cut £12 billion but didn’t say how — and had hinted that they would

There has been an interesting response in the Tory party to Heidi Allen’s speech in which she criticised the tax credit changes. Many MPs are themselves worried about the changes, and didn’t disagree with what she had to say. But what has really riled them is the way in which she appeared to dismiss the Chamber as largely pointless – and that she spoke against the cuts having supported them once and then went onto vote with the government again on the motion before the House last night (though to be fair, she explained that she wouldn’t vote for the Opposition Day motion because she disagreed with its wording). One

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/jeremycorbynsbritain/media.mp3″ title=”Dan Hodges, James Forsyth and Ellie Mae O’Hagan discuss the impact of a Corbyn victory” startat=40] Listen [/audioplayer]How long does it take to rebuild a political machine? Twelve months? Two years? Three years? Maybe it can’t be done at all. Jeremy Corbyn has won. Everyone within Labour’s ranks acknowledges that now. The issue concentrating minds is how long it will take to remove him, how bloody the process of removing him will be and how much effort it will take to repair the damage once he has been removed — assuming the damage is reparable. This is why Labour MPs are thinking about the machine. Perhaps one or

Yesterday Lord Sewel stepped down from the Lords after the Sun on Sunday published photos of the former deputy speaker snorting cocaine through a five pound note in the company of two prostitutes. While Labour were quick to suspend him from the party, one man has come to the defence of the disgraced peer. Step forward Lembit Öpik. The former Lib Dem MP says that Sewel should be commended for stepping down: ‘He’s got to be respected for this. People need to lay off him now.  He’s done exactly what people wanted him to do.’ What’s more, Öpik thinks that there is still hope for Lord Sewel, claiming he is now in

You might expect to see Lionel Richie pass outside your door, if you were in the Ivy last night, or in the VIP yurt of this month’s Glastonbury Festival. But hello, which peer was he looking for this afternoon? The global superstar and former Commodores front man was accompanied by Lord Levy, after the two hit it off last week at an anniversary dinner for Jewish Care. Lord Levy appeared to be giving him a tour almost up there on the ceiling: Richie was not up there all night long though, however, and was spotted heading off in the direction of the Speaker’s Office. Mr S understands that he did not meet

Members of the House of Commons were reprimanded in the media for splashing out £11,000 in just one week in Parliament’s subsidised bars. Still, credit where credit is due, at least the politicians paid for their drinks. This is more than can be said for some members of the House of Lords. Despite the restaurants and bars in the House of Lords being so heavily subsidised that champagne is cut-price and lobster a mere £10 in the Barry Room, a Freedom of Information request shows that some members aren’t paying up. As of 8 April, there was an outstanding bill of over a month for £500 worth of food and drink ordered by members of the

Is it too cynical to say that the tributes paid to Charles Kennedy in the House of Commons yesterday were excessive, maudlin, and more than a bit silly? Is it pompous to say that the House of Commons should be a chamber for matters of state, not a safe space for sharing grief? A former party leader’s death should be acknowledged in the House of Commons, but did we need 27 tributes? At Prime Minister Questions, there were 4 brief speeches about Kennedy, which seemed about right. In the later session, which lasted 1 hour and 13 minutes, there were 23. Much of the encomium for Kennedy was directed at the gallery, where his former wife

As the new SNP MPs settle in to their new life in the House of Commons, a picture is doing the rounds on social media showing a Commons Chamber that is near-deserted, save the SNP benches, which are packed. The caption from the BBC Parliament channel is ‘MPs are debating safety at HM Naval Base Clyde where the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent is stationed’. The point that SNP supporters and some of the party’s MPs are making is that this shows that the party turns up to debates while other parties can’t be bothered. It’s a powerful image, and it is not a fake. There is, of course, an explanation as

This article was first published in The Spectator on 9 October, 1959. I am a totally non-political animal. I prefer the name of the Liberal Party to the name of any other and I vote Conservative rather than Labour, mainly because the Conservatives have bigger bottoms and I believe that big bottoms make for better government than scrawny ones. I only once attended a debate in the House of Commons. It was, I think, towards the end of 1938 when we were unattractively trying to cajole Mussolini away from Hitler. I found the hollowness and futility of the speeches degrading and infantile and the well-fed, deep-throated ‘hear, hears’ for each mendacious