House of commons

Yesterday saw the annual Commons vs. Lords Tug of War, in aid of Macmillan and sponsored by BAE. Battle was joined at Westminster College Gardens, behind the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. Teams of marines, fireman, hacks and staffers battled it out before the final show down between the elected and the unelected. Disappointingly for the aristocracy, the commoners bagged it.    Champagne and the dulcet tones of TV’s James Landale kept the crowd entertained. Speaker Bercow, defence minister Gerald Howarth and education minister Tim Loughton cheered on their colleagues, while Labour’s Lord Foulkes and Sharon Hodgson became well acquainted with the bar. Tory backwoodsmen Alec Shelbrooke, the loud Yorkshire MP,

I understand that Number 10 will lean on Cabinet ministers not to object to what the boundary review does to their seats. This is an intriguing development because at least three Tory Secretaries of State are deeply unhappy with the proposed changes to their constituencies. It’ll be fascinating to see whether Downing Street can persuade them to hold their peace on the matter. Their disquiet reflects broader grumbling throughout the Tory parliamentary party. All sorts of conspiracy theories are doing the rounds. Number 10 needs to move quickly to offer some reassurance to nervous MPs. If the boundary review’s plan is to be made agreeable to the Tory parliamentary party,

MPs are queuing down the corridor on the first floor of Portcullis House as they try to get hold of a copy of the proposed boundary changes which have just been released under embargo. Boundary changes can make a huge difference to an MP, converting a marginal into a safe seat and vice-versa. Boundary reviews are a whip’s nightmare as they will set MPs of the same party against each other. The danger for the two coalition partners is that MPs’ take to rebelling on emotive issues for their parties in an attempt to win any selection head to head. This is why Cameron went out of his way to

Gordon Brown’s speech in the House of Commons just now was remarkable. It was completely deluded, one of the most one-sided versions of history you’re ever likely to hear. Abetted by the Speaker, Brown spoke for what must have been at least half an hour trying to justify his record in office and depict himself as someone who was prepared to take on the Murdoch empire, which he certainly was not while News International was supporting Labour. Rather than acknowledging—as Ed Miliband and Peter Mandelson have—, that Labour got far too close to News International and was too scared of it, he presented an entirely self-serving version of history. To

Today, the spotlight in the phone hacking scandal is shifting onto the police — who have an awful lot of questions to answer. Indeed, I suspect at the end of this the reputation of the police will have been hugely damaged. The evidence from senior Met officials — some retired, some serving — has not convinced the Home Affairs committee today. It is a sign of how poor relations are between the police and MPs that a Tory MP has asked the current and former assistant commissioners of the Met if he they have ever taken a bribe from a journalist. Both John Yates and Andy Hayman reacted indignantly to

Jeremy Hunt’s statement today confirmed that News Corps’ takeover bid for BSkyB was being referred to the Competition Commission. But the questions afterwards were dominated by Labour questions about Andy Coulson’s appointment. Hunt could not answer whether or not Coulson had been positively vetted. Nor, could he say when Cameron and Coulson last spoke. Indeed, Hunt initially claimed Cameron had not spoken to his former director of communications since Coulson stepped down, before quickly correcting himself. The Culture Secretary did do a decent job of sounding reasonable and bemoaning Labour’s tone. But without a proper line on Coulson, he was left floundering. There were two other things worth noting from

If News Corporation was not trying to buy the whole of BSkyB, there’s a good chance that phone hacking would not still be in the news today: that decision was one of the things that led to a revival of interest in the story. As has been said many times during the past few days, securing full ownership of BSkyB is regarded as crucial by the Murdochs and that is one of the reasons they were prepared to take the dramatic step of shutting down The News of the World. But the letter from Ofcom about the takeover and the possibility of Labour forcing a vote in the House of

The mini Tory rebellion last night, 15 Tory MPs voted to allow couples to transfer their personal tax allowance, has further strained relations between the whips office and some backbenchers. One complained to me earlier that the whips had been overly heavy-handed in their approach, describing their behaviour as ‘quite terrifying’. Now, these things are in the eye of the beholder and I suspect that the whips involved just thought they were doing their bit to maintain party discipline. One other thing worth noting is that even those unhappy with the behaviour of the whips are going out of their way to say that the chief whip Patrick McLoughlin is

It is tempting to treat the whole circus animal affair in the Commons this week as just a big joke, the Palace of Westminster turned into the Palace of Varieties. Certainly, the sight of MPs vigorously arguing about the fate of four circus geese had a certain black comedy to it. But there might be at least one serious consequence of the vote, a reshuffle of the whips office. In Tory circles, there is a lot of chatter about a damning assessment of the state of the whips’ office penned by former Tory MP Paul Goodman for the Conservative Intelligence website, an offshoot of ConservativeHome. In it, Goodman writes about

Cameron made history today. He gave the Speaker a genuine reason to call PMQs to a halt. Usually Mr Bercow pops up two or three times to shout down shouters and to waste time by ordering time-wasters not to waste time. But today protocol obliged him to stop proceedings. A half-hearted punch-up was in progress over government u-turns and the PM was defending his reforms by referring to his favourite Labour ally, the shadow health secretary. If he quotes John Healey much more often Cameron will owe him royalties. Ed Miliband accused the government of lengthening waiting times by abolishing Labour’s targets and Cameron countered by claiming that the figures

There was much ado about choppers in Westminster earlier today. Yesterday, French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet told reporters that Britain and France were to deploy attack helicopters to Libya; and that the British had instigated this move. The fog of war then descended. Labour’s defence spokesman Jim Murphy called on the British government to explain why the conflict is escalating. Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey contradicted Longuet’s account; and a source at the Ministry of Defence told me that this was the first he’d heard of helicopters being deployed to Libya in that role. The implication was that the French were trying to force the issue. Then again, a separate