Parliament

Tory MPs are plotting to oust Speaker Bercow, the Sun on Sunday reports today. They are apparently furious that Bercow allowed Chris Bryant to brand Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt a ‘liar’ in his party’s opposition day debate calling for a full investigation into Hunt’s conduct. The Speaker refused to censure Bryant because he argued the unparliamentary language mirrored the wording of Labour’s motion for the debate. This attempted coup is another sign of the fierce loyalty that backbenchers feel for the Culture Secretary. You insult Hunt, and you insult the party: the Lib Dems learned that after they allowed their MPs to abstain on that motion and lost any goodwill

Opponents of an elected House of Lords have been flexing their muscles in the last few days. Yesterday, Archie Hamilton, a Tory peer and former chairman of the 1922 Committee, and a sceptic of the coalition’s plans for an elected Lords, put down a manuscript amendment on the Financial Services Bill, on which the government was defeated. This means that the bill will have to go through a full committee stage. This is just a little indication of how much more difficult the coalition could find getting its legislation through the upper house once the Lords reform debate has started in earnest. So much of the proceedings in the Lords

In nominating the lawyer and former rail regulator Tom Winsor as her choice to be the next chief inspector of constabulary, the home secretary has stoked more discontent among the ranks of the Police Federation. Not only is he the first non-police officer ever to be nominated to the role, but he is also the author of a bold review of pay and conditions that made long-overdue recommendations to modernise the police workforce. For this reason alone, the Police Federation is dismayed by the nomination, and MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee (meeting today) may yet try to block him. But the appointment is likely to be approved, and

Theresa May has been in the news recently, as she introduces plans to stop spouses coming to Britain unless they have savings of £18,000 and an additional £2,400 for each foreign born child they bring with them. The Home Secretary told Andrew Marr earlier this morning:  ‘It is important that we say you should be able to support yourselves and not be reliant on the state.’     She also reiterated her intention to stop foreign prisoners, whose family live in Britain, from using article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which includes the right to ‘private and family life’, to resist deportation. She is going call a

Today’s award for hyperbole goes to Ken Clarke. He has just told the Leveson inquiry that, ‘The power of the press is far greater than the power of parliament.’ Given that parliament can still make the law of the land, this is a rather absurd statement. (Though, I do regret that parliament has given away so many powers to Brussels and the courts. But I doubt that was what Clarke meant.)   Clarke’s statement seems to stem from a belief that MPs buckle under pressure from the press, that they’d all be a lot more liberal if it wasn’t for those pesky tabloids. I just don’t think this is true.

If David Cameron had a list of headlines he doesn’t want to see, I’m sure ‘Top Tory in expenses scandal’ would be near the top of it. Yet that’s what he, and we, will read this morning on the cover of the Sunday Times (£). The ‘Top Tory’ in question is Baroness Warsi, co-chairman of the party. And her offence, apparently, is to have claimed expenses for overnight accommodation while staying for free in a friend’s house. Warsi has more or less denied the accusation, saying that she did stay at the property on ‘occasional nights’ as the guest of a party official — but made an ‘appropriate payment equivalent

Personally, I’m in favour of gay marriage. But it is precisely the kind of issue that should be subject to a free vote and all the indications are that the government intends that when the legislation comes to Parliament it will be. So, it shouldn’t be a big deal that the Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson feels that he can’t support it, a view he expressed in a letter to a gay constituent that Politics Home has obtained a copy of. There are several other ministers who feel the same way. Indeed, I understand that the Chief Whip himself has grave reservations about the matter. It would be deeply intolerant

It has been a busy day for Commons committees, and I don’t just mean the education and media select committees either. The John Bercow-chaired House of Commons Commission has released a briefing note outlining some of its recent decisions relating to the running of the House. It covers three areas: ‘Mobile devices for members’ (aka, iPads for MPs); ‘Trees in Portcullis House’ (let’s keep ‘em, so long as we can make ‘em cheaper); and ‘Alcohol policy’ (more on which below). It’s the last of these that will probably get the most attention, not least because of Eric Joyce’s recent misadventures. So what does Team Bercow recommend? Nothing much, in truth,

What should worry David Cameron about tonight’s meeting of the 1922 Committee on Lords reform was that it was not just the usual suspects who spoke out against it. The two MPs presenting the case against were members who have never defied the whip: Jesse Norman and Nadhim Zahawi. Those present were particularly struck by some polling data that Zahawi, who used to run YouGov, presented. It showed that when asked what issues were a priority for them zero per cent of the electorate mentioned reform of the Lords. Even when prompted, this number only rose to six per cent. But Zahawi’s polling shows that if reform does go ahead,