Parliament

Mark Hoban has just turned in a remarkably unconvincing performance at the despatch box. Summoned to the Commons to answer an urgent question from Gisela Stuart, one of the best backbenchers in the House, on what contingency planning the government was doing for a Greek default, Hoban attempted to stonewall.   But Hoban’s stonewalling could only carry him so far. Strikingly, he declined several opportunities to confirm that the British government thinks that the euro will survive in its current form with all its current members.   By contrast, Jack Straw was quite happy to make predictions. He told the House that ‘the euro in its current form is going

Touchpaper, meet match. That’s the explosive situation engendered by Tory MP Philip Davies and his comments about disabled people this afternoon. His suggestion, made in the Commons, was that disabled people could work for less than the national minimum wage. And his justification? That the minimum wage “prevents those people from being given the opportunity to get to the first rung on the employment ladder.” Charities such as Mind have since lambasted Davies for even broaching such a thing. The phrase “nasty party” is gushing around Twitter with tidal abandon. But before we pile on, it’s worth noting that Davies has identified an issue that is more shades of grey

Sharon Shoesmith cut into Ed Balls on the Today programme this morning. She said: “Why don’t we ask Ed Balls why he acted on November 12, 2008 when he knew for 15 months that Peter Connelly had died and I was working with his officials, I was going to the government office, they were reading the draft reports. Haringey council knew all about it. We examined the conduct of our social workers, we found a disciplinary against them, but they weren’t sacked – all of that was open and clear and on the table and everyone knew everything about that. It wasn’t until the spat in the House of Commons

The speech was not a classic but Barack Obama’s address to both Houses of Parliament covered the bases today. He started with a winning line, remarking that the previous three speakers in Westminster Hall had been the Pope, the Queen and Nelson Mandela which is either “a very high bar or the beginning of a very funny joke.”   As is traditional in these kinds of speeches, Obama paid tribute to the special relationship, lauding it as the embodiment of the values and beliefs of the English-speaking tradition. He went on to say that both the British and the Americans knew that the “longing for human dignity is universal.” Indeed,

Yesterday’s debate on the future of the World Service was an unqualified success for its convener, Richard Ottaway. His motion received very extensive cross-party support and the MPs involved are confident of victory. As one source put it, “I haven’t met anyone – anyone – who agrees with that cut.” For its part, the government will “reflect carefully on the issue.” Parliament and Whitehall ring to anxious talk that cuts to the World Service will diminish Britain’s status abroad, and that less impartial state broadcasters, notably al-Jazeera, are capitalising on our withdrawal: al-Jazeera’s dominant coverage of the Arab Spring is a case in point. Ottaway said: “It is the cuts