Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator and author of Why We Get the Wrong Politicians. She also presents Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.
Here are some observations from the ‘incendiary’ letter from the House of Bishops that has upset the Tories so much. ‘Our electoral system often means that the outcomes turn on a very small group of people within the overall electorate. Greater social mobility and the erosion of old loyalties to place or class mean that
Presumably as a way of getting out of an endless debate about receipts, Ed Balls has issued a letter with some detailed questions about tax evasion and HSBC (as opposed to tax avoidance and window cleaners). The letter asks three questions: 1. Why has there only been one prosecution out of 1,100 names? Was the
Well, those tax attacks worked out well, didn’t they? Tax avoidance is on the front pages of the newspapers, but not in a way that benefits either main political party. Even though George Osborne’s guide to minimising your tax bill has gone viral, Labour isn’t benefitting because it has ended up talking about receipts for
Are we now closer to Grexit? Tonight’s talks between eurozone finance ministers broke up after a few hours with Greece slamming the draft statement prepared by the group as ‘unacceptable’ and ‘unreasonable’. That statement was leaked by the Greek camp while the talks were happening, which can’t have helped the atmosphere in the room. The
As well as keeping the tax avoidance row going for as long as possible (something that is worrying Tories, who think their party needs to find a way of moving the conversation on from a toxic issue as quickly as possible), Ed Miliband also unveiled a potential new campaign message at his speech today. He
Quite naturally, the latest foray by Labour into pointing fingers at Tory tax avoiders has led to two scraps, firstly about Labour’s own donors and their tax affairs (as James predicted on Thursday) and secondly about whether or not paying your builder in cash is illegal. The last time the second row blew about Westminster,
What’s wrong with our politics? Now that more and people are turning to ‘anti-politics’ parties, this question is becoming steadily more fashionable and urgent. It’s now even got its own BBC Three documentary (the ultimate sign that an issue is dead serious, natch), called An Idiot’s Guide to Politics, presented by Jolyon Rubinstein from the
Ed Miliband’s party has ended up having a reasonably good week, even though it’s been a pretty tough battle. Today’s front pages have not been good at all, something the party leader’s supporters are obviously disappointed by, but given the story about a comparison between the row about Lord Fink’s tax affairs and the hacking
Even though Boris is building up support for his leadership campaign, he doesn’t want to have to stand in one this year. He needs David Cameron to remain Prime Minister after the General Election, and, as James reported recently, then take over following an EU referendum. That’s perhaps why the Mayor seemed quite keen on
Last night’s meeting of the 1922 Committee was, I hear, not a particularly well-attended affair. This is odd because the speaker was Lynton Crosby, whose confident briefings tend to cheer Tory MPs up no end. But sources who were there say there no more than about 30 MPs in attendance. Crosby gave a short presentation
Ed Miliband has now repeated what he said about Lord Fink in the Commons. At the end of his speech, he said: ‘Yesterday Conservative donor Lord Fink challenged me to stand by what I said in the House of Commons, that he was engaged in tax avoidance activities. I do. And believe it or not,
So it looks as though that Ed Miliband has won his battle with Lord Fink. The Tory peer has given an interview to the Evening Standard in which he says he did use ‘vanilla’ tax avoidance measures. He told the newspaper: ‘The expression tax avoidance is so wide that everyone does tax avoidance at some
Nick Robinson had an extraordinary claim (see update, below, for his clarification) in his blog last night that ‘the Labour leader’s aides say that he sees [his allegations about Lord Fink] as another Milly Dowler moment’. If Ed Miliband’s aides have really said this, they are exhibiting a crass, disgusting way of looking at politics. I
So Ed Miliband really is going to pick one of the bigger battles of his leadership. After Lord Fink demanded that the Labour leader withdraw what he said about the peer at PMQs or to repeat it outside the House of Commons, I’ve spoken to a Labour source who says: ‘These are very serious allegations in the
Lord Fink has confronted Ed Miliband over his allegation at Prime Minister’s Questions that the peer was engaged in ‘tax avoidance’. In a letter, Fink says Miliband should repeat the allegation outside the House of Commons, or withdraw it. You can read the full text of the letter below. Miliband’s question did seem to go
Labour wants to keep up the pressure on the the Tories over the HSBC scandal today. Ed Miliband will inevitably have a go on the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions (though the odds on him mentioning the word ‘chaterama’ are 28/1), followed by an Opposition Day debate on tax avoidance in which the party will
Labour is launching its women’s campaign tomorrow, and Guido has discovered that part of this special campaign is a special battle bus. A pink bus. A pink bus with ‘Woman to Woman’ on it. This is odd, from a party whose MPs are quite keen on campaigning for gender neutral toys and which lent its
Following my earlier story about the Tories deciding they can only rely on Lib Dems who are ministers to form a coalition majority after the election, I have learned that the rebellious backbench problem is worse than it first appears. The party has run out of MPs suitable to work as Parliamentary Private Secretaries. For
Why isn’t Ed Miliband at the British Chambers of Commerce annual conference? Ed Balls tried to defend his boss this morning as he arrived at the event, saying it was ‘getting a bit trivial’ to ask who was attending which conference. The Shadow Chancellor said: ‘Ed Miliband has spoken at this conference a number of
Tories in Downing Street have concluded that they cannot rely on the support of any Liberal Democrats who are not ministers after the General Election, Coffee House has learned. Even though most talk of how a Tory-Lib Dem coalition would work focuses on the number of seats each party would win, I understand that the
