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.
PMQs taught us a number of things about Labour and the Conservatives. The first is that while Labour has a bumper economy week underway, it does not feel sufficiently confident to attack the Conservatives on this issue in an aggressive forum like PMQs. This is probably quite sensible, given the attack that Cameron launched towards
What with his victory parade to celebrate a failure in Europe and Labour’s continuing muttering and complaining, David Cameron must be feeling pretty positive about Prime Minister’s Questions today. He’s managed to annoy some of his MPs with a Downing Street hint that it will not oppose Michael Moore’s bill to enshrine the 0.7 per
The Tories are very keen to sabotage Ed Miliband’s big speech about rebalancing the British economy, which is probably a compliment to the Labour leader as it suggests that they think he might be onto something. Both parties are certainly engaged in a localism arms race at the moment, arguing that they’re the party that
How can politicians encourage this country’s economy to grow more evenly? Do you build a nice big railway line? Or try – and largely fail – to devolve greater power to cities using directly-elected city mayors? Today Labour sets out its answer in Lord Adonis’ growth review. Ed Miliband has already said that he will
Normally when Speaker Bercow drags out a statement from the Prime Minister to over an hour and a half, the PM starts to look a bit pained. Today David Cameron looked as though he’d quite like a bit more: he’d spent most of the afternoon listening to Conservatives telling him how great he is and
David Cameron is currently giving his statement to the Commons on the European Council and Britain’s new best friend forever, Jean-Claude Juncker. It’s a failure that his colleagues have given him room to spin into a success, but it’s worth watching how Labour manage it too. The party had an open goal at the weekend
Why is Number 10 pouring cold water on suggestions that National Insurance and Income Tax could be merged? This story bobs to the surface every few months: it was suggested that National Insurance could be renamed the ‘Earnings Tax’ in the 2014 Budget, but then nothing came of it. Now the Times has splashed on
David Cameron has survived the post-Juncker post-mortem without a Tory grandee briefing against him. This is comforting for the Prime Minister, although he shouldn’t assume that he has the full loyalty of his party: it is quite clear that many are simply holding their fire until after the General Election. David Davis, who will again
In an exchange so awkward it might rival Gwendolen and Cecily’s afternoon tea in The Importance of Being Earnest, David Cameron has this afternoon phoned Jean-Claude Juncker to congratulate him on his appointment after weeks of campaigning to thwart him. Here’s the Downing Street read-out of the call: ‘The Prime Minister called the Commission President-designate,
David Cameron has warned his European colleagues that there will be ‘consequences’ if they support Jean-Claude Juncker’s appointment today. He’s already seeing the consequences back home, with eurosceptics who are broadly supportive of his position still getting their advice out early on how he can deal with the disappointment of losing the battle. John Baron
David Cameron has been repeating his line about the importance of sticking to principles in opposing Jean-Claude Juncker this morning ahed of the European Council summit where his fate will be sealed. As he walked into the summit this morning, the Prime Minister said: ‘There are times when it’s very important to stick to your
Labour has supported David Cameron’s attempt to block Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, but that hasn’t stopped it getting a little pre-emptive attack in today as the Prime Minister prepares for failure at the European Council. Douglas Alexander argued this morning that ‘there was an alliance that was to be built, but
Today must have been the first that David Cameron thought ‘thank goodness for the Leveson report’ as he prepared for Prime Minister’s Questions. He used the report as a shield in his exchanges with Ed Miliband, waving it about at the despatch box and saying that he had ‘totally disproved him using the evidence’ on
That Theresa May is now making a last-ditch effort to revive the ‘Snooper’s Charter’ should come as no surprise to Coffee House readers: we reported in June 2013 that the Tories were mulling introducing something after the 2014 Budget as the Lib Dems would not be able to retaliate with a mansion tax or other
The phone hacking jury will only be about an hour into their continued deliberations when Ed Miliband stands up at Prime Minister’s Questions today, but the Labour leader does seem determined to raise the question of David Cameron’s judgement in hiring Andy Coulson all the same. Harriet Harman did the Labour late shift yesterday on
Michael Gove has this afternoon replied to Labour’s questions about Dominic Cumming’s access to the Education department since finishing as a special adviser. Coffee House has got hold of the letter first. Labour became oddly fixated on whether or not Cummings was still visiting the department, rather than on his stinging criticisms of David Cameron
In the past few minutes, David Cameron has apologised in Downing Street for a ‘wrong decision’ in hiring Andy Coulson. He said in 2011 that he would apologise if he had been lied to about phone hacking, and now he has. It wasn’t the longest of apologies, but it came quickly. He said: ‘Well, I
That Ed Miliband is even having to state that he wants to carry on as Labour leader if he loses the general election when his party is ahead in the polls shows what a mess the operation around him is. There are a number of Shadow Cabinet members who seem more interested in what happens
In the past few minutes, Andy Coulson has been found guilty on one count of conspiracy to hack phones. The jury has not given its verdict on all counts yet, but this is the verdict that David Cameron dreaded. As Coulson was his former director of communications, it again raises questions about his judgement in
Is it a good thing that David Cameron now appears isolated in Europe as he continues to dig a hole that Jean-Claude Juncker almost certainly won’t fall into? Jeremy Hunt tried to argue on the Today programme this morning that it was, saying that people would respect an isolated Prime Minister who was prepared to