By Jonathan Isaby As part of the latest ConservativeHome reader's survey, aside from seeking the latest Cabinet ratings and pollong on other topical issues, we asked party members which of Labour's Shadow Cabinet they found to be most impressive. The findings – summarised in the bar chart below – show that Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls […]
by Paul Goodman MPs met on Monday to discuss the future of an All Party Group on Islamophobia. What took place sounds complex (according to reports) but was essentially simple. One body of Parliamentarians – all Conservative – voted for Engage to be removed as the secretariat to the group. Another body (mostly Labour) voted […]
Tim Montgomerie The Sun has been making grumpy noises about the Coalition for some time. It's been complaining about the Coalition's Afghanistan policy, the tax on petrol, the balance struck between civil liberties and security and, most of all, crime and sentencing. Last week the newspaper called for Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary, to be […]
by Paul Goodman The Daily Telegraph's Andrew Porter has the story. Team Miliband clearly tried to pulp what's clearly a public relations embarrassment. However, they weren't entirely successful – "But those hoping for enlightenment from the 35-page pamphlet entitled My Fresh Ideas will be disappointed. The pages are blank. "The glossy booklets, produced for a […]
By Jonathan Isaby We have already covered David Cameron's speech on multiculturalism this morning (ToryDiary and video clip) but one who was opining in advance of it being delivered was Labour MP Sadiq Khan. The Tooting MP and shadow justice secretary told this morning's Daily Mirror that the Prime Minister was "writing propaganda for the […]
By Jonathan Isaby I've only just got round to properly reading the whole Piers Morgan interview with Ed Milband in the latest issue of GQ magazine. Piers spends much of the interview taunting him about "doing over" his elder brother in the leadership election, and during one such passage the Labour leader makes a statement […]
by Paul Goodman Today's Guardian story about Ed Miliband's young people-centred speech today leads on his plans to involve non-party members in its leadership election. "Labour is to look at broadening its electoral base by offering the chance for Labour sympathisers, and not just members or union levy payers, to be given a vote in […]
by Paul Goodman It was a flaming May morning outside and more of the flaming Finance Bill inside. We were in committee. The clause concerned what are misleadingly labelled "zero-carbon homes". The Conservative team was: Theresa Villiers (intelligent, numerate, long hair); Mark Hoban (intelligent, numerate, short hair, spectacles); David Gauke (intelligent, numerate, short hair, no […]
by Paul Goodman Perhaps the most pressing political question about Ed Balls is: will he treat a clearly distrustful Ed Miliband in the way that he treated Gordon Brown…or Tony Blair? Will he toil to put Labour's leader in Downing Street, as he did for Gordon Brown – and settle for being Chancellor of the […]
By Jonathan Isaby The BBC has been condemned for spending licence payers' money on "an outrageous piece of scaremongering" in the form of a programme which will see all council services withdrawn from one street in Preston as an experiment. Nick Robinson will front the programme, The Street That Cut Everything, which has just attracted […]
By Jonathan Isaby I have only just clocked a piece written by Simon Carr in yesterday's Independent, which refers to a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party which took place earlier this week and was addressed by shadow health secretary, John Healey. He wrote: John Healey (Health) gave the MPs a speech that must have […]
Tim Montgomerie Interesting to watch Ed Balls today and his attempt to blame Britain's appalling deficit on the world recession. He cannot be allowed to get away with that lie. This graph from Peter Hoskin shows that Labour was spending too much in the good years, when it should have been saving for a rainy […]
Tim Montgomerie We know that Alistair Darling had plans to raise VAT but Nick Gibb MP, Education Minister, has pointed out that Labour also had plans to end Education Maintenance Allowances. In a 2007 Green Paper from the Department for Education and Skills you can find this nugget: “We think that EMA should continue until […]
By Jonathan Isaby Many papers this morning consider the first pronouncements by Ed Miliband's new shadow chancellor, Ed Balls. Balls is to move into his boss's suite of offices (which Cameron and Osborne shared in opposition) and appears to have been ordered to backtrack on the position he had been taking on how to deal […]
Tim Montgomerie selects some of the blogosphere's reaction to Ed Balls' replacement of Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor. Matthew Hancock MP provides the official Tory line: "Ed Balls wrote the fiscal rules that brought Britain to the brink of bankruptcy. He was at the Treasury when they loaded PFI off balance sheet, and took a […]