By Harry PhibbsFollow Harry on Twitter The author Toby Young wrote an amusing book, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which chronicled failure. However he has since become a pioneer in one of the great success stories of the decade, the free school movement. Mr Young is now contemplating a new career as a politician. […]
By Mark WallaceFollow Mark on Twitter. It's a measure of how uncertain politics can be that on my grid of events likely to dominate the news on a particular day, today's date has the words "RESHUFFLE SPECULATION" scrawled next to it. For obvious reasons, the news agenda today is dominated by Syria instead. As it was written […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. Conservative MPs I spoke to yesterday were excoriating about the shambles of the recall of Parliament and the whipping of yesterday's vote. One told me that the first he heard of the decision to recall was a message from EasyJet offering him a flight back. "Perhaps the Whips Office […]
By Mark WallaceFollow Mark on Twitter. The Government's watered-down motion on the principle of military intervention in Syria was defeated tonight by 13 votes. 9 Lib Dems rebelled, along with 30 Conservatives. Embarrassingly, two Government Ministers – Justine Greening and Mark Simmonds – accidentally failed to vote because they apparently either didn't hear the bell or were […]
By Mark WallaceFollow Mark on Twitter. Courtesy of the Spectator, here are the full speeches on Syria given by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. David Cameron's statement: Ed Miliband's response:
By Harry PhibbsFollow Harry on Twitter The Prime Minister has sent the following tweet: "Speaker agrees my request to recall Parliament on Thurs. There'll be a clear Govt motion & vote on UK response to chemical weapons attacks." According to a tweet from Labour Whips (why do Conservative whips not have a Twitter account?) the House […]
By Mark WallaceFollow Mark on Twitter. Paul reported yesterday on the start of a campaign by MPs to insist on a Commons debate before any action is taken against Assad over his use of chemical weapons. That campaign is now gathering pace. Graham Allen, the Labour MP who chairs the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, sent out […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter It’s no surprise that Tory MPs are joining Douglas Alexander in seeking a recall of Parliament ahead of any military action in Syria. After all, 81 of them signed a letter to David Cameron in June, demanding a vote on any decision to dispatch British arms to the rebels. And […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. Talking of Miliband's egging yesterday, the throwing of another once provided voters with one-off evidence, never to be repeated, that Edward Heath had a sense of humour. During the 1970 election campaign, Harold Wilson, then Prime Minister, was hit in the face by an egg thrown by a Young […]
AFC Bluebirds is a five-a-side team made up of players from across Westminster. The team are proudly sponsored by Conservative Home. Follow them on Twitter. This match report is written by Joe Cawley. Lining up for the first game of the night, the ConHome-sponsored Bluebirds team was in good spirits. Without their enigmatic Captain for […]
By Mark WallaceFollow Mark on Twitter. We're saddened to report that David McLetchie CBE, MSP for the Lothians and the first leader of the Scottish Conservatives after devolution, has died aged 61. Mr McLetchie, who had long dreamed of representing the Conservative Party in his native Scotland, became one of the party's first MSPs in 1999, led […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter Following ConservativeHome’s own demands for official party membership figures from CCHQ, both the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times have sifted through constituency accounts to produce some numbers of their own. For the records, here are some of the key points from both papers’ reports, although it’s worth reading them in full. The Daily […]
By Mark WallaceFollow Mark on Twitter. With the the news reservoirs running dry, the papers have hungrily devoured Jacob Rees-Mogg's encounter with the Traditional Britain Group. In a nutshell, Rees-Mogg spoke at their dinner, and it has since emerged that the TBG espouses some disgusting ideas about black and asian Britons returning "to their natural homelands". It's […]
By Mark WallaceFollow Mark on Twitter. After 40 years representing Berwick-upon-Tweed in Parliament, the Lib Dems' Sir Alan Beith has announced he will be stepping down at the 2015 General Election. His retirement, whilst long suspected, had not been confirmed until now. It is certainly good news for Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who was reselected earlier in the year […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. Margaret Thatcher summons Clark to appoint him Minister for Trade: "She said someone (I wonder who [1]) had said that I would be unacceptable to, e.g., the Nigerians because of (conveyed but not said) my remarks about Bongo-Bongo land. 'But of course you will be perfectly acceptable, won't you? […]