By Jonathan Isaby Yesterday, Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin secured a short snatch of parliamentary time allotted by the backbench business committee to speak to the new report published yesterday by the Select Committee on Public Administration, which he chairs. You can read Smaller Government: What do Ministers do? in full here, but here's a taste […]
by Paul Goodman So much happens in the Commons that isn't picked up by the media. If you want the core of the Government's view of the present position in Afghanistan, here it is – as presented to the House yesterday by Liam Fox, in the latest of the regular and very welcome quarter reports. […]
Bernard Jenkin is the Conservative MP for North Essex. Earlier this month, Julia Gillard – the leader of the Australian Labor party – walked back into Kirribilli House despite having lost the election on first preferences. Last week, Ed Miliband assumed the title of leader of the Labour Party despite, just like Ms Gillard, having […]
By Tim Montgomerie Benedict Brogan has just blogged the details of Bernard Jenkin's Early Day Motion calling for the vote on AV to be decoupled from next year's Scottish and Welsh etc elections. Despite efforts of the Government Whips, 44 have signed at the time of blogging. It's an interesting list: David Amess Richard Bacon […]
By Paul Goodman Bernard Jenkin, the 1922 Committee's point-man on the AV referendum, is collecting signatures for an Early Day Motion. The EDM apparently questions the proposed timing of the poll. Jenkin's not been backward in coming forward on the matter: he recently explained why, in his view, there should be a turnout threshold when […]
Bernard Jenkin is MP for Harwich and North Essex and was a member of the Defence Committee in the last Parliament. He is now the elected Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee. The imminent departure of Sir Jock Stirrup fundamentally alters nothing. (Indeed, he was always expected to go soon after the election.) The […]
I wondered earlier this week here whether Labour MPs would use the Select Committee elections to make life difficult for David Cameron. They didn't. Instead, they lined up behind the Conservative establishment candidates. Andrew Tyrie took the Treasury Select Committee; Richard Ottaway, Foreign Affairs (a big, big consolation prize, after his defeat in the 1922 […]
As most readers know, the Select Committee Chairmanships have been carved out among the parties, and tomorrow's elections for the posts will be cross-party. So Conservative MPs, for example, can vote for Labour candidates, and vice-versa. Jonathan has a list of those standing here. A question follows: on what basis will Labour MPs vote for […]
Bernard Jenkin is Conservative Candidate for Harwich and North Essex and served for four years on the Defence Select Committee in the last Parliament. Unlike Nick Clegg, the generals who have joined calls to scrap the Trident nuclear deterrent are at least being honest and sincere. There have always been a few anti-nuclear dissidents from […]
Bernard Jenkin is Conservative MP for North Essex and a member of the Defence Select Committee. David Cameron’s decision to protect the defence budget for the first year of a Conservative government will not dominate the election, but it indicates that he does not seek to become prime minister of a declining world power. The […]
Bernard Jenkin MP reflects on his very personal experience of the Brighton Bomb, 25 years ago. I drove the Environment Secretary (my father) down to the 1984 conference, where I would meet my wife-to-be for the first time. Apparently, I caught Anne's eye as we entered the Grand Hotel that evening. I was meeting another […]
Bernard Jenkin has been a Conservative MP since 1992, but at the 1979 general election, he was a 20-year-old on his gap year working as an aide to a Tory MP, whilst his father, Patrick Jenkin, was re-elected for Wanstead and Woodford that night and appointed to Margaret Thatcher's first Cabinet. I was Hugh Rossi's […]
During the debate on MPs' expenses yesterday Derek Conway, MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup, made a noteworthy contribution. (He is listed as a Conservative in Hansard but is not on the Conservative Party website's list of MPs.) He compared his own experience after being found to have paid his son for work that was not undertaken […]
Former Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell has tabled an Early Day Motion on Damian Green. It has been signed by Michael Howard, Bill Cash, Peter Bottomley, Bernard Jenkin and David Davis. Herewith the text of EDM 1307: "That this House notes the statement of the Director of Public Prosecutions on 16 April 2009 announcing his […]
Bernard Jenkin, first elected in 1992, is MP for Harwich and North Essex, a member of the 1922 Executive and Chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee. You would have thought that this would be a great time for EU-sceptics in the Conservative Party. We warned that the euro would be a disaster – and […]