Our Deputy Editor points out that “If you’re the prime minister…you can keep your opponents guessing”.
Liz Truss has called the policy “profoundly unconservative”. What’s unconservative? Discuss. But what can certainly be said is that it’s illberal and, in this case, Party members line up with individual freedom against government coercion.
Most Conservative MPs are desparate to avoid one any time soon. It may not have occured to some that bringing down the Bill could bring about precisely the outcome they want to avoid.
“If Nigel Farage doesn’t come back to lead… it never manifests in by-elections, it doesn’t have a ground machine, so I expect a few points of that would probably end up back in the Tory column.”
The channel will help to shape Tory members’ take on the general election, the Conservatives, Reform UK, Farage, post-election debate…and, not least, America’s own election, Trump and Biden.
His Bill may be held up in the Lords as he continues to insists that his Government will stop the boats. The only means of squaring the two would be an election with illegal migration centre-stage.
The logic of the choice remains as Ken Clarke put it – Rwanda or nothing. Sir Keir has swallowed much in his pursuit of power, but Rwanda is a mouthful too much for him, or at least for his party. So he’s trying to bluff his way out of the problem.
“Instead of trying to fix the whole thing, they find individual policies where Labour can be on the wrong side of public opinion and go really hard on those.”
The A list and its successors haven’t kept a golden generation out of Parliament. Many of those who might have made it up aren’t putting themselves forward for selection in the first place.
Henry Hill clashes with Craig Mackinlay MP on whether the former prime minister remains an asset to the party.
“One of the things the SNP profited from is that when Labour set up the Scottish Parliament, they didn’t send any of their A-listers there.”
Party activists could be forgiven for wondering if he would now rather have Starmer in Downing Street than Sunak.
“He’s quitting as much on his own terms as he can, given the essentially zero political wriggle-room he had left.”
Laws such as the Public Records Act and Freedom of Information Act predate instant messaging and the blurring of the lines between official and personal communication.
ConHome Deputy Editor says that there’s scope for hiking international student fees and inventivising employers to invest in their workforces – but that requires long-term thinking.