By Joseph Willits Follow Joseph on Twitter After Justine Greening's announcement giving the go-ahead for a high speed rail network, High Speed 2 (HS2), 37 Conservative MPs were able to question the Transport Secretary within 60 minutes. The exchanges demonstrated the opposition of those MPs whose constituencies are directly affected by high speed rail. However their reservations […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter As reported last week, this Parliament has seen more rebellions than during the Major years, and in fact, the 2010 intake has been the most rebellious since at least 1945. The last Parliamentary year has seen Conservative rebellions on issues such as European bailouts, recognising marriage in the tax system, or […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter. Last night at least 32 Tory MPs (listed below) voted with Labour against an 88% hike in Britain's contribution to the IMF. The hike is to partly fund the IMF's ability to fund bailouts. I write "at least" because I've only quickly scanned the voting list. Please email tim@conservativehome.com […]
By Jonathan IsabyFollow Jonathan on Twitter I have already covered Conor Burns' sideswipe at Lord Heseltine from the debate on Lords reform, but what else happened during the debate? Overall, one got the impression that (with a few exceptions) the Conservative benches were highly sceptical about an elected second chamber – including many who are […]
By Tim Montgomerie Highlights from yesterday's Commons debate on the Localism Bill. Rory Stewart summarised why localism works: "This is a strange time and place because all hon. Members believe in that decentralisation, whether we call it localism, hyper-localism or double hyper-localism, but we are obstructed by our anxieties about power, knowledge and legitimacy. Let […]
By Jonathan Isaby There was a debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday discussing parliamentary representation and many of the issues which have been brought up by the recent legislation which will reduce the size of the Commons to 600 virtually equal-sized constituencies, save for two Scottish island constituencies. Martin Vickers, the Tory MP for Cleethorpes, […]
Martin Vickers was elected MP for Cleethorpes at this year's general election. The suggestion by Grantham and Stamford MP, Nick Boles, that for the next General Election it might be advantageous for Conservative and Lib Dem candidates to fight as coalition candidates has caused a predictable stir. Broadly speaking I agree with Nick; I find […]
Here are extracts from four more maiden speeches given during yesterday’s debate on developing a high-skilled economy which focused on education. Mel Stride, the MP for the newly drawn constituency of Devon Central, spoke passionately in favour of education being “the great highway of social mobility”: “I have a strong belief that the greatest gift […]
Martin Vickers is the Member of Parliament for Cleethorpes. I have a confession to make – I like Party Conference! Some of my parliamentary colleagues, it has to be said, are less enthusiastic. I attended my first in 1976. For a Young Conservative, as we were then called (why on earth did we change the […]