They Blog For You

                      I wish to examine the curious case of the possible resignation of Mr Norman  Lamb. Many people will not have known until the last couple of days the importance of Mr Lamb. He is a trusted adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister. He is a Lib Dem NHS expert, [...]

             Listening to Mr Clegg this morning, I was struck by the central paradox. He said the most important thing the government was doing was a short term fix to cut the deficit. He rightly argued that getting on top of the deficit was essential for economic growth and stability [...]

  What’s the point?  One Millionaire David Cameron is married to a millionaire. He earns a good salary. What point is he making by ‘celebrating’ with a Ryanair no frills trip? The only things that make flying bearable are the frills. Why the self-flagellation? Who is he trying to impress? Most people would regard [...]

Interesting article by Nick Clegg and Iain Duncan Smith on the need for greater social mobility in today's Telegraph.  They are absolutely right to point to the problem.  What bothers me are their proposed solutions, which all seem to be about government doing more. The coalition duo begin their article by accepting that Labour's big [...]

Sombre news from the forgotten war in Afghanistan. Ten years of vast sacrifices in blood and treasure have achieved nothing. A mob is so anti-Western that peacemakers have been lynched. The Afghan Police were impotent spectators. Perhaps this will expose the foolish optimism of Liam Fox. He still believes that an [...]

  How much can the Lib-Dems take? Can the anti-nuclear Lib-Dem MPs continue to back a doomed policy? They were clear in their denunciations before the General Election. Simon Hughes never changed his mind. Now Nick Clegg appears to have cracked. The Deputy Prime Minister cast doubt on the future for nuclear [...]

  Once the darling of the middle-of-the-road voters Nick Clegg has had a hideous 48 hours. Anyone can forget a microphone in the pocket,but his comment will return to haunt him. If he is to recover a separate identity for the LibDems his confession  of no differences between the two parties will [...]

I awoke to the BBC revealing some of the details from 1979-80 from the Thatcher archive. As always, and as then, the talk was about the cuts not working. If they cared to look back at the figures, they would see that in her first year in office Margaret Thatcher’s [...]

Alan Johnson gave his second major speech on the economy on 11 November 2010 at the Royal Society of Arts. You can read the full speech below: “The American writer, Tom Woolfe, once said “a Liberal is a Conservative who’s been arrested.” I suppose a modern inversion would be that a Conservative [...]

On 18 October 2010 Alan Johnson gave his first major speech as Shadow Chacellor at KPMG in central London ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review. The full text of the speech is below.    Check Against Delivery Alistair Darling took this country through the most devastating global economic crisis since the Great Depression. [...]

Responding to revelations about Jonathan Rees Shadow Culture Secretary, Ivan Lewis said: “These revelations about Jonathan Rees raise questions about David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s judgment in appointing Andy Coulson to such a senior post as Director of Communications in Downing Street. “Both the Prime  Minister and his deputy need to answer questions about [...]

Amazing what a few months in office can do. Last summer the Coalition agreement promised "early legislation to introduce a power of recall, allowing voters to force a by-election where an MP is found to have engaged in serious [...]

Yesterday - the first day back after Parliament's half term recess - David Cameron made an 'urgent' statement to the House on the situation in Libya. Many would say that his comments, which included an update on the evacuation of British nationals, were long overdue. Certainly, in comparison [...]

Today the lucky members of the Public Administration Committee visited the hallowed lair of Facebook. This is the sumptuous world of numbers exploding exponentionally, of a conversation that involves a billion faces worldwide.   Chairman Bernard Jenkin led us to the plush nerve centre in the backstreets behind Oxford Street. We were welcome [...]

Newly released government papers seem to suggest British foreign policy towards Libya was focused on helping BP.  Would that be the same BP that hired former British diplomats and others who might have previously helped shape British foreign policy in the region? Why do you suppose they might have wanted [...]

At Prime Minister's questions, David Cameron was asked if it was true that the Deputy Prime Minister was looking to turn fuel duty in to a form of local tax revenue.  In other words, allow country and metropolitan councils to keep a share of the revenue generated in their area. [...]

A poll in the Sun suggests that Nick Clegg is more popular amongst grass roots Tories than most Conservative cabinet members. Why?  Because he's leading the way with the kind of radical, decentralising reforms we ought to be seeing implemented from every government department.  A fair bit of Nick's agenda could [...]

The Tory Lib-Dem Junta has got one thing right. The Green paper on prisons was universally praised at a meeting tonight of the Commons Penal Affairs. Leading the chorus of praise was Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Rowan said the loss of liberty was the punishment of prisoners. He spoke [...]

"Nick Clegg plans ten months paternity leave" ran the headline. Good old Nick, was my first thought.  His wife must be about to have another nipper, and he wants to take some time out to be a dad.  And why not?  But of course the headline wasn't [...]

First it was a Tory whip that had a very public spat with Mr Bercow. Then the Prime Minister apparently told unflattering jokes about him. Now another of my colleagues is reported to have had a bit of a confrontation.  I don’t think I can be accused of excessive deference to House of [...]