Nicky Morgan also didn’t vote, along with Ben Howlett and Nick Herbert.
The logic of her view that no deal is better than a bad one suggests that, like Thatcher at Fontainebleau, she is prepared to walk away if necessary.
The former Director of Public Prosecutions did not serve under either Blair or Brown, and is hard to place in the strife which rends the Labour Party.
Comparisons to Labour’s Corbynista woes are misplaced.
The Mayor of London refused, in his encounter with Tyrie’s committee, to be dull, prudent and strictly factual.
The Chancellor was a commanding figure, Jeremy Corbyn could do nothing to spoil things for him, and Andrew Tyrie will now check whether the figures add up.
Plus: Soames makes his way towards a gender-neutral loo. Lunch with Tyrie, lunch with Kirby. The Shipley Strangler strikes again. And: George Simpson saves the day.
Pledges on this scale cannot be delivered in this Commons without Conservative consensus. They can only be charmed – not bullied – onto the statute book.
Tory MPs would have forced changes to Osborne’s tax credit plan in any event. Are they really up for the tough decisions that deficit reduction requires?
He banged their Eds against a brick wall, but please can we not have a whole election campaign that sounds like this?
How the deficit is to be reduced matters far, far more than how it is calculated.