Iain Dale’s Friday Diary: Russell Brand. Good taste in football teams. But when it comes to politics…
Also: dreadful policemen. Idle George Galloway. Equal Britain. Glorious Dubrovnik…and my passion for Katie Price
“Spare Room Subsidy” versus “Bedroom Tax” – why language matters
Persuading people to wallow in victimhood may suit the cynical electoral interests of the Labour party but it does not favours to those concerned.
Heresy of the week: The most dangerous left-wing politician in Europe is French – and her name is Marine Le Pen
We can expect to see a lot more of Le Pen on our screens – British europhiles will use her image to associate British eurosceptics with the extreme right
On Free Schools and localism, Clegg isn’t waving a liberal banner – he’s exhibiting his own confusion
The Deputy Prime Minister is incapable of deciding whether he trusts headteachers or wants to dictate to them.
The best and the worst of John Major
The latter’s ordinariness was an electoral asset in 1992. But he is not, as Margaret Thatcher was, strategically minded.
John O’Sullivan: Windfall taxes. A bad idea then. And a bad idea now.
I was surprised by the degree to which Sir John Major has made my old article topical again. So, with only the most minor of editing changes, here it is.
Andrew Gimson’s PMQs sketch: The Prime Minister underestimated Miliband, and was badly stung for his mistake
This was a defeat that Cameron deserved – and a defeat that he must learn from.
A month after Miliband’s energy speech, Cameron plans to “roll back” green taxes – let’s hope he does it soon
Like peeling off a sticking plaster, u-turns are best done quickly – dragging it out will only prolong the pain.
Boris should stand for the Commons in 2015
A return to Parliament may have a downside for Boris, but it would be all upside for everyone else – in the Conservative Party, at any rate.
Peter Smith: What do we do about prisoner voting?
MPs have a choice: amend the blanket ban or defy the European Court of Human Rights. A constitutional show-down is almost inevitable.
The disastrous Green administration in Brighton is a cautionary tale – for voters, and for UKIP
Perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a small party is to find itself with a council to run.
Sir Nicholas Macpherson’s words underline it: public sector pay is a growing concern
About £180 billion is spent on remunerating public sector workers each year. Any deficit reduction needs to take that number into consideration.
The Lobbying Bill is still a bad law – so much so that Left and Right are uniting against it
We may not agree with the left, but we support each others’ right to campaign freely.
Stephen Tall: Lib Dems recontaminating the Tory brand? No. The Tories do it to themselves
On a range of key issues, Conservative policies are individually popular; yet, taken together, these relentlessly hardline stances give off a whiff of uncaring harshness.
Garvan Walshe: Snowden is not alone. The way many geeks look at the world is the real threat.
Trained in a discipline in which computer code is either absolutely right or wrong, many software engineers find the nuances of political practice hard to understand.