It is an odd move at a time when housing is a crucial political battleground.
The shuffle sends out a clear message to Conservative MPs: stay on the right side of the Chancellor. Theresa May and Boris Johnson should note it too
Sajid Javid, Esther McVey. Nicky Morgan. Greg Hands – it’s turning out much as predicted. Women, Blue Collar Tories and Friends of George (not necessarily in that order).
A major welfare announcement would usually be made to the Conservative Conference by the Work and Pensions Secretary. So why it today’s about workfare replacing welfare being made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Not, you can be sure, because the two men are on tense terms, and the second wants to deny the first […]
It’s no surprise to see Conservative attack dog Chris Grayling sinking his fangs into Labour’s spending pledges in today’s Sunday Telegraph. By the same token, it wouldn’t be a shock to see Conservative attack dog Michael Gove unleashed on Ed Miliband’s vulnerabities (I leave it to the reader to decide exactly what and where these […]
In my ToryDiary of earlier today about Andrew Mitchell case, and the failure of Operation Alice to report a year after it was set up, a long list of articles is enclosed supporting the MP. Some of them are very fine, all of them make good points, and we're going to make it Mitchell Is […]
It is a year today since Operation Alice, the investigation by the Met into the Andrew Mitchell affair, was launched: 30 police officers were apparently put on the case. Yet it has failed to produce a report: 12 months is apparently insufficient time to probe an incident lasting some 45 seconds. Here are some more […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. Andrew Gimson has correctly fingered David Cameron's temperament as Anglican, which makes it very different from Michael Gove's Manichean-flavoured one – of which the latter's view of foreign affairs is a reminder. This helps to explain why, although the Prime Minister and Education Secretary are friends, Gove almost certainly […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. I asked yesterday whether David Cameron or the Whips bore the main responsibility for this week's party management disaster over Syria. A day later, the answer is evident. Downing Street presumed, not unreasonably, that Ed Miliband would deliver a Labour abstention on the vote. The Whips – also not […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. Yesterday evening's vote makes no real difference to anything. The economy will continue to grow, David Cameron will recover his position, Britain's non-intervention in Syria will be a mere blip in the continuing special relationship with America, our world standing won't be affected, the Commons will continue to assert […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. Northern Ireland's marching season has a coat-trailing element, in which loyalists and republicans behave like two antagonists needling and circling each other, probing for a weakness. Today's Belfast Telegraph reports that a Belfast Grand Black Chapter parade will pass St Patrick's Catholic Church in Donegall Street, that seven police […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. I hate needles, and thus wouldn't care to inject myself twice a day, either in the stomach or thigh, as protection against Type 1 diabetes. The condition is nasty, but manageable – a point that she was careful to make yesterday about her sad news. ‘There’s a great quote […]