By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Cameron should be willing to move Hague and May in order to get Cable out of the Business portfolio and David Laws appointed in his place. Most reshuffles don't matter. But this one does. That is the premise of my piece in today's Daily Telegraph, though I also write […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Returned from a fortnight on the Isle of Wight. The isle is full of noises… Here is the situation as I see it as the conference season comes into view. Miliband's vote is vulnerable… The most striking opinion poll finding about the three main parties since 2010 is the […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter Another in our series of posts preparing for the reshuffle, and I'm afraid it’s the gloomiest so far. Remember how I said earlier that a reshuffle could have an effect on the internal mood of the Coalition? The flipside of that is that I doubt it could accomplish much […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter I’m afraid I’m one of those people who think that reshuffles don’t matter much, especially when it comes to the grand swell of policy and of public opinion. But it is true that reshuffles can make a difference to the internal mood of a government, and that goes doubly […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter We have already committed Peter Kellner’s post on the electoral implications of constituency boundaries to our MustBeRead Twitter feed, but I thought I’d mention it here too. After all, the table he has produced (and that I’ve pasted below, click for a larger version) is an unadulterated, no-nonsense guide […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter. The Financial Times this morning reports (£) the news that the two Coalition party leaders will conduct a "mid-term" review in order to revitalise the government and move on from the present bickering over Lords reform. Yesterday, my colleague Peter Hoskin set out five solid reasons why a new […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter One of the most curious aspects of this latest intra-Coalition spat is David Cameron’s decision to take the boundary changes to a vote. On the surface, this could cause all sorts of agony for him. With the Lib Dems opposing the changes, and the minor parties unlikely to be […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter You may have noticed, things aren’t exactly peachy between the two partners in the Coalition. One idea for bringing them together again — recommended in Janan Ganesh’s wonderfully readable column for the Financial Times (£) today — is the writing of another, updated, Coalition Agreement. Here are my five […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Imagine a civil partnership of which one member suddenly announced to the world: "My partner has refused to cook me any food. So I am refusing to give him any sex. But don't worry for a moment: we must now restore balance to our relationship, allowing us to draw […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter Just another quiet Monday afternoon in August? Not at all. Nick Clegg has just given a statement confirming something that is equal parts unsurprising and politically significant: Lords reform is dead for this Parliament. He says that David Cameron has been unable to persuade enough Conservative MPs to back […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter There’s one finding that really stands out from this ComRes poll today, which is probably why the Independent has focused on it in their report. Apparently, 22 per cent of those Conservative supporters who expressed a preference would like David Cameron to sack George Osborne and replace him with […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter David Cameron says: “I think the Coalition will run to 2015. How exactly you separate before an election and fight an election: to be determined.” This form of words – "I think the Coalition will run to 2015" – will naturally set off more speculation about possible breakdown, confidence-and-supply […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter David Cameron is reported to be considering not proceeding with the boundary review at all, rather than see it voted down by Liberal Democrat backbenchers and Ministers who – in the latter case – he would have to dismiss. There are also complaints about Conservative backbenchers voting against the […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter. The newspapers today are, of course, filled with plenty of Lords rebellion stories. The Observer has details of a letter written by 36 cross-party peers, including Norman Lamont and Geoffrey Howe, and… "…the former Northern Ireland secretary and party chairman Peter Brooke, the former Scottish secretary Michael Forsyth, the […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Easy relations between the Coalition partners began to break down in earnest after the AV referendum. But the man who made them look almost natural had left the Government well before it took place. And he is back today in the Sunday Telegraph, making a case that David Cameron […]