In defence of Tracey Crouch

Politicians should not be afraid to offer practical advice to their constituents.

Why Osborne is right to aim for a surplus

He cannot wave away the possibility, even the likelihood, of recession returning before 2020.

Iain Dale: Europe. Cameron is ready to wave a piece of white paper declaring “An agreement for our time”

Plus: Osborne squeezes the rich till their pips squeak. Prime Minister Corbyn, and other fantasises. Stephen McPartland has balls of steel. And: No breast jokes here.

Matthew Sinclair: No 0.7 per cent target. The budget kept at current levels. Go for humanitarian help. A compromise on international aid.

I think a deal on development is actually possible. The two sides are not as far apart as they often seem.

The EU referendum. Cameron is gripped by the fear that May will come out for Leave

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor will undoubtedly now be brooding about means of getting the Home Secretary out of the Home Office.

Henry Hill: Villiers cautiously optimistic for Stormont settlement

Also: SNP forced into tax credits u-turn; Welsh Government fears grant cuts; support for united Ireland falls to 13 per cent; and more.

Iain Dale: Why are we rolling out the red carpet for Sisi – this abuser of human rights?

Plus: The Enemy Within rings me during my LBC programme. Back Hunt – defy the BMA. And: I want to buy Margaret Thatcher’s clothes.

The Chancellor plummets from first to eighth in our Cabinet league table

Whilst Michael Gove has risen to the top.

Nick Timothy: Dividing lines and binary choices: how the tax credit changes went wrong

The Government finds itself boxed in by its own decisions.

20 Conservative MPs revolt over tax credits. Five of them are 2015 intake members.

The number of rebels has risen; it is concentrated among post-2005 intake Tories, and in seats that are either marginal or were until recently.

What Osborne was planning with Tax Credits

Spending rose by 331 per cent over the New Labour years. The current Chancellor wanted to decrease it by 19 per cent.

Cameron’s planned departure is destabilising Osborne’s plan

Like Russia, the Chancellor is never as strong or as weak as he looks. But the conditions that helped his deficit reduction drive in 2010 no longer apply.

Ben Southwood: Replacing welfare with a negative income tax would solve Osborne’s problems

Friedman and Hayek’s beloved policy would help the poor, make work pay and fulfil the surplus target.

The Government’s real problem is not the Lords, but the Commons

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?

WATCH: Boris says the House of Lords is “pushing its luck”

The Mayor says the upper chamber is “wrong to get in the way of the sovereign expression of the will of Parliament”.