Speaking on the BBC World Service (audio clip here), Frank Field MP (Lab, Birkenhead) said:
With this budget coming up […] if we don’t get a satisfactory deal I think there’s enough members on the Labour back benches who will, with others, block the budget and that will make his position intolerable at that stage.
If the […]

Mayor Johnson, as we know, opposed the smoking ban. His voting history on the issue can be found on TheyWorkForYou.com. The noxious fumes produced by the evil weed were not, it would seem, enough in Mr Johnson’s opinion to warrant an intrusion on people’s liberty and bar and pub workers would have to lump it; […]

Mayor Johnson
The headline news is, of course, the victory of Boris Johnson. It is no secret (at least if you’ve been reading this blog!) that I was and remain a strong supporter of Ken Livingstone and that I have very grave doubts about the Johnson mayoralty. I have tried to draw a comparison between […]

Foreign Policy’s list of one hundred leading, public intellectuals is causing some controversy. We should be grateful that this list has been compiled and that the competition is being promoted by Foreign Policy rather than one of the TV networks. Graham Norton or - heaven forfend! - Jimmy Carr would have been Channel Four’s preferred […]

Chris Dillow is less than impressed with Jack Straw and Alistair Campbell as he and most people regard them as having negative credibility. I feel that Chris – and given his intellectual firepower, I’m rather worried about saying this – is rather missing the point. He’s not the audience – it just happens that he’s […]

As I mentioned on this blog a little while ago, there is an amount of discontent around MPs’ pay. I don’t think there is that much objection to them being paid well, but there are strong objections to them being ‘on the make’. The general consensus is that politics in the UK is, by global […]

When is a sex establishment not a sex establishment? When it’s a lap dance bar.
Celia Barlow, the Labour MP for Hove & Portslade, has a good article on this on the New Statesman website about the issue of strip joints. Unfortunately, they have been classed along with cafes and ballet schools as a result of […]

Yes, says Michael White.
Yes, says Iain Dale.
Yes, says James Macintyre
Yes, says Steve Richards
Yes, says Andrew Grice
Yes, says Sam Coates
Yes, says Andrew Gimson
To be honest, I think Andrew Gimson had it about right when he said “Harriet Harman did much better than expected when she stood in for Gordon Brown at Prime Minister’s questions. This is […]

Nadine Dorries has posted another attack on an MP who supports abortion encouraging people to vote solely on that issue; this time, it is Barbara Follett.
In order to receive funding they have to support Labour party values, and be pro-abortion
This means that any potential candidate of faith, ie, Jewish, Christian, Sikh, Muslim or Hindu would […]

Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid Beds and doyenne of the anti-abortion movement in Parliament, has been pressing for further restrictions on abortion for some time. I have no doubt that she sincerely holds those beliefs. However, it does seem that the strength with which she holds those beliefs is clouding her judgement. As […]