Coffee House The Spectator Blog
Someone has got to win the next election
It is easy to make a case for why all three main parties should do badly at the next election. After five years of austerity, who will vote for the… Continue reading
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Prism controversy will deepen coalition divisions over the snooper’s charter
GCHQ’s use of the US monitoring system Prism is threatening to turn into a major political row. Douglas Alexander is demanding that William Hague come to the House of Commons… Continue reading
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This poster is why Number 10 is so confident Clegg will stay solid on union curbs
Given all the coalition tensions over Clegg supposedly reneging on his promise to back childcare reform, it is surprising how confident Number 10 is that he’ll stay the course on… Continue reading
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The political centre just moved, to the right
Today must count as one of the most encouraging days for the centre right in British politics in recent times. Labour’s apparent abandonment of universal child benefit is a massive… Continue reading
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Coalition shifts position after a weekend of sleaze, lobbying register now coming in
Today is not a good day for politics or parliament. The latest, depressing sleaze revelations are only going to increase public cynicism about politics and parliament. It seems that a… Continue reading
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Telegraph reveals full extent of allegations against Patrick Mercer
I suspect that there’ll be a few MPs and peers nervously waiting for 9pm on Thursday night. For this is when the Panorama special on parliament and lobbying, which has… Continue reading
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The Boris bandwagon picks up more speed
Hardly a day goes by these days without a story about Boris Johnson and the Tory leadership. Yesterday, it was Andy Coulson’s revelation that David Cameron believed Boris Johnson would… Continue reading
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Nick Clegg: I’m the grown-up in this Coalition
Ever the helpful friend in times of strife, Nick Clegg is giving a speech today in which he will soar above the troubles the Tories currently find themselves in to… Continue reading
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Gay marriage easily passes third reading vote in the Commons
After all the parliamentary back and forth yesterday, gay marriage passed third reading by the comfortable margin of 366 to 161. Tory sources are briefing that fewer of their MPs… Continue reading
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David Cameron should be out there making the case for gay marriage
David Cameron’s approach to the gay marriage debate inside his own party has been to take a low profile. The passion and eloquence he displayed on the subject in his… Continue reading
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The Liberal Democrats, the natural party of government?
If four years ago, a Liberal Democrat politician had attempted to portray the Lib Dems as the natural party of government we all would have laughed. But that is just… Continue reading
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Top Tory calls party activists ‘mad swivel-eyed loons’
Insulting your own side is a dangerous thing to do in politics and in the current circumstances for any prominent Tory to do it is positively incendiary. But one ‘senior… Continue reading
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Ministers aren’t just preparing for Coalition divorce, they’re organising arguments with their partners too
Reports today that the Conservatives are wargaming end-of-Coalition scenarios in the event of the Lib Dems leaving early won’t come as a surprise, given the bickering over the past few… Continue reading
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High Speed 2 is needed to bring Britain’s infrastructure into the 21st century
The National Audit Office has slammed High Speed 2 today, citing a £3.3 billion ‘black hole’ in the funding plans while suggesting the construction timetable is ‘over-ambitious.’ Not exactly an… Continue reading
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Will the draft EU referendum bill calm Tory tensions?
The last few days have seen the Tory party losing its collective head. Number 10 hopes that the publication of a draft referendum bill will begin to restore order. If… Continue reading
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Childish childcare bickering continues
Last winter, the surest way to get a Lib Dem to ring you back was to mention the words ‘boundary changes’. Better still to write a piece criticising the party’s… Continue reading
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Gove: I’d vote to leave the EU if referendum held today
In a firecracker of an interview on the Andrew Marr Show, Michael Gove confirmed that if an EU referendum was held today he would vote out. But he followed this… Continue reading
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What was Clegg’s priority in the last few hours of the coalition talks? Stopping a European renegotiation
The latest extracts of the Andrew Adonis’ book on the 2010 coalition negotiations couldn’t have been better designed to stir up Tory backbench bad feeling to Nick Clegg. Adonis claims that… Continue reading
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The Tory party holds its nerve – for now
The dust is settling from the County Council elections and, crucially, the Tory party seems to have stayed steady. Yes, David Davis has had a pop at the number of… Continue reading
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The coalition should have extended anonymity on rape cases
No one can ever recover from being wrongly accused of sexual assault, which is why I welcomed the government’s plan to ‘extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants‘. Turns out… Continue reading
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