Gary Gibbon
The government feels that the Iraq inquiry was a humiliation imposed by the Conservatives switching sides… calling for a “Franks-style” inquiry held in private, then outflanking the government, shamelessly joining the call a public one. It’s the sort of thing oppositions do when they are on the ball, as Gordon Brown should remember.
Gary Gibbon
Just back from the splendour of Speaker’s House state rooms where I’ve been interviewing John Bercow. It’s a bit like a doge’s palace in there. Speaker Bercow will be living in the less stately but pretty nice private accommodation upstairs, with his young family. There will have to be a few adaptations to the property.…
Gary Gibbon
This’ll get some Tory MPs’ blood boiling. Not least the ones who cheered the anonymous attack on David Cameron that turned up in Conservative MPs’ postbags on Monday. The Chair of the Senior Salaries Review Body, Bill Cockburn, was giving evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee today. Mr Cockburn will be working with Sir…
Gary Gibbon
Some MPs may be looking at the tidied up versions of their expenses published in the blacked out FOI release today and be thinking “if only …” “If only that was all the public got to see.” It is only the Telegraph’s uncensored version of the receipts that allows us to know about Margaret Moran’s…
Jon Snow
On one level he is the fall guy of the expenses scandal. But on another, some see Michael Martin as the agent of his own undoing. Look no further than the absurd scenes enacted yesterday as he processed through the Palace of Westminster. Did anyone ever think of cutting that frock coat so that some…
Gary Gibbon
There is a growing feeling that the “Stop Bercow” campaign will win the day on Monday. The sense is that John Bercow might very well top the ballot on the first round of the Speakership contest but then not pile on many votes. Sir George Young and Margaret Beckett could be vying for second place.…
Gary Gibbon
“I didn’t realise how much you liked me so I’ve decided I’m staying.” The Speaker’s words at the end of a nearly two hours of tributes. But he was only joking.
Gary Gibbon
The Speaker election on Monday could be a very drawn out process. It all depends how many potential candidates get enough nominations to become full candidates by Monday at 10.30am.
Gary Gibbon
Latest update from the Speaker hustings where potential candidates for the job are speaking.
Gary Gibbon
There will now be a pause in hostilities, until polls close tonight. Then the rebels trying to bring down Gordon Brown hope to start a drumbeat of protest, a “softening up exercise” one of them called it.
Jon Snow
I always read the comments on Snowblog but rarely have time to respond, but I feel the response to yesterday’s posting and to unfolding events speaks volumes about the qualities that exist in the country beyond the “political classes”. Stuart Tunstead’s wise observations about the constitution and the need for a “separation of powers particularly…
Jon Snow
A political crisis This is a political spectacle none of us has ever seen before. The government is reshuffling itself. Hazel Blears has just shuffled herself out of the Cabinet. She’d have been fired anyway over her second homery and non-payment of capital gains tax. Two other ministers, one of them another woman, are expected…
Gary Gibbon
Oops. There goes another one. Tom Watson, the Cabinet Office minister and one of the prime minister’s most trusted advisers, has told Gordon Brown that he wants to stand down from the government. He will stay on as an MP. Tom Watson is known as a blogger, former whip, a man who knows the Labour…
Gary Gibbon
Friends of Jacqui Smith are insisting her departure is not part of a coordinated Blair Babe walk-out from government to precipitate the downfall of Gordon Brown (Patricia Hewitt and Beverley Hughes announced today that they were standing down as MPs at the next election ). This is much more about the first, longest suffering victim…
Jon Snow
Ever since she was discovered to be claiming a room in her sister’s house in Nunhead, south London as her primary residence, home secretary Jacqui Smith has been in trouble. Her husband renting a couple of porn movies on the taxpayer didn’t help. But in truth the first woman home secretary, the second youngest holder…