Centre-left Tory MPs launch Cameron supporters club
Michael Crick blogs from the Conservative Party conference.
In his address to the Conservative Party conference, Chancellor George Osborne returns to his theme of unity in the face of international economic adversity – but rules out early tax cuts.
Education Secretary Michael Gove tells Channel 4 News the prime minister has told him to “get a move on” with widening choice in education, as the government’s free school policy falls under scrutiny.
Michael Crick blogs from the Conservative Party conference.
Coalition plans for the economy are criticised by a senior Conservative backbencher on the eve of the party’s conference in Manchester.
It was BBC Scotland political correspondent Tim Reid who in 2008 overheard David Miliband saying he didn’t want to be seen to be openly challenging Gordon Brown. Now Reid has embarrassed the younger of the Miliband brothers, blogs Michael Crick.
Michael Crick asks: will London Mayor Boris Johnson fulfil Toby Young’s prediction in the latest edition of The Spectator, and become Conservative Party leader by 2018?
FactCheck is a bit mystified. Labour’s press office pinged out a preview of Yvette Cooper’s speech this morning, which obviously we leapt on with our fine toothed factchecking comb. And something caught our eye. The release, published on Politics Home, announced that Yvette Cooper would say at Conference today that Labour was “the first government in a hundred years where crime went down and not up”.
A review of policing headed by former Scotland Yard chief Lord Stevens is to be set up by Labour, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper will announce at the party’s conference in Liverpool.
Tessa Jowell tried to brush off today’s humiliating slip in the leadership polls with the retort that no political party does well when the economy’s in the doldrums. “Benign times of growth are always easier for political parties,” she said, adding that it’s both a challenge and an opportunity for Ed Miliband. The news that the Tories have overtaken Labour for the first time since last October came as a huge blow to Mr Miliband as he delivered his keynote speech. According to a ComRes poll, the Conservatives are on 37 per cent, with Labour just behind at 36 per cent and the Lib Dems at 12 per cent. But Ms Jowell says this has more to do with people withdrawing from politics, than signing up to the Tories. FactCheck calls up the pollsters.
In his keynote Labour conference address, party leader Ed Miliband offers a “new bargain” to the people of Britain. Top Labour figures tell Channel 4 News the speech was “typical Ed”.
Channel 4 News learns union bosses are calling for a campaign of civil disobedience and sit-ins as well as strikes over the spending cuts, with one leader saying he is “prepared to go to jail”.
As an opinion poll puts Labour one point behind the Conservatives, Ed Miliband promises a “new bargain” for Britain in his Labour conference speech.
Ed Balls doesn’t really do contrition. He flirted with the idea on the Today programme this morning when he said sorry for the failure of banking regulations, and admitted that not every pound had been well spent by Labour.
Ed Miliband has one big advantage. He’s the first leader of the opposition in history who knows, pretty much for certain, when the next election will be – in May 2015. The new legislation setting down that all parliaments will last five years in future makes it much easier for an opposition to plan. Only…
The Labour peer credited with inventing the “Blue Labour” concept, Lord Maurice Glasman, reveals another side to Ed Miliband in an interview with Channel 4 News Political Editor Gary Gibbon.