Telegraph Column: Will Ken Clarke Deliver?
- 6 Jul 2007
This week’s launch of Ken Clarke’s Democracy Task Force paper on parliamentary reform will go some way to dispelling the myth that Cameron’s Conservatives are policy-lite. As the rest of the policy groups prepare to announce their conclusions over the next seven weeks they wil...
Telegraph Column: Is Cameron Really Policy-Lite?
- 5 Jul 2007
After a fortnight of remorseless battering, Tory MPs at last have a spring in their step. Gordon Brown’s lacklustre performance at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday proved to them that the new Prime Minister is far from infallible. The look on the faces of Labour MPs sai...
Telegraph Column: The Clunking Fist Takes Aim
- 28 Jun 2007
Having spent the early part of the week making the LibDems chase their tails, Gordon Brown’s clunking fist was yesterday aimed squarely at the Tories. Last week David Cameron was in two minds about carrying out a wide ranging reshuffle. His instinct is not to do so, bu...
The Strange Defection of Quentin Davies
- 26 Jun 2007
I have just spent an hour or two at the House of Commons. A few pointers on Quentin Davies... Davies was still voting with the Party last night at 5.48pm last night AGAINST Gordon Brown's Finance Bill. Rather strange behaviour for a man who has just written a letter indicat...
EDP Diary: Nominated for an Award!
- 22 Jun 2007
Some time ago a journalist friend of mine, who shall remain nameless for the purpose of this blog, asked me if her 15 year old son could come and do a week's work experience with me in July. I like to be helpful so I said yes and thought no more of it. Yesterday I got a phone ...
Telegraph Column: How Should Cameron Respond to Brown's Reshuffle?
- 21 Jun 2007
By this time next week Gordon Brown will have restructured Whitehall and formed his first Cabinet. David Cameron will then rejig his own team once he knows who his opponents are. Brown’s reshuffle is likely to be radical, with almost half the existing Blair cabinet exp...
You Try to do a Good Deed...
- 19 Jun 2007
Some time ago a journalist friend of mine, who shall remain nameless for the purpose of this blog, asked me if her 15 year old son could come and do a week's work experience with me in July. I like to be helpful so I said yes and thought no more of it. Yesterday I got a phone ...
Best Comeback Line Ever
- 18 Jun 2007
If you ever testify in court, you might wish you could have been as sharp as this policeman. He was being cross-examined by a defense attorney during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the policeman's credibility.... Q: "Officer -- did you see my client flee...
My Evening in Cambridge
- 15 Jun 2007
My evening with Cambridge University Conservatives was certainly not without incident. I was speaking at their termly black tie dinner. Apparently the attendance was the highest for several years. I last spoke there in 2004 when not a single woman was present. This evening abo...
Nominated for Political Commentator of the Year
- 13 Jun 2007
I have been nominated for an award, believe it or not. Each year MPs and Peers vote in the HOUSE MAGAZINE/SKY NEWS PARLIAMENTARY AWARDS. I've been nominated in the Political Commentator of the Year award. Apparently MPs nominate people and they are then shortlisted by the Hous...
Lunch With Gordon Brown ... Or Was It?
- 12 Jun 2007
I wasn't told who the lunch would be with. I was just to be at the restaurant at a certain time. A bit strange I thought, but curiosity got the better of me. A few minutes after I arrived a burly looking man approached the table and said, 'he's on his way', but before I could ...
David Mellor Should Depart the Stage
- 11 Jun 2007
Oh dear. At about five to twelve this morning Julian Worricker said to me on 5 Live: "That's what we like about you Iain, you don't sit on the fence". Little did he realise what was coming next. After the midday news on 5 Live they had David Mellor on to talk about the grammar...
EDP Diary: The Dumbing Down of TV News
- 8 Jun 2007
There is a lot of talk about how TV has dumbed down in recent years. I suppose the rise o reality TV is the perfect exemplification of this trend. This week the Sky News presenter Kay Burley broke off a serious interview on prison reform to go live to California to cover the e...
Guardian Column: The Brady Resignation Should Never Have Been Allowed to Happen
- 30 May 2007
If you believed the spin George Osborne’s speech today on the battle for public service reform was only about the Cameron Conservatives being the supposed ‘heir to Blair’. It wasn’t. It was far more than that. The trouble is that few Tory supporters or members will ever read i...
Book Review: The Political Animal by Jeremy Paxman
- 29 May 2007
I'm reading Jeremy Paxman's POLITICAL ANIMALat the moment, albeit three years late. I'll do a full review when I have finished it, but I was very struck by this passage... Being loved is what so much of contemporary politics is about. In a post-ideological age, the Labour P...
Telegraph Column: The Grammar School Fiasco
- 24 May 2007
Successful politicians are not only able to make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear but can also take advantage of unexpected opportunities which come their way. And so it has proved with the Great Grammar School farrago which has dominated the last week of Tory politics. ...
EDP Diary: Is the NHS Safe in Tory Hands?
- 24 May 2007
Incredible though it may seem, health policy is an area in which the Conservatives are ahead in the polls for the first time since 1948 without actually having the benefit of any real policy. The last thing David Cameron should do is saddle himself with detailed policy in this...
Should Tory Bloggers Be More Robust?
- 21 May 2007
Watlington, who write for the Social Affairs Unit blog, has written a piece suggesting that Tory blogs like mine and ConservativeHome need to do more to defend ourselves from increasingly vocal attacks. He cites the recent attacks from Melissa Kite as a case in point. This is ...
Labour Complain to the BBC About ... Me
- 17 May 2007
The Press Gazette Axegrinder column reports today the following little titbit... The BBC appears to have angered bigwigs in the Labour Party with its seemingly endless invites to Westminster blogger Iain Dale to review the papers. When Dale appears on News 24 to gi...
Are Grammar Schools Cameron's Clause 4 Moment?
- 17 May 2007
The Conservatives have fought the last three general elections on the policy of a new grammar school in every town. A quick quiz question: who wrote the 2001 manifesto? Correct, David Willetts. Another question: who wrote the 2005 manifesto? Correct, David Cameron. A third que...