By Elsa Buchanan, International Politics Correspondent A Tories U-turn vote on fast-track fracking is being dubbed a ‘huge victory’, but campaigners say now is not the time to celebrate. The government made a major U-turn on plans to fast-track UK fracking after accepting Labour proposals to tighten environmental regulations on ...
By Bill Lytton What is Cameron's plan now there is a seven-way leaders' debate? “It is pretty disreputable that David Cameron went in to the 2010 election saying these debates were the most important thing that we could possibly have, people shouldn’t make feeble excuses to get out of them ...
By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor I was brought up in Newcastle upon Tyne and watching pub fights escalate was a common occurrence. Surprisingly the two leaders reminded me of one of these skirmishes, albeit it in an Oxbridge, educated duel way, rather than a bottling on Shields Road, Byker. After ...
By Andy Irwin Immigration is once again set to be a key theme in the run up to this year’s general election. Backbench Conservatives want a tougher line in order to combat UKIP and Labour is attempting to position itself bizarrely as the ‘natural’ party of resistance against mass immigration. Toxic ...
By David Thomson Alex Salmond may have lost the vote for independence and stood down as leader of the SNP and Scotland's First Minister, but there's still widespread respect for him as a politician. Conservative leader David Cameron and his Labour counterpart reacted to him stepping down with similar expressions of ...
By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor On the surface, today’s PMQs was a battle over the NHS, the PM insisting a strong economy needs a good health service I’m not 100% convinced, Cuba has a pretty decent health service, but a dismal economy. But this was all window dressing; this was ...
By Bill Lytton The Rochester and Strood by-election delivered more than a second Ukip MP last week. In fact, the incumbency of former Conservative Mark Reckless was backseat news to other, more telling, political situations. Namely that, in Alberto Nardelli’s words, “Britain has gone from a two-three party system to ...
By Nicholas Figgis The world of politics can be confusing. Fortunately we have liberal media commentators to make sense of things. In his recent piece on the 'Green Surge' John Rentoul of The Independent on Sunday points out that, despite relatively low media coverage, the Green Party has recently experienced ...
By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The PM didn’t seem to need to directly attack Ed today, he let Miliband’s own team do it for him. He alleged Labour figures had said of Ed, “concern if he can lead the country”, “Useless”, “hopeless, “doesn’t cut it” and that was just his ...