~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~06~RS~)
Welcome to Newslog - come here for my reflections and analysis on what's going on in and around politics
12:30 UK time, Tuesday, 14 May 2013
It is clear that some people are finding the current Tory wrangling about Europe hard to follow. So, in the spirit of those beginner's guides, let me see if I can help.
The Conservatives are going to publish draft legislation establishing an EU referendum today. So, does that mean I am going to get a vote on the EU?
10:56 UK time, Thursday, 9 May 2013
Judgement, perspective, balance.
That's what the BBC expects from you when they give you the title "Editor".
14:05 UK time, Wednesday, 8 May 2013
Oh dear. The Queen's Speech has already got my goat. Let me explain.
I reported this morning that the Gracious Speech is written on vellum with ink that takes three days to dry so it cannot be amended at the last minute. True... until recently but, apologies, I now learn it is not any more. I regret to have to report that the goat has fallen victim to the age of austerity. This year's speech will be written on plain - or, in truth, rather posh - paper.
19:29 UK time, Tuesday, 7 May 2013
The significance of Nigel Lawson's intervention is not just that he has broken something of a Tory taboo by calling for Britain to quit; it's also that he is a former chancellor arguing essentially on economic grounds.
The EU, he claims, is hurting one of our most important industries - financial services - and, secure "within the warm embrace of the European single market", giving British businesses an excuse not to develop trade with the developing economies.
18:06 UK time, Friday, 3 May 2013
Those David Cameron once insulted - but now says he respects - have given him and the Conservatives a bloody nose. Indeed, all the leaders of the big political parties are nursing wounds after so many chose to vote for "none of the above".
This has been a very English anti-establishment revolt. After all, its leader Nigel Farage is an ex public schoolboy from Kent, the son of a stockbroker who also worked in the City of London. However, like Boris Johnson or Alex Salmond he has found a way to reach those parts of the electorate others cannot reach.
07:32 UK time, Friday, 3 May 2013
This is the day when those dubbed "clowns, loonies, fruitcakes and closet racists" may find it hard to resist the temptation to laugh in the face of their detractors in the established political parties.
It is the day UKIP emerged as a real political force in the land.
18:15 UK time, Wednesday, 1 May 2013
These are nervous times for Messrs Cameron, Clegg and Miliband as they await the verdict of the voters - or, rather, some of them.
Even though almost all the votes will be cast in England and not other parts of the UK; even though it'll largely be the residents of the shires and not the cities; even though many people will choose not to vote, the results do matter - for national politics as well as local.
04:09 UK time, Tuesday, 30 April 2013
The Italian boss of the "city the Poles took over" tells me that the new arrivals will integrate, just as his community once had to.
He is answering the criticisms made not just by the white British residents but a significant number of the city's large Asian community, who complain that eastern Europeans simply don't integrate.
19:42 UK time, Monday, 29 April 2013
Listen hard in Whitehall and you will hear the sound of what Nick Clegg told me today was a "bunfight".
Ministers are squaring up for a battle over whose budget is to be cut next. A further £11bn in cuts have to be found and announced in June even though they won't be implemented for another two years.
14:10 UK time, Friday, 26 April 2013
In hard hat, hi-vis vest and wielding a trowel, the prime minister turned brickie today on a building site in Chorley - the same Lancashire town Ed Miliband visited on Monday.
He insisted that this was not the first time he'd laid bricks before, joking to the professionals that he was a bit worried he was "the weak link in the chain".
18:01 UK time, Thursday, 25 April 2013
There will have been less of a sigh and more a giant heave of relief in the Treasury when they saw the latest growth figures.
Ministers feared that any number with a minus sign attached would have produced headlines about a triple dip which, combined with the recent warnings from the IMF and increases in unemployment, would have fuelled a debate about whether the government's economic strategy was failing - a debate which would have been a gift not just for Labour but the doubters in both the coalition parties.
21:42 UK time, Wednesday, 24 April 2013
The idea of Britain temporarily leaving the European Convention on Human Rights in order to deport Abu Qatada was not discussed at a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister on Tuesday - contrary to some reports.
David Cameron called the meeting to insist that senior ministers - including the home and justice secretaries and the attorney general - "consider all the options" if the latest strategy for deporting Qatada does not succeed.
17:55 UK time, Monday, 22 April 2013
It's back. The politician's soap box.
But look who's following in John Major's footsteps. It's Ed Miliband.
10:27 UK time, Wednesday, 17 April 2013
David Cameron's claim on BBC Radio 4 that "in a sense we are all Thatcherites now" is being seen by some as evidence that Margaret Thatcher's funeral is being used to make a party political point.
However, I think the prime minister was making a rather different point to the one some think he is making. Yes, he was asserting that Lady Thatcher had, like Labour's Clement Attlee before her, forged a new political consensus.
17:43 UK time, Wednesday, 10 April 2013
A wake is, you might think, no time to stage a political debate. And so it proved today at Westminster. Many of those who loathed Margaret Thatcher's politics chose to stay away or stay silent or to mute their views.
It would, though, be a mistake to imagine that this was a day shorn of political significance.
13:41 UK time, Wednesday, 10 April 2013
When Margaret Thatcher stood on the steps of 10 Downing Street on her first day as Prime Minister David Cameron was 12 years old, Ed Miliband was 9 and George Osborne was 7.
Just under half of current MPs (319) would have either not been born yet or were 18 years old or younger*
14:30 UK time, Monday, 8 April 2013
In an era in which politicians are all too often greeted with indifference, it is easy to forget that Britain was once led by a woman who inspired passion - both love and loathing.
Margaret Thatcher's conviction, her resolve, her iron self-belief led many to see her as Britain's post-war saviour - the woman who cured the so-called "British disease", tamed trade unions and vanquished the Argentine Junta in the South Atlantic.
12:42 UK time, Wednesday, 27 March 2013
The best way I could help Labour was to leave the country. Thus, the man who so nearly became his party's leader explains his decision to head stateside - a decision David Miliband only revealed to close allies in the past two days and didn't dare tell his young children about in case the news leaked out.
I interviewed him in the same room at his north London home we spoke in two and a half years ago after his shock defeat by his brother, Ed. Today I sensed a man who was a prisoner of events beyond his control - who felt unable to take a top frontbench job and yet equally unable to turn one down and stay on the backbenches for fear he would be scripting the next episode of Westminster's favourite soap opera: "The Brothers."
21:26 UK time, Tuesday, 26 March 2013
A close friend of David Miliband has confirmed to the BBC that he is planning to quit Parliament to take up what is described as a "big international job based in New York".
The man who lost the Labour leadership to his brother only called friends this afternoon to tell them the news.
17:53 UK time, Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Nick added analysis to:
Off course, but determined to stick to it. Having no money to spend, but still able to deliver tax cuts for people and businesses. This was a Budget of paradoxes.
Nick started blogging about politics for the BBC in 2001 when he was one of the earliest mainstream journalists in the UK to adopt the format.
He has been in his current role since 2005.
Before he was political editor, he did the same job at ITV News, before which he was chief political correspondent for BBC News 24, deputy editor of Panorama and a presenter on BBC Radio 5 live.
He began his time at the BBC behind the microphone, starting as a trainee producer in 1986 on Brass Tacks, Newsround and Crimewatch.
Based at Westminster, he has particular responsibility for serving the flagship news programmes, including Today on Radio 4 and the Ten O'Clock News on BBC One.
Born in Macclesfield, Cheshire in 1963, he attended Cheadle Hulme School, followed by University College, Oxford where he studied politics, philosophy and economics.
Robert Peston
Business editor
Latest on events, trends and issues in business and finance
James Landale
Deputy political editor
Who is saying what to whom at Westminster and why it matters
Martin Rosenbaum
Freedom of information specialist
Thoughts on FoI and the issues it raises
Mark D'Arcy
Parliamentary correspondent
Inside the chambers and committee rooms of Westminster
BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.
