14 February 2012 12:00 AM
With the 30 th anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands only weeks away and the diplomatic war hotting up, one thing we cannot expect to be told is what it is costing to defend those islands.
13 February 2012 12:00 AM
With the Mills & Boon romance between The Sun and the police disintegrating into rancour, how ironic to find its editor guided by a much-loved cinematic bent copper. When on Saturday The Sun's editor Dominic Mohan claimed to be "as shocked as anyone by today's arrests", some may have pictured the latest addition to Wapping's stable of Captain Renaults treating the ague by nipping off to cash his chips. Yet this is no time for cynicism.
11 February 2012 12:00 AM
The House of Lords is a sedate place where little disturbs the calm, but there are two major issues currently endangering their lordships' blood pressures.
11 February 2012 12:00 AM
10 February 2012 12:00 AM
There was a tsunami of expert commentary on yesterday's decision by the Bank of England to inject another £50bn worth of quantitative easing into the economy. Some of it was positive, much of it negative. On the Conservative Party's own website there is a clear warning that QE is a last resort for a government whose other policies for tackling recession have failed...
09 February 2012 12:00 AM
The only well-known candidates to show an interest in joining the first wave of directly elected police commissioners are still Labour politicians, though it is a Conservative policy. The latest is Tony Lloyd, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, who has been a Manchester MP since 1983 and is likely to be Manchester's first police commissioner.
08 February 2012 12:00 AM
David Miliband made massive waves with that article in the New Statesman that contained the memorable warning against the "seductive" idea that Labour can win an election by reverting to a 1980s mindset. "It is what I shall call Reassurance Labour," he wrote. "Reassurance about our purpose, our relevance, our position, even our morals. Reassurance Labour feels good. But feeling good is not the same as doing good.... Now is a time for restless rethinking, not reassurance."
07 February 2012 12:00 AM
The most alarming incident that ever interrupted our House of Commons was a purple flour bomb thrown at Tony Blair – very tame compared with a ghastly incident that brought prime minister's questions to a bloody halt in Armenia in October 1999.
06 February 2012 12:00 AM
Matthew Norman
05 February 2012 12:00 AM
Remember Phil Woolas? He was the disgraced Labour minister found to have claimed expenses for tampons days after being memorably humiliated by Joanna Lumley over the Ghurkas live on TV. Just the man, then, to set up a lobbying company offering "political intelligence, analysis, interpretation and training". He has gone into partnership with a Tory and a Lib Dem to create Wellington Street Partners. So who are the other two? Well, Sir Sydney Chapman hasn't been a Tory MP for seven years, and Paul Keetch stepped down as Lib Dem member for Hereford in 2010, after he was photographed snogging the wife of SAS soldier-turned-author Cameron Spence. With a nod to The Independent's recent exposure of the seamier side of lobbying, a message on their website homepage is quick to point out: "What we don't do is lobby Government." So they're not even that useful!
04 February 2012 12:00 AM
It has been suggested Gordon Brown has not done much since returning to Parliament as a backbench MP. I am not one to join in this Brown baiting. For the record, he made two speeches in Parliament during 2011 – one, in July, on Rupert Murdoch's bid for BSkyB, and the other in November, on Dalgety Bay , in his constituency, where there is radioactive contamination.
03 February 2012 12:00 AM
Someone call Louise Mensch. Top Totty has been banned from Parliament. "Disturbing" (Equality for Shadows Minister Kate Green) and "Outrageous" (full-time tweeter Sally Bercow) were among the measured reactions to the sale of a bawdily named guest beer in the Strangers Bar at Westminster. It was the "picture of a nearly naked woman on the tap" that so moved Ms Green to raise the matter in the Mother (outrageous!) of all parliaments. "I would very much regret it if any offensive pictures were on display in any part of the House," remarked Leader of the House Sir George Young. The beer – hoppy, with an initial burst of bitterness – is no longer on sale.
02 February 2012 12:00 AM
Has Prince Harry been picking up a few tips from his uncle Andrew about the importance of flying the flag for British business while having fun abroad?
01 February 2012 12:00 AM
As we eagerly await the start on Monday of Andrew Marr's three-part BBC1 series The Diamond Queen, in honour of Her Majesty's 60 years on the throne, I hope he does not poop the party by giving airtime to one particular pundit. I mean the one who, in 1995, wrote these insulting words about the monarch's nearest and dearest: "Here is not the place to recount in full or even full summary the sordid and self-destructive exhibitionism of the younger air-headed Windsors, the sexual secrets spilled out, the marital misery publicised, the open acknowledgement of betrayal and bed-hopping..."
31 January 2012 12:00 AM
Calls for a referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union are usually heard coming from the right – from rebel Tories and the UK Independence Party.
Get your daily dose of the best of British journalism, sponsored by American Airlines
Spend three weeks exploring every nook and cranny of gorgeous Atlantic Canada.
Three glasses of free champagne and a special menu at 46 top London restaurants.
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
