After the lacklustre Queen’s speech the deputy prime minister said in a letter to his party activists this week that: ‘Liberal Democrats are punching above their weight’. At last, I said at Business Questions on Thursday, we have an  acknowledgement from them – that they are in the political lightweight division. After all, this is …

In the week of Shakespeare’s birth, I said at Business Questions that even the great dramatist couldn’t write a farce like we have seen from the government recently. This week the culture secretary was forced to explain himself to the House following the revelations about the relationship between his office and News Corporation. Despite telling …

Four weeks on and the fallout from government’s disastrous budget continues. I’ve never known a budget to keep on unravelling for so long or indeed unite so many people in opposition as I said in the chamber on Thursday. It takes unique political skills that only this chancellor possesses to unite pie and pasty makers, …

I had only been selected to fight Wallasey, the most marginal seat in the north-west, barely a month before the 1992 general election following local controversies about Trotskyist entryism  and the earlier deselection and reinstatement of Frank Field in neighbouring Birkenhead by Labour’s ruling NEC. As if that wasn’t enough, I was up against Lynda …

This time last year the chancellor said his budget would ‘put fuel in the tank of the British economy’. Since then the economy has stalled, unemployment has risen and he’s borrowing £150bn more than planned. So just what fuel has the chancellor been using? I asked at business questions on Thursday. After their lamentable record …

This week at the Leveson inquiry we learnt further details about how the deputy mayor for policing in London put pressure on the Metropolitan Police to drop their investigation into phone hacking. The Met say they had to remind him that the police are operationally independent of politicians and that operational decisions are taken by …

This week the opposition forced a parliamentary debate on the mess surrounding the government’s plan to cut child benefit. The Institute for Fiscal Studies say that the government’s proposals are ‘fundamentally unfair’ and for some families a pay rise will actually result in a significant cut in household income. We got no answers from Treasury …

The foreign secretary updated the House this week on the situation in Syria and the whole House was appalled to learn that the Syrian government appears to be escalating repression. The Syrian government is responsible for widespread human rights crimes including the deliberate targeting of civilians and journalists. Across the region tens of thousands have …

Further opposition emerged to the government’s controversial health bill this week and it wasn’t just from those protesting against Andrew Lansley’s dangerous reorganisation outside Downing Street. Sources close to No 10 suggested the leader of the House was one of the Cabinet’s ‘heroic three’ who briefed the ConservativeHome website about their opposition to the bill. …

Andrew Lansley’s ill-fated health bill ran into even more trouble this week when the government was defeated in the Lords on day one of its report stage. The Financial Times also reported a Conservative backbencher as saying ‘No Tory MP knows what the point of these reforms is.’ I couldn’t help thinking they’re not alone! …