Oliver Letwin MP

The Christmas holidays (rather shorter for some of us than others) are now firmly over and Westminster is back to work with a vengeance.

From my own point of view, the dates of Parliament sitting are not particularly significant, since both constituency work and the work of government go on regardless of the Parliamentary timetable – [...]

The last few weeks in Westminster have been rather surreal.

Working in Downing Street, and commuting fairly regularly across the road to the House of Commons, I have been right in the midst of the student demonstrations on each of the days when these have occurred.

So far as the demonstrators themselves are concerned, my experience is [...]

VIEW FROM WESTMINSTER

As everyone knows, between the time of my last View from Westminster report in this paper and the present instalment, Westminster has been occupied with the Spending Review. 

It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to use this column to argue the case for the Spending Review as a whole (strong though I think it [...]

So it’s October again, and it’s party conference season.  This used to be a bucket and spade affair.  But now it’s off to Liverpool or Manchester or Birmingham – or, in my case, Liverpool and Birmingham.

As I write this column, I am just preparing to set off for the West Midlands and the Conservative conference [...]

This is, in all probability, the last “View from Westminster” that I will be able to provide before the general election is upon us.

We are, of course, already in the phoney war that inevitably precedes a general election in the fifth year of a parliament.

When elections are called in the first, second, third or fourth [...]

One of the most frequent and least productive guessing-games being played just now is the “when are we going to have an election?” game.

This is a very British pastime. You are no more likely to find someone in most other European countries engaging in it than you are to find them baking Yorkshire puddings or [...]

Black Rod has issued his sonorous summons. The Queen has been, spoken and gone. Her speech has been debated. And the new Parliamentary session is well under way.

Of course, this year it is largely a charade.

With an election likely to start not more than four months away, the chances that much of the legislative programme [...]

Normally I try to write in this column about events at Westminster.  But, this month, I want to raise an issue that is of huge concern locally – and which the View from Bridport has rightly taken up.

The issue in question is what happens to people when they leave hospital.

For some people, of course, this [...]

Happy days are here again.  The party conference season is over.

Sighs of relief all round.

But the fact that it all goes on too long shouldn’t make us forget that this annual round of jamborees is actually quite remarkable.

Enthusiasts of one brand of politics or another make long journeys from all over Britain to congregate, [...]

I imagine that many readers of this article will start with the assumption that it is being written from some far-off beach – since the newspapers regularly tell us that MPs are on holiday from the end of July until mid October.

The reality is that (probably, typically) I have taken a total of 16 working [...]