Someone forgot to pack his handbag. Ben Brogan has the news this morning that David Cameron has agreed to let Merkel pursue full fiscal union – and in return she is... drum roll please... 'willing to let him repatriate parts of the Working Time Directive'. There's nothing official from Number 10, but Brogan is impeccably well-informed and it could well be that this is Britain&...

As Ben Brogan wrote this week, the House of Lords is threatening to become one of the biggest obstacles to the coalition’s reform agenda. But the way in which the Health and Social Care Bill was steered through its second reading in the upper house does provide a model for how even the trickiest votes can be won. Andrew Lansley’s much derided operation got this one right. It realised m...

What to make of Ed Miliband’s disclosure yesterday that Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ is his favourite song? Ben Brogan smells a rat: “If he's a Journey fan, then I'm a football expert”. But here’s the thing: you don’t have to be a Journey fan to like Don’t Stop Believin’. You just need to be a fan of Glee. For the uninitiated,...

Tory strategists had hoped to keep Europe off the agenda at this year's party conference, but they seem to have failed already. The European Court's ruling about welfare claims has forced IDS into action. Ben Brogan reports that the work and pensions secretary was nothing short of visceral in his contempt for the "land grab", which will apparently cost £2.5 billion a year....

Tory strategists hoped to keep Europe off the agenda at this year's conference, but they seem to have failed already. The European Court's extraordinary ruling about welfare claims has forced IDS into action. Ben Brogan reports that the work and pensions secretary was nothing short of visceral in his contempt for theland grab which will apparently cost £2.5 billion a year. But, IDS&...

Westminster is preparing for the Tory conference and Ben Brogan reports that a confident mood pervades the blue camp. The positive briefings have begun. The Guardian reveals that the speed limit on motorways is to be raised from 70 MPH to 80 MPH. This is a victory for Transport Secretary Philip Hammond over recalcitrant forces in Whitehall and the Health and Climate Change Secretaries. The Guardia...

Few things irritate the Prime Minister’s circle more than the insinuation that David Cameron is lazy. So Ben Brogan’s column this morning with its slightly barbed observations about the number of box-sets that Cameron finds time to watch will have been read through gritted teeth in Downing Street. Ben argues that Cameron will have to use his conference speech to show the country what h...

One of the staples of the Westminster summer party season is speculation about future leadership contests and so I rather suspect that Ben Brogan’s piece on the coming George Osborne Boris Johnson leadership contest will be much referenced in the coming weeks. Any speculation about a future leadership contest is, obviously, absurdly premature. If a week is a long time in politics, six years ...

One of the staples of the Westminster summer party season is speculation about future leadership contests and so I rather suspect that Ben Brogan’s piece on the coming George Osborne Boris Johnson leadership contest will be much referenced in the coming weeks. Any speculation about a future leadership contest is, obviously, absurdly premature. If a week is a long time in politics, six years ...

Monday is eagle day for the overhaul of government machinery. Ben Brogan explains how the publication of 20 departmental business plans will enable the public to chart the progress of government reform – inaugurating a revolution is transparency, that meme of the moment. I’ve always wondered why the Tories are so keen on touting ‘transparency’. One answer, it seems, is to e...