This week's Spectator cover has achieved a rare distinction: it's going to be hung up on the wall chez Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper. Or at least that's what the shadow chancellor told Sky's Jon Craig when quizzed about it earlier. You can see the cover image itself, by Stephen Collins, to the left. And below are a few extracts from the article by Melissa Kite that it illustrates....

When a Conservative leader wishes the LibDems well in a three-way marginal by-election, then what is going on? Andrew Gilligan’s piece today shows that the Conservative campaign there is muted, and my colleague Melissa Kite reported earlier that Cameron personally called off  the hunt supporters, Vote OK, who were planning to boost the Tory campaign. Little wonder that Conservative MPs ...

By way of an addendum to Fraser's post, it's worth reading Melissa Kite's account of internal Tory strife for the Sunday Telegraph (it doesn't seem to be in the paper, but is available online here). The piece records what sounds like a tumultuous week for the Tory whips, as they struggled to keep a group of disgruntled MPs on side. There are plenty of little insights, of which ...

If so many motorists are committing contraventions then the traffic and highways engineers have failed ... from a traffic management perspective. If it is about raising revenue then they have been hugely successful. The Telegraph By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor 17 Oct 2010 It has been called the "money box" - a traffic camera at a yellow box junction in Battersea, south London is raising ...

Young, confident and glamorous, the Prime Minister's closest advisers are ruffling some top Tory feathers. Melissa Kite reveals who is who

               Melissa Kite in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph revealed that the much vaunted Freedom Bill has been scaled down and transferred to the Home Office, as suggested on this site recently. She went to Liberal Democrat sources, who told her that Mr Clegg does not want to sift through the mountains of suggestions that cam...

Lynne Featherstone is clearly still living in the New Labour era of pointless initiative, writes Melissa Kite.

Nick Clegg says he wants people to send him ideas of bad laws that ought to be repealed. Melissa Kite submits some of her own.

The offer of a banana split might topple Captain Gordon Mainwaring, reveals Melissa Kite.

On the stump in Westminster-on-Sea, Private Mandelson does a brisk business in rumour-mongering, as Melissa Kite reveals in her tongue-in-cheek series