Rafael Behr

Many opposition MPs are persuaded by the case for making a virtue of necessity: resolve the issue and expose Tory divisions.

The chatter in the party has been that Watson runs around the country making sure 'his' people get chosen as candidates.

The Chancellor works on the assumption that voters have a boundless appetite for ever tighter welfare limits.

Stephen Twigg's speech was neither a capitulation to Gove’s agenda nor a ferocious reaction against it.

The PM sees the EU as part of the solution, not the problem for the UK economy - a brave position to take as leader of today's Tory party.

While the Lib Dems have much to lose from an early end to the coalition, the Tories can easily see the appeal of trying to govern alone.

The Prime Minister's European strategy relies on an act of persuasion that he has proved himself incapable of pulling off.

The opposition ranks are close to despair over an apparent lack of direction.

UKIP won the day, but not because of Europe, a Tory MP may well defect and parliament will be hung after 2015.

The Conservatives are caught between advertising their cultural affinity with UKIP and denouncing its members as closet extremists.

The party's plan to integrate health and social care makes sense fiscally and clinically but the politics could be more difficult to navigate.

Conservatives are winning a cultural campaign to nationalise their political bereavement and it will do them no favours in the end.

The soap opera saga needed bringing to an end and the thwarted brother's emigration does the job as well as reconciliation.

The Chancellor's gamble remains that the growth will come, that the pain will be followed by gain. But he has been wrong every time so far.