Sentences with phrase «on the labour benches»

Colleagues on the Labour benches could also be seen dabbing their eyes as she explained Lucy would have no birthday parties and, to her «horror», no birth or death certificate after she was born at 23.5 weeks but stillborn.

Over on the Labour benches, they won't say so publicly, but privately they're comparing Osborne's battle over tax credits to Gordon Brown's damaging 10p tax U-turn.

This was billed as a parade of Tory euroscepticism, and it is that - but what really matters, it seems, is the extent ot euroscepticism on the Labour benches.

Even some of Corbyn's opponents on the Labour benches were happy.

The disrespectful tone adopted by the Labour team was probably a symptom of a widespread view on the Labour benches that it was not possible for the party to keep the Tories out of power, given they were the largest party in the Commons.

The mood in the House - especially on the Labour benches - is getting grittier by the second.

Mr Salmond may ooze self - pleasure but it has to be admitted that he radiates a greater self - confidence than anyone on the Labour benches.

He's had a rapid rise to the Shadow Cabinet since becoming an MP just two years ago and will be surrounded by former cabinet and junior ministers on the Labour benches as well as long - serving backbenchers.

It is being claimed by some in Westminster that a deal has been done between Mr Blair and Mr Ashdown in a bid to shore up the Liberal Democrat leader's position while averting a full - scale civil war on the Labour benches.

To his credit, Prime Minister David Cameron and his ministers have been robust in defending the reforms, saying that the changes are designed to make public sector pensions affordable for the long term and failure to reform will bankrupt the whole system, a point even many on the Labour benches recognise.

12.24 New Tory MP Matt Hancock points out that Labour were going to increase benefits at less than inflation - and David Cameron agrees that the dupes on the Labour benches wouldn't have known that.

Balls» Budget response showed an improved ability on the Labour benches to deploy damaging framing devices against the coalition, with the shadow chancellor branding yesterday's housing policy a «spare home subsidy».

It appears Bercow is now, more than ever, granting Labour spurious SO24 debates, Points of Order and even advising them on how to use arcane parliamentary procedures to whack the government, in an attempt to shore up the support he needs on the Labour benches.

There is no longer a talent bank on the Labour benches.

12:16 - It's hard to find new words to describe the sheer lethargy on the Labour benches every week.

But while Labour may be spending their time talking about aspiration there is so far very little evidence of it on the Labour benches.

On the Labour benches, Jeremy Corbyn is firmly opposed but around 30 MPs are thought to be willing to back action as things stand.

The fact that Labour are still in power even with the worst PM since the term was invented, shows how little honour there is on the Labour benches.

Hague congratulated her on not putting the shadow chancellor on the Labour benches «which helps us to hear».

But I think it is certainly difficult to see most of the 91 Conservative members [who rebelled over Lords reform], and a good many of those who spoke on the Labour benches against the bill on Monday and Tuesday last week, shifting their ground on what for many of them is a really fundamental obstacle.

15:38 - «We are in the EU and we want to be,» Cameron says, prompting mockery on the Labour benches.

Paul Evans speaks to Quentin Davies, the former Conservative who made an unlikely figure on the Labour benches, and is now in the Lords.

«After 13 years of a Labour Government, this is quite simply a disgrace and should act as a constant reminder to those on the Labour Benches, who have already begun looking back on their time in government as some sort of golden age in which poverty and inequality were abolished.

Earlier in the week, I wrote about Len McCluskey's development of a «party within a party» of Unite MPs on the Labour benches.

The role of Government: «I am afraid that there is a basic ideological differences between those on the Labour Benches and those on the Government Benches — we believe in devolving power and giving freedom to people.

But on his own benches he is the lone refuser, the only one who will vote today against what most of Clarke's colleagues and almost all on the Labour benches know to be an approaching Brexit calamity.

Not exact matches

Campaigner is to be given a seat in the House of Lords and will sit on Labour's benches in the Upper house.

It would make sense if Alexis was on the bench for Saturday, and brought on if it looks like we're labouring.

But Attlee was continuously underestimated both within the Labour Party and by many of his political opponents on the Conservative benches.

«Andy Burnham, he's a northern MP, seen him on the train, he likes football, we have good banter about that kind of thing,» he reveals when I ask about his relations with some of the other leading lights on the Labour front bench.

He sits on the red benches as a Labour peer and is also chairman of the Genesis Research Trust.

Such creatures were even rarer on the Labour and Liberal benches.

There is still a huge amount of unapologetic collective responsibility for Blair's Iraq and Brown's economic catastrophe on the Labour front bench.

Chakrabarti is the latest high - profile advocate to enter parliament, with two former directors of public prosecution also taking party whips: Keir Starmer on the green benches for Labour, Ken Macdonald on the red benches for the Liberal Democrats.

Nor is Labour frontbenchers Andy Burnham and Luciana Berger expressing interest in Osborne's Greater Manchester and Merseyside Metro mayors silencing grumbling on their own benches in Parliament or dissident Tories concerned the centralisation of influence will weaken genuine localism.

The bearded Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn criticised the Tory benches and their position on Human Rights and their support for a «Bill of Rights», making an emphatic argument that MPs should, «take a moment to praise the European Court of Human Rights & European Court of Justice and stop listening to the neanderthal voices behind him [the Tory backbenchers] in what was a very important step in improving the human rights after the second world war.»

Faced with Labour's reasoned opposition, and with substantial scepticism on their own benches, the government backed off from seeking a mandate they would not have obtained.

[4] He served on the front bench but was not invited by Winston Churchill to join the Coalition government in 1940; as one of the most senior Labour figures not in office, the responsibilities of running the party were given to him.

As with Kinnock, Corbyn spent years refusing to serve on the front bench, but only one Labour leader has had as much ministerial experience as Corbyn (that is, none): Blair.

Mike Gapes, the Labour MP for Ilford South, referred directly to Mr Corbyn when he said: «Can I remind her and the right honourable member for Islington North that it was a Labour government, with Robin Cook as Foreign Secretary, which carried out air strikes in Iraq under Operation Desert Fox in 1998 without a UN resolution, it was a Labour government that restored President Kabbah in Sierra Leone without a UN resolution, that it was a Labour government that stopped the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo without a UN resolution, and that there is a long - standing and noble tradition on these benches supporting humanitarian intervention.»

A loss is a loss, and Labour sits on the opposition benches defeated, no doubt about that.

«The Leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, is pleased to announce the appointment of Sarah Champion MP, who is re-joining the Labour's front bench as Shadow Home Office Minister, focusing on women, equality and domestic violence.»

Riding the roar from the Labour benches, he ploughed on, criticising Miliband's stance on the Greek crisis and on public sector pensions.

What this victory will give May (as well as the chance to crush Labour before it comes to its senses and gets itself a new leader) is a whole bunch of new Tory backbenchers who, whatever their views on Europe and other issues, will know full well that they owe their place on the green benches mainly to her.

Eurosceptics on the government benches could not have beaten a frantic whipping operation without the support of the Labour party.

Mr Lansley confidently defended his proposals against attacks from the Labour benches, but a speech minutes earlier by Mr Cameron effectively pulled the rug from under him by offering major concessions on his bill.

Mandelson is probably intensely relaxed about cutting democratic corners if it means more «New Labour» special advisers and the like on the green benches, but utterly opposed to the normal workings of Labour democracy if it means leftwing or trade union candidates being chosen.

Those on the back benches who failed to join various rebellions were as spineless, intimidated by Nick Brown and his whips into betraying their voters — and the vulnerable always best protected by a Labour government.

Conservative MPs are currently rebelling less often than Labour MPs (in around 11 % of divisions in the first three sessions of the 2005 parliament, less than half the rate on the government benches) and they are doing so in smaller numbers; although a slightly larger proportion of Conservative parliamentarians has rebelled compared to Labour, few have cast more than a handful of dissenting votes, and even the most rebellious would not find themselves high up the PLP's league table of troublemakers.

Over on the Labour front bench, some unease might also be gathering, since both the leader of the opposition and the shadow chancellor promise what might charitably be termed «austerity lite».