Blog Posts by Alex Stevenson

I want my MPs to make law, not love. Even thinking about the latter is enough to induce panic attacks.

I am a quivering, shuddering wreck. Why? Because, like many thousands of other people in the last few days, I have visited sexymp.co.uk, a horrific new website that allows us to vote for politicians based on their bodies, not their lawmaking abilities.

It's an interesting question, 'why?', isn't it? Voting for MPs based on their sexiness is like picking footballers based on their ability to pontificate on formal logic, or choosing a plumber based on how well-dressed they are. I want my MPs to make law, not love. They are in parliament for their brains, not any other parts of the anatomy. The Commons is not a place for reproduction. Although if it was, at least those green benches are quite soft.

Wait a minute. Perhaps there is something to this. Part of being a politician is popularity, and sex appeal can surely go a long way towards helping with this. Charm, a suave approach, an

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Even the prime minister and his deputy aren't safe from lip-reading journalists. Do politicians need to raise their game?

It was a tantalising question. What were David Cameron and Nick Clegg talking about, as they sat and waited for Barack Obama in Westminster Hall last Wednesday? The camera repeatedly cut to the pair chit-chatting about this and that. It was thoroughly intriguing.

Now, thanks to the services of a lipreader enlisted by the Mail on Sunday newspaper, we have something of an idea. Rather than making small talk, they were actually discussing one of the biggest headaches facing the government: the NHS. "Most people want to change it," Cameron pointed out. "Well what you mean is," Clegg replied, "you want to change it!"

The transcript of their conversation is a little veiled, but it appears they hinted at the future of health secretary Andrew Lansley. For political hacks, this is fascinating stuff. It gives us another insight into the tensions at the heart of the coalition

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The tensions between Barack Obama's poetry and prose reveal the dilemmas at the heart of the future of the west — and the world.

It isn't often that former prime ministers, the Cabinet and the entirety of Britain's lawmakers are kept waiting while one man tours the Palace of Westminster. But for most of those present, Barack Obama was worth the wait. His address in Westminster Hall, the oldest part of parliament and the first time it had been graced by an American president's speech, went down a storm.

He pushed all the right buttons, going far beyond the prediction of one US commentator that he would 'make nice' over the special relationship. Obama cited deep historical roots, ties centuries older than that little spat over "tea and taxes". He quoted Winston Churchill. He directly compared the beaches of Normandy with the Balkans and, latterly, Benghazi.

Obama's emphasis on the "struggles of slaves and immigrants, women and ethnic minorities, former colonies and persecuted religions",

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We all get the narrative. After a year of demonstrating that the Liberal Democrats can work with the Conservatives in government - an operation which seems to have gone a little too smoothly - the Lib Dems have fallen out over the AV referendum campaign. That battering in this month's elections has underlined the need for a change. And so Nick Clegg has promised one: a more "muscular" kind of liberalism, where the Lib Dems push their weight around more. This is a new 'phase' of the coalition. No more Mr Nice Clegg.

The most senior members of the party who are not actually involved in the government will have a key role to play. These are the party's middle-ranking MPs, who last year were tasked with presiding over backbench policy committees covering the breadth of government activity. After delays in setting the structures up, the co-chairs spent months trying to work out what their jobs actually were.

These teething problems have mostly been resolved. Question-marks remain about how

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The vagueness of 'sustainability' was once a whimsical criticism. It's now becoming critical as yet more barriers to unfettered business are removed.

Journalists have long been suspicious of one of politicians' more irritating habits: using jargon to cover their real meaning.

The 2009 Lexicon from the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank contained an entire list of contemporary newspeak, which claimed that buzzwords were deliberately being used to exclude those outside central and local government.

One of the prime examples was 'sustainable', which Bill Jamieson — then executive editor of the Scotsman newspaper — said occupied "a lofty position in the towering hierarchy of buzzwords".

It didn't matter whether the word was being used to describe 'sustainable development', 'sustainable transport' and 'sustainable housing'. In fact, it was its flexibility that made it so effective. Mr Jamieson said 'sustainable' was a word "whose very looseness and lack of clarity makes it a perfect prefix

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As the fight over NHS reform reaches its climax, the doctors' chief isn't in the mood for compromises.

The campaigning had never been so intense. The British Medical Association, that venerable old institution defending the interests of doctors up and down the land, had never dug in its heels so hard. "What do you call somebody who won't listen to medical advice?" the posters read. "The secretary of state for health."

This wasn't 2011. This was 1989, the last time the spectre of newly untrammelled competition loomed over the NHS. Ever since Kenneth Clarke introduced internal markets doctors have been fed up with the impact competition has had on the health service. What's happening today, according to the doctor sitting opposite, is "almost part of the same argument, the same battle if you like, the same disagreement on how best to organise and make the NHS run more efficiently".

He looks the part: neatly trimmed beard, excellent bedside manner, and a light-coloured shirt, which my

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The ideology of competition pervades the government's NHS reforms. So where can concessions come from?

One thing is certain — something has got to give. Health professional groups, thinktanks and a large chunk of Liberal Democrat backbenchers are deeply concerned about the health and social care bill's unremitting backing of competition. The King's Fund, one of the most respected health thinktanks, argues that people with long-term conditions are the biggest challenge to the health service. These require a health service based on cooperation and collaboration between different services — what the jargon calls 'integrated care'. What happens when the different parts of the health service start vying against each other?

All agree that competition in some areas can be useful. But this bill places too much emphasis on it, opponents say. The sheer weight of their opposition means concessions are going to have to be made — from somewhere. But as the government's 'pause' of its divisive

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Photo: Electoral CommissionHere are five intriguingly poised council chambers for your inspection, as local elections across England offer a tough test for both coalition parties.

Local elections are famous for their individuality. This city has a "very nasty habit of going against the trend". That town "ignores the national picture". Local political history is nearly always far more important than what's going on in Westminster. And then there's the added complications of different ways of doing things — minority administrations here, coalitions there. England offers a hotch-potch patchwork of compromises and power-broking deals.

Despite everything, some of the closest single-tier councils of all offer an interesting snapshot of the agonising decisions in Westminster which could follow today's voting.

We've picked out five councils where the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, clinging on narrowly, are facing intense pressure — both from the rejuvenated Labour party and from each other. They're all different,

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