If there were an Olympic competition for the historical importance of British financial announcements, then Rishi Sunak would already be occupying the entire podium. Friday’s astonishing 80% wage guarantee announcement is bigger and more important than last Tuesday’s £330bn support package, which in turn was bigger and more important than his first Budget the prior […]
Harold MacMillan never actually said “events, dear boy, events” are what blows a government off course. Nevertheless, like all the best apocryphal Westminster tales, it captures something essential about politics the Government might ruefully reflect upon in the coming weeks. For make no mistake, the Government’s agenda lies in tatters. It is not just that […]
The Labour Party loves a hoary old cliche and the hoariest of them all is that the party is “a moral crusade or it is nothing”. It comes, ironically enough, from one of only three men ever to win a Labour majority, Harold Wilson. Ironic because it captures perfectly the self-regarding moralism that means Labour, […]
So it’s done. We’re out. Brexit day has arrived. And with it the temptation, common at such obviously historic moments, to reach for overly portentous quotations. Yet those desperately seeking a John of Gaunt fix this morning would be advised to look elsewhere – I come armed only with a phrase popular in some of […]
Neither the Brexit-bonger-in-chief Mark Francois, the BBC’s increasingly ‘end of the pier’ Question Time, nor the circular firing squad formerly known as the Labour Party appears to have received the memo. Yet the unnerving reality for those whose old hysterical habits die hard is that politics in our new decade has quietly turned a rather […]
They probably don’t agree on much else at the great economists’ dinner parties in the sky, but Karl Marx and Adam Smith would both argue that studying work is the key to understanding society. Nor would either be particularly shocked to see an analysis of occupational changes in the last decade reveal the changing face […]
A little over two weeks ago, in typically unorthodox fashion, Dominic Cummings uploaded his thoughts about the ongoing election onto his personal blog. For the most part, the Prime Minister’s strategist stuck largely to his campaign’s core script, albeit with more capital letters and tirades about Dominic Grieve. Yet towards the end of the article, […]
Over the next few hours and days we will hear a lot about the alleged political genius of Boris Johnson and his Lazarus-like revival of the Conservative Party. We may even see the return of the ghastly ‘Heineken politician’ moniker, a description which seems to demand a working knowledge of 1980s Dutch beer adverts. Well, […]
We are often told there are two cleavages in politics: cultural and economic. To these however, I would add a third – or more accurately perhaps, the fourth – dimension: time. Attitudes towards the past and especially the future shape our politics in profound and unexpected ways. Take, as an example, questions about automation and […]
Nobody has quite gone full David Steele and told them to “prepare for government”. However, it is fair to say the thronged masses of Lib Demmery gathered in Bournemouth this week are not in a particularly humble mood. New recruit Chuka Umanna talks effusively of winning 100 parliamentary seats, leader Jo Swinson maintains she is […]
There is no triter statement about politics than Harold Wilson’s famous observation, but seldom can a Westminster week have felt as long as this. Only seven days ago it seemed reasonable to imagine Dominic Cummings dancing through Downing Street assailed only by the congratulatory clinking of his infamous ‘Get Ready for Brexit’ mugs. This week, […]
If you meander for an hour or two around Parliament Square, you may find yourself somewhere beyond the looking glass gazing into the British soul. For Westminster is not just the home of our political heartbeat but also the unequivocal epicentre of British eccentricity. Almost no cause, it seems, is too serious to be spared […]
Ten days in to the Johnson Premiership and there should be little doubt where we are heading. Dominic Cummings may revel in his contempt for Westminster Village groupthink, but this time the Prime Minister’s special adviser might have to admit we’ve got him right. The Vote Leave band is back together and whilst lead singer Johnson […]
It is, to put it mildly, a rather crowded field. And yet this week may have seen a late and surprisingly competitive entry in the battle to hold the most ludicrous Brexit position in Parliament. The unwitting submission to this dubious title came from Sarah Champion, Labour MP for Rotherham, on Tuesday’s edition of the […]
Jeremy Corbyn is toast. No, really its true. In fact, just about the only people who can save him now are the Conservative Party, who could yet conspire to elect a leader so divisive that the fallout catapults Jezza into Number 10 via an autumn general election. But in the Labour Party he’s spent, finished, a […]
Today could have been very different. Indeed, for a short time on Wednesday, as Emmanuel Macron flirted with his inner Gaullist, it looked like the EU Council would not extend Article 50 and that Britain might now be out. In the end though the French President resisted ‘le grand non’ and we remain. Britain’s new […]
These days, even we vanishingly few supporters of the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal must caveat our position with dismay towards her political conduct. This dynamic — that her leadership is now even more toxic than her deal — must surely spell near fatal danger in the coming days and weeks. It is difficult too to […]
Ultimately, this is a column about Labour, Brexit and the Independent Group. However, first I am afraid we do need to talk about Chris Williamson. For just as the Westminster commentariat began to scratch their metaphorical beards and ponder whether Labour’s second referendum gambit had shot the Independent Group fox, the MP for Derby North […]
So it has happened. After enduring years of scorn and abuse, seven MPs have finally acted upon the advice of their more “forthright” members and resigned from the Labour Party. For those of us who still possess a lingering emotional connection to that institution it makes for a sad and poignant day. Indeed, that the […]
Westminster is very far from a model of harmony these days, yet on one point there is an unusual unity. For whatever happens in the broiling Brexit debacle our MPs have decided your disappointment can be pinned upon one solitary figure. Yes, in this respect it matters little whether you see the Prime Minister’s negotiating […]
