June 15th 2018
When The Levee Breaks
No-one likes a know-it-all and ‘told you so’ are three of the least popular words in the English language but, still, the PM can’t say she wasn’t warned. Irreconcilable promises always - always - find...
June 13th 2018
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Recent studies have demonstrated that prolonged periods of financial insecurity can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder. People who live on the breadline - not knowing from one day to the next how they will feed...
June 12th 2018
The Unlucky General
Relentlessly, right up to the line, 2017 continues to surprise and unsettle. Damian Green believed that he was in the clear. So did many of his colleagues and sources close to the Prime Minister. But...
May 25th 2018
Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again?
Michael Gove thinks that the Chancellor is getting in the way of a ‘green Brexit’. Jacob Rees-Mogg is worried that it has started to look like Theresa May ‘doesn’t want to Brexit’ at all. Greg...
May 4th 2018
Daydream Believers
From the outside, apocalyptic movements are hard to comprehend or understand. Repeated promises that the ‘end is nigh’, often with a specific date attached, lead to nought. The world keeps turning and apocalypse keeps being...
March 8th 2018
A New Morning?
Well, they did it. After months of speculation that Nigel Farage and his supporters were over-egging their chances of topping the Euros, UKIP proved that it wasn’t hubris after all. They won on vote share...
February 1st 2018
Victory on a Plate?
As Team GB goes for gold – and the UK focuses on winners and losers – press attention is turning back to politics and the condition of the Coalition. Like a fragile cracked vase, the...
February 1st 2018
Dizzy! My Head Is Spinning
As ever, Prime Minister Theresa May is battling a leadership crisis this week. Rumours abound that the Chair of the 1922 Committee is getting perilously close to having enough letters of no confidence in...
December 5th 2017
The Walls Are Closing In
Theresa May is running out of choices. This is happening because of the choices that she once made. The clock is ticking on our negotiations with the EU, because Theresa May triggered Article 50 sooner...
November 23rd 2017
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right
Philip Hammond was once - very recently, in fact - a politician basically in touch with the consensus of his age. Mildly pro remaining in the EU, enthusiastic about balancing the budget, keen on the...
November 9th 2017
Play It Again, Sam
This is the Groundhog Day Government. Another week, another scandal, another minor reshuffle to paper over the cracks. Lessons learned? None. Hope of avoiding repetition? Zilch. Theresa May is doomed to go from one...
November 2nd 2017
Chinese Radiation
In European philosophies of kingship, legitimacy is usually premised on some combination of blood, faith and a nod to parliamentary acceptability. The Chinese see things differently. For Emperors of China, legitimacy comes from another source...
October 5th 2017
Isn’t It A Pity
The leadership of the Conservative Party hoped that their conference in Manchester this year would press pause. Pause on the deflation of Theresa May's authority as Prime Minister. Pause on Jeremy Corbyn's love affair...
September 29th 2017
O Come, All Ye Faithful
What to make of Labour Conference? And what does it mean for the Tories as they gather, next week, for their own? The first thing to understand about the delegates who gathered in Brighton is...
September 8th 2017
The Only Way is Up
For most politicians, the rough and tumble of the day-to-day means that tactics come first and strategy has to wait. Our MPs and ministers live in a state of perpetual motion when the House is...