June 2nd 2015
You do it to yourself
Between the pomp, the ceremony and the occasional moment of comic farce (google ‘Michael Gove + Prince Philip + Wig + Bag’) it’s sometimes possible to forget that the Queen’s Speech is more than...
May 18th 2015
Dreaming of a revolution
As he spends the day reshuffling his Cabinet, David Cameron stands unchallenged at the top of English politics, with Miliband and Clegg forever vanquished and Farage’s future uncertain. Sturgeon did well, of course, but...
May 8th 2015
Normal service is resumed
David Cameron will now remain Prime Minister and the current Government will carry on, but without the Lib Dems. This result is decisive if still very tight in historical terms. The only person confirmed in...
April 27th 2015
I can't get no.... Satisfaction!
Two weeks left to go until we find out the result – or, at least, the raw ingredients in terms of seats from which a result must be cooked up. It’s fair to say...
April 20th 2015
When shall we three meet again?
Last night’s ‘challengers debate’ was a peculiar creature. Five party leaders lined up to rail against a Government that wasn’t even represented. Of course, this was what Cameron and co. had hoped for –...
April 13th 2015
You take the low road
Last week’s hodge-podge, melee of a debate left most people none the wiser about who was up and who was down – with only Nicola Sturgeon emerging unequivocally improved in her standing and popularity...
April 7th 2015
Too many cooks
In the midst of what has been a very flat, uninspiring short campaign there were high hopes of last night’s debate injecting some kind of momentum into the election countdown. In reality, it fell...
March 30th 2015
The end of the affair
After what feels like months of premature electioneering, this week the House rose for the final time this Parliament. For the Coalition it is the end of the affair. Members from marginal constituencies nervously...
March 23rd 2015
Budget for the base
George Osborne delivered his final budget of this Parliament surfing a wave of backbench and grassroots expectation. This was the moment they had been waiting for - the breakthrough that would deliver, finally, decisive space...
March 16th 2015
The Second Coming
With just over fifty days left till Britain votes, the peripheries of politics are moving menacingly to the centre of the action. The polls stubbornly refuse to budge – predicting a stalemate outcome which not...
December 15th 2014
In the Bleak Midwinter
George Osborne’s Autumn Statement was his – and the Conservative Party’s – last chance to inject ‘big bang’ economic arguments into the forthcoming General Election. There will be a final Budget of this Parliament early...
December 1st 2014
Hard Times
If UKIP had sought to genetically engineer a politician, designed to best aid their disgruntled narrative of a political class that is both elitist and metropolitan, they could very well have ended up with Emily...
October 12th 2014
The Spirit of ‘45
Whatever the final result of the vote itself, the Scottish independence referendum has been a crushing and humiliating blow for the British establishment. The United Kingdom entered this campaign with a double-digit lead over separatism...
October 10th 2014
Four in the bed and the little one said…
After three weeks on the road, touring the country’s hotel bars and conference centres, the political establishment is now left to mull over the state of the parties. What is clear is that this is...
September 19th 2014
Oh England, my lionheart
Not only did Scotland vote to stick with the Union last night but they did so convincingly. A campaign that had seemed set to do the politically impossible – and somersault from a 25 point...