October 20th 2022
Killing In The Name
Turns out she was a quitter, after-all. Liz Truss has resigned as Leader of the Conservative Party and will cease to be Prime Minister inside a week. She has done this because she was not...
October 3rd 2022
Treading water
There is a school of thought which says that our collective reaction to ‘u-turns’ disincentivises doing the right thing and encourages a defensive, combative style of politics. If only, so this argument runs, we were...
September 26th 2022
All falls down
Our new Prime Minister is busy briefing that she intends to ‘move fast and break things’. The markets demonstrate that she is achieving this, to a frankly terrifying extent, so she and her chancellor must...
September 13th 2022
Lodestone Insights Live – The first 100 days of the new leader
Overview Lodestone hosted an hour-long Lodestone Insights Live webinar on what the UK can expect from the first 100 days of Liz Truss’s premiership. Speakers included: Martha Dalton - Lodestone’s Managing DirectorChris Blackhurst -...
September 2nd 2022
Simple kind of life
Well, here we are. On Monday we will finally ‘know’ who our next Prime Minister is. We already know, of course. It would be a shock even to him should Rishi win after all...
July 11th 2022
Strange Fruit
Do you believe in destiny? One wonders if Boris Johnson does, anymore. For a long, long time he really did. His slow, but seemingly inevitable, ascent to the pinnacle of British politics affirmed for Johnson...
June 24th 2022
Nowhere to run
What is the point of Boris Johnson? What is he for? That’s the question that a lot of Tory MPs are asking themselves today - as the results in Tiverton & Honiton and Wakefield sink...
June 7th 2022
The Tide is High
Luck is a thing that is there until it isn’t. And today Boris Johnson’s luck began to evaporate. He won, yes. But he won like you win when the doctor tells you that it’s months...
April 22nd 2022
Lazy Afternoons
One of Boris Johnson’s secret weapons is his ability to ‘sit it out’. There’s not a lot to this, of course. But it is difficult to pull off nonetheless. Crises have their own magnetic power...
February 4th 2022
Sad, Sad Situation
The human drama of our politics has seldom been so raw as last night’s events. Munira Mirza is not simply a departing aid. Her utility to Johnson went far beyond her impressive grasp of policy...
January 24th 2022
Bad choices
It is not just Boris Johnson’s career that is on the line this week, it is the immediate electoral future of the Conservative Party. Many Tory MPs are waiting for Sue Gray to report before...
December 17th 2021
Last Christmas?
You win some, you lose some. And for governments that have been in office for over a decade, when it comes to midterm by-elections, more often than not; you lose some. Why, then, does the...
December 16th 2021
That's me in the corner
In politics, one of the benefits of winning - and being in government - is that your successes are there for all to see. The downside, of course, is that so are your failings. Our...
December 15th 2021
Run to the hills
Prime Ministers always enjoy de jure authority - over their country, over their party. But it is an office that is impossible to maintain if you lose de facto authority. And for any Prime Minister...
December 8th 2021
Savoy Truffle
“It’s all baked in.” That’s the line you’ll hear from lots of very clever political observers and commentators when it comes to Boris Johnson’s personal improprieties. The theory runs that the public know that Johnson...