Tim Bale’s Blog- ‘Norman Tebbit carried a torch for a “true-blue” politics now embraced by Nigel Farage’, Independent, 8 July 2025
- ‘Why we need to halt “hard right” in its tracks’, The Loop, 10 July 2025.
- ‘Why are Tories suddenly in favour of proportional representation?’, The Independent, 25 June 2025.
- ‘London isn’t a Labour city any more — the three key questions that new polling raises’, The Standard, 24 June 2025.
- ‘Starmer’s immigrant rhetoric and politics of migration’, Anadolu, 23 May 2025.
- ‘Starmer’s winter fuel allowance “U-turn” sets him on a tricky path with backbenchers and voters’, The Conversation, 22 May 2025.
- ‘Nigel Farage has the crowd, but not the plan – and the clock is ticking’, LBC, 3 May 2025.
- ‘Under “Brexit Badenoch”, what is the future of the Conservative Party?’, The Independent, 26 April 2025.
- ‘Brexit and the Conservative Party’, UK in a Changing Europe, 25 April 2025.
- ‘Rachel Reeves needs to change the record’, Linkedin Pulse, 27 March 2025.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
‘Norman Tebbit carried a torch for a “true-blue” politics now embraced by Nigel Farage’, Independent, 8 July 2025
They say “never meet your heroes” – but meeting your antiheroes can be absolutely fascinating. At least, that was my experience when I met Norman Tebbit. How could it not have been? Already branded a “semi-house-trained polecat” as an opposition MP, once in … Continue reading
‘Why we need to halt “hard right” in its tracks’, The Loop, 10 July 2025.
Whatever passes for the centre right these days is in serious danger of being displaced or even replaced by the far right – most often by politicians whose questionable commitment to the checks and balances that characterise liberal democracy and … Continue reading
‘Why are Tories suddenly in favour of proportional representation?’, The Independent, 25 June 2025.
here’s an increasing disconnect between those who want to run the country and the rest of us who merely live in it – and it seems to be making us more likely to call for a change to the way we … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged coalition-government, democracy, Elections, electoral-reform, fptp, politics, pr, UK
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‘London isn’t a Labour city any more — the three key questions that new polling raises’, The Standard, 24 June 2025.
“London is a Labour city” was always something of an exaggeration but it’s even more misleading today than it has been for quite a while. Polling just released by the Mile End Institute (MEI) at Queen Mary University of London … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged keir-starmer, Labour Party, london, mei, politics, Polling, uk-politics
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‘Starmer’s immigrant rhetoric and politics of migration’, Anadolu, 23 May 2025.
The decision last week by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to announce a headline-grabbing tightening of the UK’s immigration regime – and some of the tough talk in which he couched that announcement – is not simply a knee-jerk reaction … Continue reading
‘Starmer’s winter fuel allowance “U-turn” sets him on a tricky path with backbenchers and voters’, The Conversation, 22 May 2025.
The U-turn is a long and, depending on your point of view, honourable or dishonourable tradition in British politics. Now Keir Starmer has been accused of following this tradition after heavily hinting the UK government is reconsidering last year’s decision to deny the winter … Continue reading
‘Nigel Farage has the crowd, but not the plan – and the clock is ticking’, LBC, 3 May 2025.
Nigel Farage doesn’t have a reputation for doing policy. He’s more of a ‘vibes’ politician – all about the headlines rather than the small print. And when it looks like the small print might get him into trouble he simply denies … Continue reading
‘Under “Brexit Badenoch”, what is the future of the Conservative Party?’, The Independent, 26 April 2025.
ow many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one, runs the old joke, but the lightbulb really has to want to change. The same goes for political parties. For all the talk about Sir Keir Starmer somehow fooling his … Continue reading
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Tagged Conservatives, kemi-bandenoch, populist-radical-right, Tories, uk-politics
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‘Brexit and the Conservative Party’, UK in a Changing Europe, 25 April 2025.
The impact of Brexit on the Conservative Party provides a textbook example of the remedy being worse than the disease. Cameron had always been a soft or small-e Eurosceptic, as much concerned with the symbolism as the substance of UK’s … Continue reading
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Tagged Brexit, Conservatives, leave, remain, Tories, uk-politics
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‘Rachel Reeves needs to change the record’, Linkedin Pulse, 27 March 2025.
“Politics,” according to the economist J.K. Galbraith, “is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable” – and that’s precisely what Rachel Reeves can argue she’s done in her Spring Statement. No-one … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Labour Party, politics, preference-shaping, rachel-reeves, Welfare
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