Category Archives: Uncategorized

The populist radical right wins power in different countries in different ways. In Hungary and Poland, what were initially mainstream conservative parties with populist tendencies drifted inexorably, and now, it seems, irrevocably, into illiberalism once in government. Brexit provides perhaps … Continue reading →

Everyone knows that Labour has the largest grassroots membership of any British political party, aided by thousands of keen Momentum activists. Everyone knows that as a result they will out-perform the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats when it comes to what … Continue reading →

British Conservatives can claim to be the world’s oldest and most successful political party. They’ve been written off more than a few times in the 200-plus years they’ve been around. But they’ve always bounced back. Their secret? The ability and … Continue reading →

Some 200 years ago, Britain, France and Austria agreed a treaty designed to counter their common rivals, Russia and Prussia. It was signed in secret by the British foreign secretary Viscount Castlereagh and his opposite numbers, the French Duke of Talleyrand and … Continue reading →

Lots of exasperation, not that much enthusiasm and a big dollop of don’t know: support for Boris Johnson’s EU deal and implications for the election Brexit is going to play a big part in determining who wins the general election, … Continue reading →

How important will Brexit be in deciding the general election in the UK’s capital? To hear some people talk you’d think that London is also the capital of Remainia, jam-packed with voters who can’t wait to send a full slate of EU-flag-waving … Continue reading →

For all the increasing interest in the way parties these days fight elections on social as well as on broadcast and print media, the ground war – fought by ordinary people on streets up and down the country – still … Continue reading →

Going it alone is rarely as easy as we think. That’s almost certainly true as far as a no-deal Brexit is concerned. But it’s also something that needs to be borne in mind by the MPs who were kicked out of the … Continue reading →

The Labour Party owes the UK Supreme Court – big time. Before its president, Lady Hale, delivered the Court’s bombshell verdict on the government’s unlawful prorogation of parliament on Tuesday morning, the mood in the party had matched the dreadful weather that … Continue reading →

Who knows whether it was merely a coincidence that, just a few hours after flying home from meeting President Donald Trump in New York, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson put on one of the most insidiously poisonous performances I have ever had the … Continue reading →