Category Archives: Uncategorized

‘Jesus.  Never mind having their cake and eating it, too.  They want the flipping moon on a stick.’ Whether that’s how politicians and staffers will actually react to What People Want to see in Parties, I’ve no idea.  But I confess: … Continue reading →

As the smoke clears at the end of one hell of a week at Westminster, Theresa May has to choose between her party and her country. Either she decides to risk the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal on … Continue reading →

The Labour politician Jim Callaghan famously remarked to his colleagues in 1970 that a referendum on Europe might end up being “a little rubber life raft” into which they all might one day have to climb. Just five years later they did … Continue reading →

We know – at least we think we know – that voters don’t think much of Theresa May’s deal.  But we don’t really know why – until now, perhaps.  A YouGov survey of 1754 adults in Britain conducted on 7-8th January … Continue reading →

Ever since the EU withdrawal deal was published in November, Mrs May has been struggling to persuade MPs to back it. On Tuesday, we should learn whether she has eventually managed to win them over or not. Her attempts to do so have not … Continue reading →

Those who sign off their tweets with #JC4PM2019 may find it difficult to contemplate but sometime, somehow, their man will eventually have to give way to a successor. It may not happen soon. But it will happen. No one, least … Continue reading →

So Prime Minister Theresa May lives to fight another day. She won Wednesday’s vote of no confidence: 200 members of her party stood by her; 117 did not. Indeed, under the Conservative Party’s rules, it will be another year before her … Continue reading →

Blackmail,” as countless on-screen villains have observed over the decades, “is such an ugly word.” And, if you want to understand how an ostensibly small group of Tory Euro-fanatics has exercised such a hold over their leaders for so long, … Continue reading →

When we think of populism in recent years, we tend to think of the Ukips of the right and the Syrizas of the left. These political forces are united by their binary politics, in which they look out and see … Continue reading →

In his big speech to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on Monday, Brexit secretry Dominic Raab urged fellow Tories to “come together”. I’m not sure he needed to bother. Here in Birmingham the issue’s already one big circle jerk. After all, … Continue reading →