Tag Archives: Conservative Party

‘Would a 2017 General Election mean a landslide victory for the Conservative Party? Yes’ CityAM, 20 September 2016

Unless everything we think we know about politics turns out to be wrong, the Tories are going to win the next election. They are way ahead of Labour on both economic competence and best Prime Minister. Just how big that … Continue reading

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‘David Cameron: The moderniser whose bravery stopped fatally short’, New Statesman, 13 September 2016

Few if any British Prime Ministers have been able to rescue their reputations by publishing their memoirs. David Cameron had better hope he proves one of the exceptions to the rule because, right now, he’s in danger of being written … Continue reading

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‘Can Theresa May even sell her new conservatism to her own cabinet?’, Observer, 17 May 2016.

Political parties can be frighteningly small worlds, with a cripplingly limited cast of characters. As a result, people whose careers are widely assumed to be over – either because they once messed up badly or because their face no longer … Continue reading

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‘With the Labour Party in complete turmoil, does it have any chance of regaining power by 2025? No’, City AM, 13 July 2016.

Labour is going to lose the next general election and very probably the one after that. So whether it can win again by 2025 depends entirely on how soon Theresa May decides to go to the country. General elections are … Continue reading

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‘What do the Tory grassroots want from Prime Minister Theresa May?’, Conversation, 11 July 2016 (with Paul Webb and Monica Poletti).

Theresa May has secured her place as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservatives without having to win the direct approval of her party’s membership. The original plan was for her to run against Andrea Leadsom in an election, but … Continue reading

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‘Simply unstoppable or a self-inflicted wound?’, UK in a Changing Europe, 21 June 2016.

Today, we heard the Prime Minister give his final plea on why we should remain in the European Union, but if David Cameron ever truly believed he could stop his party ‘banging on about Europe’ when it finally got back … Continue reading

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‘Antisemitism is rare in Britain, but Labour should still examine itself’, New Statesman, 20 May 2016.

Another week, another bunch of stories about antisemitism in the Labour Party.  First off we had the announcement that Shami Chakrabarti’s inquiry would aim to report by the end of June.  Barely had we had time to digest that before we … Continue reading

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‘The Corn Laws analogy is misplaced. There’s no good reason why the Tories should split over Europe’, ConservativeHome, 17 May 2016.

An apocryphal aphorism coined by a firebrand left-wing legend might not be an obvious way to start a discussion about what could happen to the Conservative Party in the wake of the EU Referendum, but Nye Bevan surely had a … Continue reading

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‘David Cameron is not the man to shoot the Conservative Eurosceptic dog’, Telegraph, 10 May 2016

You know the Tory Civil War is back on when the body-snatching starts again in earnest.  A few weeks ago, Winston Churchill’s grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames, the MP for Mid-Sussex, made it plain that he took a dim view of … Continue reading

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‘Why Iain Duncan Smith resignation registers a six on the political Richter Scale’, The Conversation, 20 March 2016.

If there were a Richter Scale of Political Resignations, then prime ministers such as Margaret Thatcher, Harold Wilson and Harold Macmillan would register at the very top – on nine. Big beasts such as Conservative Chancellor Geoffrey Howe and Defence … Continue reading

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