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.
Tag Archives: Conservative Party
‘Is George Osborne really the Political Chancellor, or just a very Tory boy?, The Conversation, 16 March 2016
Is it actually possible for anyone to pen a portrait of George Osborne without using the phrase “political Chancellor” at least once? Even those of us who start out determined not to fall into that trap end up doing so … Continue reading
‘The bloody history of civil war in the Tory party’, Financial Times, 27 February 2016
That the Conservative party believes as much in the strong state as it does in the free economy has long been both its triumph and its tragedy. Triumph because the combination of the two has often proved electorally unbeatable. Think … Continue reading
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Tagged Conservative Party, Conservatives, David Cameron, EU referendum, Europe, Euroscepticism
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‘Speaking for Britain? MPs broadly reflect the views of their supporters on Europe – but one side should worry a little more than the other’ (with Philip Cowley, Anand Menon and Sofia Vasilopoulou LSE Brexit Blog, 12 February, 2016.
To hear some people talk about ‘the political class’, you’d think that those who do the electing and those that get elected have little in common, creating a damaging disconnect which is supposedly fuelling populist politics on both left and … Continue reading
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Tagged Conservative Party, EU, EU referendum, Labour Party, MPs, Public Opinion, voters, Westminster
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‘Cameron and Tebbit are both wrong: Tory activists are not as set on leaving the EU as many imagine’ (with Monica Poletti and Paul Webb), 5 February 2016.
David Cameron has run into trouble for warning Tory backbenchers not to make up their minds on whether to campaign for Leave or Remain “because of what your constituency association might say”. The reaction to his remarks was swift and … Continue reading
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Tagged activists, Conservative Party, Conservatives, David Cameron, EU, EU referendum, Euroscepticism, party members
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‘What Conservative MPs really think about Britain’s EU membership’ (with Philip Cowley), 2 February 2016.
There is a delicious irony in the fact that David Cameron, who ended up promising his party a referendum so as to avoid Europe tearing apart his government just as it tore apart John Major’s back in the 1990s, has … Continue reading
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Tagged Conservative Party, Conservatives, David Cameron, EU, EU referendum, Euroscepticism
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‘EU referendum: A third of MPs could still back Brexit’ (with Philip Cowley and Anand Menon), Spectator, 1 February 2016
How many MPs will come out for Brexit? After hearing endless best guesses, we got rather fed up, and used Ipsos Mori’s Reputation Centre to conduct a proper survey of MPs. The total sample size is just under 100, with … Continue reading
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Tagged Brexit, Conservative Party, David Cameron, EU referendum, MPs, Tories
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‘What they really think on Planet Tory’ (with Philip Cowley), Daily Telegraph, 1 February 2016
When The Telegraph broke the parliamentary expenses scandal back in 2009, many wondered what planet MPs were living on. In fact, they live on two. When it comes to their views on the EU, Tories in Westminster really are from … Continue reading
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Tagged Brexit, Conservative Party, David Cameron, EU referendum, Euroscepticism, MPs, Tories
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‘The Forgotten Cecil Parkinson’, New Statesman, 26 January 2016
When most people who were around in the 1980s think of Cecil Parkinson, they will recall only one thing – his affair with Sara Keays and his subsequent resignation. But he actually deserves to be remembered for far more than that. Indeed, … Continue reading
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Tagged Cecil Parkinson, Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher
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‘Ideology is in the eye of the beholder: How British party supporters see themselves, their parties, and their rivals’ (with Paul Webb and Monica Poletti), LSE Politics and Policy,8 January 2016
If British Election Study figures are anything to go by, those feeling close to the country’s six biggest parties – the Conservatives, Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems, UKIP and the Greens – make up around 15 per cent of … Continue reading
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Tagged Conservative Party, Greens, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, party members, SNP, UKIP
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‘Margaret Thatcher: the Authorised Biography. Volume Two: Everything She Wants’, Irish Times, 24 October 2015
Margaret Thatcher has been as lucky with her biographers as she was with her enemies. Her governments returned Britain to levels of unemployment it hadn’t seen since the 1930s and presumed it would never see again, yet she was able … Continue reading
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