Tag Archives: Conservatives

‘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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‘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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‘What does Trump’s victory mean for UK politics?’, LSE Blog, 12 November 2024.

Elections can sometimes make us crazy, even when they’re going on elsewhere – especially, perhaps, when they take place in the USA, where the results inevitably have more implications for the rest of us than do contests taking in smaller, … Continue reading

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‘The Conservative Party’, UK in a Changing Europe, 5 December 2023.

British voters have fallen out of love with the Conservative Party – and hopes that Rishi Sunak might persuade them otherwise are fading fast. On almost any measure, the Conservatives have fallen behind Labour. And while the Leader of the … Continue reading

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‘To Defeat Far-Right Nationalists, Don’t Try to Imitate Them’, New York Times, 16 July 2018.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government in Britain is in turmoil. But the resignations that have rocked it in recent days — even that of Boris Johnson, who was until recently her obsessively ambitious foreign secretary — risk blinding us to a … Continue reading

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‘Here’s Tory Brexiteers’ real plan for 2019: a leaner, meaner Britain’, Guardian, 13 July 2018.

It’s a truth pretty universally acknowledged that the reason the Conservative government has struggled to come up with an agreed negotiating position in the wake of the country voting for Brexit is that many Tories who campaigned for leave didn’t … Continue reading

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‘Is capitalism at a crossroads?’, Observer, 1 October 2017.

Seen from space, capitalism seems to be ticking along quite nicely. Globally, at least, the markets and growth they promote have pulled millions out of absolute poverty. Zoom in, though, and the picture is more worrying – and not only … Continue reading

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‘Death and foxes: why certain issues have the power to turn a political campaign’, Prospect, 7 August 2017

British Election Study research released last week not only confirmed that the campaign made a big difference in 2017, but also gave us an insight into the issues that may have changed voters’ minds. Two or three things on the list—neatly illustrated … Continue reading

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‘Are elections won by members or money?’, ConservativeHome, 22 December 2016

We live in a golden age of political participation. Hard to believe it, I know. But when it comes to people joining political parties, it’s true – or at least half true. On the one hand, huge numbers of people … Continue reading

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‘The Conservative Party and Business have fallen in and out of love for decades’, The Conversation, 11 October 2016.

Given the potential impact of a so-called “hard Brexit” on bottom lines, as well as the less-than-friendly tone of recent ministerial and prime ministerial interventions, it’s hardly surprising that relations between the British government and business have been pretty strained … Continue reading

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