Tim Bale’s Blog- ‘Boris’s North Shropshire nightmare is eerily reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher’s Eastbourne defeat’, Telegraph, 17 December 2021.
- ‘Your starter for 10: Would the Tories be better off without Boris Johnson?’, Open Democracy, 14 December 2021.
- ‘Boris Johnson’s woes are multiplied if he cannot “unite the right”‘, Financial Times, 11 December 2021.
- ‘Riding the populist wave: the UK Conservatives and the constitution’, Constitution Unit Blog, 10 December 2021.
- ‘To regain lost ground at the next election, Labour will need to convince voters that it can deliver greater social justice and security without risking the economy’, LSE British Politics and Policy, 8 November 2021 (with Paul Webb).
- ‘Boris Johnson wants net zero by 2050. Are his voters behind him?’, The Loop, 3 November 2021.
- ‘Macmillan’s many, many Chancellors’, Daily Telegraph, 30 October 2021.
- ‘The Tories will never change’, UnHerd, 27 October 2021.
- ‘What has happened to western Europe’s centre right?’ (with Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser), The Conversation, 13 October 2021.
- ‘Identity politics are a risky strategy for both Labour and the Tories’, Financial Times, 2 October 2021.
Tag Archives: EU referendum
‘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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Tagged Brexit, Conservative Party, David Cameron, EU referendum, EU renegotiation, Euroscepticism, UKIP
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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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Tagged Brexit, Conservative Party, Conservatives, Corn Laws, David Cameron, EU referendum, Euroscepticism
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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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Tagged Brexit, Conservative Party, Conservatives, David Cameron, EU, EU referendum, Euroscepticism, Tory
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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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Tagged Brexit, Budget, Conservative Party, David Cameron, EU referendum, George Osborne, Iain Duncan Smith, IDS, Welfare
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‘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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