Yesterday, an upset in the world of parliamentary committees took place large enough for people who aren’t total politics nerds to notice. The reason was that the government, who wanted Chris Grayling to be the new chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, was undone by Julian Lewis, a then Tory backbencher, who conspired with […]
Will the new face mask requirement have repercussions for the government?
What many have been speculating will happen for some time has finally taken place – the government has said that face masks are to become compulsory to wear in all shops and supermarkets in England from July 24th, ie, next Friday. It is classic CoVid era Boris, this one; it appears to be a decision […]
Here’s why the Liz Truss letter about post-Brexit trade is so revealing
An email from Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove outlining her concerns about what a no deal Brexit would entail has been leaked to the media. As expected, it was a big news story yesterday. Yet given all it reveals, it is amazing how relatively little attention it received. For it shines a […]
This is why I think non-Labour people like me are warming to Keir Starmer
Jeremy Clarkson has given a very guarded endorsement of the new Labour leader; it was less of a blessing than most people who haven’t actually read what Clarkson had to say about him think. Yet it wasn’t without real significance. A lot of people who aren’t natural Labour voters really are warming to Starmer all […]
Why I believe the Boris Johnson government is going so hard toward a no deal Brexit
I wrote an article for the Spectator yesterday about how I thought Peter Mandelson was wrong when he overplayed the likelihood that the government were going to avoid no deal by getting something nailed down between the UK and the EU before the end of the year. Instead, I posited that I thought no deal […]
Five myths Corbynistas cling to in a post-Corbyn world, debunked
In the wake of a stunning turnaround within the Labour Party, with the left having lost control of the party, something they looked certain to hold onto for a generation at least, the core myths that propel Corbynistas onward are widely circulating on social media. I have decided to sit down and debunk the five […]
The BLM “FREE PALESTINE” tweet: could the “liberal consensus” actually go into reverse?
Over the weekend, the official Black Lives Matter UK twitter account put out a tweet that read: “As Israel moves forward with the annexation of the West Bank, and mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism, and Israel’s settler colonial pursuits, we loudly and clearly stand beside our Palestinian comrades. FREE […]
Why the idea that Labour cannot win a majority at the next general election is the biggest fallacy in modern British politics
One of the trends from the last five years of politics is that a truism gets established amongst the cognoscenti, which then spreads to the next level of those interested enough in politics to pay attention to at least some of its subtleties – and then the truism gets demolished by reality. “Corbyn could never […]
There is one way and one way only that Layla Moran’s plans for the Lib Dems will work. It is unlikely
This weekend, Layla Moran has set out her stall in terms of what her leadership of the Lib Dems would look like. Unsurprisingly, Layla plans to move the party to the left. Possibly, far to the left. “I will be more radical than Labour and I will be unapologetic about that,” she said. She ruled […]
Here’s what was wrong with the way Remainers campaigned post-June 2016
We are experiencing the eye of the storm in terms of the culture war in this country at the moment. At least I hope we are – please tell me it doesn’t get worse from here somehow. Remainers like to say that Brexit caused this; that it was the vote to Leave the European Union […]