MPs of all parties should come together and support the Prime Minister in passing the Brexit Agreement vote
- 23 Nov 2018
The final say on the terms of Britain’s departure from the European Union will soon end up where this whole complex process began, in Parliament. This is as it should be. Parliament approved the calling of a referendum and it approved the terms. It voted to support the trigger...
Remembering Jeremy Heywood
- 4 Nov 2018
Lord Heywood of Whitehall - more familiarly known to us as Sir Jeremy Heywood - served four Prime Ministers in No 10 with great distinction. His early death at the age of 56 robs the country of a very able public servant at a defining moment in its modern history. I met Sir...
Book review: Neville Chamberlain – Redressing The Balance
- 2 Nov 2018
Neville Chamberlain – Redressing The Balance Alistair Lexden A Conservative History Group Publication £5 Neville Chamberlain – appeaser, wearer of ludicrous (even by the standards of the day) wing collars, the co-architect with Adolf Hitler of “peace in our ti...
Book Review: Erebus – The Story Of A Ship by Michael Palin
- 12 Oct 2018
Michael Palin may have come to prominence as a comedian. He has certainly had a good go at being a reasonably serious actor. It is however as a traveller and explorer that perhaps we have come to know him best in more recent times. He has travelled the world for us, bringing t...
On Theresa May's conference speech
- 3 Oct 2018
Today was a moment of epiphany for Theresa May, the Conservative Party, British politics and Britain. It was the moment we saw and heard Theresa May the person, as opposed to Theresa May the politician. It was an extraordinary moment – inspiring as much as it was slightly disc...
Tory conference will change nothing
- 30 Sep 2018
This weekend like thousands of others I am gearing up for the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham. In various capacities – assistant to a Secretary of State (Virginia Bottomley), aide to a leader (William Hague), lobby correspondent (Mail on Sunday), but mainly just as...
The EU has thrown Theresa May a political lifeline – and she’s seized it with both hands
- 21 Sep 2018
It was a stormy Britain the Prime Minister returned to the morning after the Salzburg Summit. Gales of the September equinox were battering the country and the gale of political uproar was swirling around Westminster and battering the door of No 10. ‘Humiliation’, ‘rebuff’...
Remember Emily Wilding Davison – her extraordinary life and mission
- 31 Aug 2018
Book Review: Lucy Fisher's 'Emily Wilding Davison – The Martyr Suffragette' Emily Wilding Davison was arrested ten times, went on seven hunger strikes, and was force-fed on forty-nine separate occasions all in the cause of being allowed to vote. She is most famous for throw...
How the 2017 election looked from Labour’s perspective
- 10 Aug 2018
Book Review: 'Game Changer - Eight Weeks That Transformed British Politics' by Steve Howell I know the exact moment, the day and the time, the Conservative 2017 General Election campaign came off the tracks, because I saw it happen in real time. It was the day the manife...
Remembering Lord Carrington
- 11 Jul 2018
I first met Peter Carrington through a mutual friend, Robert Runcie the former Archbishop of Canterbury. They were good friends and shared a sense of humour. Though from different backgrounds they shared two things in common – both served in the Guards (Carrington in the Grena...