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...
The Prime Minister has made her choice and now we must get on with it
- 10 Jul 2018
Winston Churchill when asked for his opinion on Anthony Eden, his successor as Prime Minister, at the time of the Suez Crisis is reputed to have said, “I wouldn’t have dared to start, but having started I wouldn’t have dared stop.” Theresa May must surely feel something simila...
Adam Smith’s timely lessons for modern conservatism
- 5 Jul 2018
Book Review: 'Adam Smith – What he thought and why it matters' by Jesse Norman Jesse Norman cuts a lofty figure at Westminster, both intellectually and physically. Eton, Oxford, a PhD, a stint as a lecturer and a Visiting Fellowship at All Souls are an impressive combinatio...
The fight for women’s equality has a long way to go
- 29 Jun 2018
One hundred years on from some women being allowed to vote in Parliamentary elections, 48 years on from the Equal Pay Act of 1970, and 24 years on from the first woman being ordained a priest in the Church of England, the Chairman of the House of Commons Treasury Select Commit...
The government faces a crunch day for Brexit in Commons – or does it
- 20 Jun 2018
Here we go, it’s Brexit day – again – in the House of Commons. Peers and MPs have been summoned in case of Parliamentary ‘ping-pong’. Journalists gather in Central Lobby and the cameras mass on College Green. Accusations of bad faith fly about, charges of treachery and disloya...