If you want to feel a certain sense of dread, look around you, at the accumulating challenges facing Western societies, and at the leaders chosen to manage them. The archetypal, boringly competent, technocratic politician of the past 40 years stands …
Can Liz Truss tell a story?
The most arresting opening to a wedding speech I have come across started thus: “Being asked to give the Best Man’s speech is a bit like being asked to have sex with the Queen Mother.” The audience gasped, clearly a …
How to get over Boris Johnson
With just over a week to go until the climax of the Conservative leadership contest, the name of the people’s favourite is surely not in doubt. After five ballots of MPs, weeks of campaigning and more than ten public hustings, …
Michael Gove’s faultless prophecy
As Boris Johnson prepares to exit No 10, leaving a country teetering on the brink of recession with widespread civil disobedience in the offing, it is time to consider a heretical thought: was Michael Gove right all along?
I do …
Boris Johnson was too Dickensian
Everyone has a character, but some people have more character than others. The British, for example, are blessed with more of it than other Europeans. The Germans have intellect and the French have style, but the British are more dogged, …
Penny Mordaunt is hard to read
Penny Mordaunt is the only candidate in this leadership election whose formative political experience was war. She claimed this week that she knew she was a conservative as soon as she watched Margaret Thatcher’s naval task force sail from Portsmouth …
Keir Starmer is no saint
Given that Keir Starmer went all in on the personal failings of Boris Johnson, it cannot be unfair that questions now circle about his own personality, and whether it is suited to the office of Prime Minister. “Boring” is the …
Britain needs Macmillan, not Thatcher
It is easy — and just — to mock Angela Merkel for her years of reckless misgovernance; thanks to her, Germany is now beginning to ration street lighting and heating, and rushing to install “warmth hubs” so her once-adoring voters …
Why would the young vote Tory?
Harry, a 32-year-old Good Middle Class Graduate from a Good Middle Class Family looks up from his phone. His eyes move across the cramped rental flat to Fiona, his girlfriend of five years. He’s been thinking about starting a family …
Thatcher won’t save the Tories
Since the fall of Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party, the aftershocks of dismay about his integrity continue to ripple, as his potential successors jostle for attention. But beneath these surface concerns, a more challenging struggle has been …
Boris changed the Tories for ever
One of the brutal facts in British political life is that Prime Ministers are often only remembered for one thing. Neville Chamberlain and appeasement. Winston Churchill and victory in the Second World War. Clement Attlee and the welfare state. Tony …
Boris Johnson blames the herd
In a good mood, Boris Johnson likes to ramble, but his resignation speech as Prime Minister was just a few minutes long. On the surface, it made a creditable attempt to project dignity and generosity and good grace. He admitted …
Boris Johnson broke Britain
Pity the poor columnist attempting to write The Case for Boris: a blank screen sits before him, the cursor blinking helplessly. There simply is no case for Boris, no justification for any continued role in public life. None of the …
How Boris destroyed Boris
We are in the summer of 2032, and once again Boris Johnson is fighting for his life. Above Downing Street the carrion crows circle, as they have so often in the last 13 years. Once again a senior minister has …
Michael Gove won’t save the North
Recently, the Prime Minister found himself on Tyneside but thought he was on Teesside. So what’s the problem, other than straightforward stupidity? The problem is that the British road to power rarely leads north, and at a time of much …