It was the summer of 1995. The Tory leadership struggle was in full swing, and after days of intense excitement Britain’s next Prime Minister — or so he hoped — was poised to emerge into the national spotlight.
The challenger …
How Right is Kemi Badenoch?
The deposal of King Boris was just the first act of the Tory leadership saga. Politicos and hacks are now dabbling in their amateur clairvoyance, trying to predict whether the new prime minister will move the party further to the …
What do Tory voters want?
The Conservative Party is in the grip of its most important leadership election in nearly 20 years. While the last two contests, in 2016 and 2019, were all about Brexit, this one is about the deeper question of what it …
What do Tory voters want?
The Conservative Party is in the grip of its most important leadership election in nearly 20 years. While the last two contests, in 2016 and 2019, were all about Brexit, this one is about the deeper question of what it …
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 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 universities were corrupted
When are we going to do something about the state of our universities? We must surely by now be familiar with the symbols of this unfolding crisis. Philosopher Kathleen Stock, who was harassed by students and staff to such an …
The man who broke Boris
Regardless of what he says, the Prime Minister’s time as a mover of events, rather than a prisoner of them, is up. That fate was inevitable from the moment a young Boris Johnson declared he would be “world king” one …
Only a monarch can control the elites
It’s a little-known fact that Shakespeare hated Americans. At least, when in Twelfth Night Sir Andrew Aguecheek said “I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician”, he meant the same impertinent little cult that would later set out …
Only a monarch can control the elites
It’s a little-known fact that Shakespeare hated Americans. At least, when in Twelfth Night Sir Andrew Aguecheek said “I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician”, he meant the same impertinent little cult that would later set out …
Dominic Cummings: “I don’t like parties”
Recently I was arranging a charity auction for JK Rowling’s Lumos Foundation and I cheekily asked Dominic Cummings to contribute. I have never met him and did not expect an answer. But he said that I could auction an hour …
What made Blakenall turn Tory?
Blakenall Heath, Walsall
The writing is almost on the wall in Blakenall Heath. Only the K and N of Blakenall remain on the sign that marks the entrance to this small suburb of Walsall in the West Midlands. “It’s about …
The betrayal of Ireland’s borderlands
“My cousin owns that pub,” Father Joseph McVeigh says as a yellow building comes into view. “I remember the day it was bombed — just five months before Michael was murdered.”
Michael Leonard, Joseph’s cousin, was shot dead by Royal …
Neoliberalism died before Ukraine
The neoliberal order that triumphed on a global scale in the Nineties and 2000s aspired to the free movement of goods, capital, people, and information throughout the world. Unfettered capitalism would release the global economy from arbitrary constraints, and if …
Sinn Féin won the demographic war
When I was researching my first book, which was about demography and ethnic conflict, I met with a well-known Sinn Féin politician in his Stormont office. I wanted to understand whether the elevated Catholic birth rate in Northern Ireland during …