“I was not really in Manchester at all,” wrote J.B. Priestley after spending a few days in the city for the opening of a play in the early Thirties. “I was living in a private nightmare city, bounded in space …
Did Dominic Cummings derail HS2?
“I’m a long way from Manchester so I might be missing something,” tweeted one Westminster pundit, “but it surely takes a special kind of spin-doctor genius to decide to axe the Manchester leg of HS2 during your annual conference in, …
Rishi Sunak’s war on the young
What does a fair distribution of economic resources look like? It is a question that will dog the Conservative Party Conference this week as questions over inheritance tax, VAT on school fees and the triple-lock on state pensions return to …
The Left is losing the climate class war
Britain’s cosy climate consensus has been broken. No longer is “net zero” some airy target that can waft freely in the intellectual blue sky of speeches and policy papers — it is an ambition that has finally drifted onto the …
Will Dominic Cummings destroy Westminster?
Can a dissident operate openly within the system he wishes to destroy? For revolutionary-turned-Substacker Dominic Cummings, wrestling with whether or not The Startup Party he has floated on his Substack blog is a mission worth pursuing, the auguries are surely …
Will Dominic Cummings destroy Westminster?
Can a dissident operate openly within the system he wishes to destroy? For revolutionary-turned-Substacker Dominic Cummings, wrestling with whether or not The Startup Party he has floated on his Substack blog is a mission worth pursuing, the auguries are surely …
The Centrist Dads won’t save Britain
The Centrists are back, baby, and this time they are bringing with them the solution for our polarised times. Such seems to be the theme of the past week, what with former MP and would-be Prime Minister Rory Stewart talking …
How conservative is Net Zero?
In 2019, the Conservative manifesto promised to “lead the global fight against climate change, by delivering on our world-leading target of Net Zero”. In the wake of the Uxbridge by-election, that ambition looks much more precarious. As the Prime Minister …
The case for leaving the ECHR
Was it Theresa May who broke the taboo? In April 2016, in her only public speech during the Brexit referendum campaign, the then Home Secretary reluctantly concluded that the UK should remain in the EU, but leave the European Convention …
Can the Tories stop mass migration?
During a recent holiday in the East of England, I followed a sign through a farm gate offering raspberries for sale. It turned out to be a table in an empty farm outbuilding, with punnets of raspberries, a weighing scale, …
How the Tories can survive the wilderness
It may be difficult to believe, but when John Major’s tired and sleazy administration suffered a shattering defeat at the hands of Tony Blair’s New Labour in 1997, many Tories weren’t all that worried. Beneath the hype, they believed Blair …
Will Uxbridge ever trust again?
Uxbridge is Metroland, the paradise at the end of the Metropolitan Line. It is a century-old marketing invention selling the fantasy that, if you got on the Metropolitan Line at Aldgate, and stayed on for an hour, you would alight …
Westminster has failed Selby
It’s a rainy Saturday afternoon in North Yorkshire, and Rishi Sunak is trying to reassure the North Yorkshire Conservative Association gathered on his front lawn that all is not lost. Sheltered under a marquee, he’s like a cruise-ship crooner entertaining …
The betrayal of Borisland
Through massed ranks of Midlanders, I can see Gregg Wallace’s head bobbing up and down. He’s making couscous and frying some sort of meat, cracking jokes about his MasterChef co-presenter’s drinking habit and flexing his biceps for the crowd. Wallace …
Will Starmer recapture Nuneaton?
It’s 1pm, and the mercury is kissing 30°C when the first pipers round the bend. Four abreast, they march: drums beating, bagpipes pumping in the heat. Thousands of people line the pavement, pushed up against the verge, clasping warm pints …