A gentleman, runs the old joke, is someone who can play the bagpipes, but doesn’t. Alastair Campbell, podcaster, novelist and sometime press secretary to Tony Blair, plays the bagpipes. Indeed, one of his earliest published pieces — in the pornographic …
What Starmer could learn from Thatcher
As Conservative efforts to animate the ghost of Margaret Thatcher ramped up last September, when the real Thatcherite, Rishi Sunak, was beaten by a cosplaying Liz Truss, few noticed that a similar exorcism was taking place within the Labour Party. …
Ireland will always be divided
Sitting together in the small hours of Good Friday, David Trimble and John Hume slipped into sentimentalism, harking back to holidays spent in Donegal and, in particular, the rugged, rocky peninsular of Inishowen. Inishowen is in the Republic, but is …
‘Tough on crime’ won’t rescue the Tories
“Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” remains one of Tony Blair’s most memorable slogans — still durable and pithy well after its coinage, 30 years ago. It is archetypal of the Third Way approach, and continues to …
The music-hall depravity of British politics
What do John Major, Tony Blair and Ken Livingstone have in common? Obviously, they’re politicians who are now some way past their vote-by date, but more than that, they all have music-hall blood running through their veins. Major’s parents, Blair’s …
Tony Blair lied from the start
It was a bright day in March, and the clocks were striking 13. Outside 10 Downing Street, Rishi Sunak stepped forward, bowed his head, and led his country in a minute’s silence. Above him, fluttering in the gentle breeze, was …
Can Britain resist AI communism?
Can anyone compete with China’s Artificial Intelligence super-system? Sleepy government bureaucracies the world over are finally waking up to the hard reality that they have virtually no chance. China is galloping ahead. Only last month, it unveiled its latest rival …
Kosovo and the hubris of Tony Blair
When a civil servant first suggested to Tony Blair that he needed to be aware of the evolving situation in Kosovo, the prime minister’s response was much the same as anyone else’s would have been: “You’d better give me a …
Keir Starmer the shapeshifter
Dogged by the Covid lockdowns and hamstrung by no discernible charisma quotient, Keir Starmer has spent the best part of his nearly three years in office telling voters what was wrong with his own side, while attacking the Government without …
Why do we pretend to be working-class?
Are we, to quote New Labour in the Nineties, “all middle-class now”? Do we all want to be? Not according to recent polling; far from middle-class norms pervading, British people disproportionately see themselves as working-class.
To understand why, it’s worth …
Princess Diana didn’t change Britain
It was one of journalism’s greatest corrections. “We apologise for the Princess Diana page-one headline ‘Di goes sex mad’, which is still on the stands at some locations,” announced the National Enquirer. “It is currently being replaced with a special …
How Morrissey revived the Union Jack
“Has Morrissey gone too far this time?” It’s a question that could have been asked on any given day in the last 30 years. But this specific occasion is one of the earliest examples of the genre: the NME’s response …
Starmer can’t afford to be Blair
It was one of the hottest summers recorded in British history. Living standards were under intense pressure from an energy crisis and rising inflation. Industrial relations across the country were breaking down. At a factory in north London, working conditions …
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 …
Keir Starmer’s gambling problem
When Tony Blair’s government liberalised gambling, smartphones were still the stuff of science fiction. Sir Alan Budd, who wrote the 2001 review that the 2005 Gambling Act was based on, recently conceded in a House of Lords inquiry that “no …