Opinion

The Withdrawal Agreement is not going to get through Parliament and the UK needs more time to sort out a Brexit deal, Mark Harper announced today in a rare display of realism. Alongside Rory Stewart he is one of the few Conservative leadership candidates campaigning on hard-truths in his bid to become the next Prime Minister, but he stands to be punished as a result. The favourites for the job have advocated proroguing parliament to deliver Brexit as well as...

The bloated corpse of Theresa May’s premiership is finally floating down the Thames and the political minnows are circling. It will be a leadership race unprecedented in modern times as the Tories compete to see who’s the most buzz-wordy, who can fake compassion for the poor and whose Brexit plan is most like the Siege of Khartoum. In the 100 metre stumble to Downing Street, Esther McVey was one of the first out the gate. McVey was astounded when the...

Last night a thought struck me as I walked past The Shard on my way home. Parked outside the Shangri-La Hotel – where suites cost £10,000 a night – were a posse of Bentleys – which cost in excess of £150,000 – and other such beamers which stood proudly in a huddle while their respective drivers waited patiently for their passengers. Such shows of exuberant fortune no longer constitute wealth in this day an age – this is mega money,...

It’s hardly as eloquent as e=mc2, but the formula for winning the next general election could be relatively simple for Labour. With results in from last night’s by-election there’s plenty of reasons to be cheerful in the Labour camp. The Conservatives suffered their worst loss in a Peterborough election since 1886 and dropped to third in a constituency they held until 2017. Labour managed to hold on to the seat despite many predicting they would be ousted, with Union activist...

Frontrunners to succeed Theresa May have drawn battle lines over the most destructive way to exit the EU this week, with Domic Raab going as far as saying he may prorogue Parliament to ensure Britain leaves one way or another on October 31st. A nightmarish ‘no deal’ scenario on the spookiest day in the calendar is becoming an increasing possibility based on the sentiment of the Tory hopefuls. All five of the leading candidates to take over from Mrs May...

Ardern has put out a national budget where spending is dictated by what best encourages the “well-being” of citizens, rather than focussing on traditional bottom-line measures like productivity and economic growth.

In September last year I posed a question: Why do people keep calling the People’s Vote a “second referendum” when that isn’t what it is? Whether you want to call it a People’s Vote, a confirmatory referendum or an informed referendum, one thing that should be clear is that this is not simply a re-run of the first vote. Pedantic as it may seem, framing it as such is what allowed Nigel Farage to scoop as many seats as he...

Theresa May's Brexit withdrawal bill will not be published or debated until early June, the government says. The prime minister is under pressure to resign following a backlash from her own MPs against her pledged "new deal" on Brexit.

Remember the ‘Special Relationship’? It’s one of those phrases that gets a certain kind of British politician bleary-eyed with nostalgia. It’s not as popular as it was during the Blair years, when it was continuously invoked to justify unpopular wars, but the hard Brexiteers are big promoters of the concept. Boris Johnson, well-known Atlanticist, has invoked it. Jacob Rees-Mogg, noted mangler of history, imagines that the British can be the Greeks to the Americans’ Romans (this terrible analogy doesn’t even...