Parliament
Will all roads soon lead to York?
Should the PM move parliament to York? There is, of course, historical precedent for such a move, as he very…
Why has coronavirus not closed parliament?
Why hasn’t parliament been closed after Health minister Nadine Dorries contracted coronavirus? Why isn’t the government demanding the cancellation of…
MPs need an alternative career path to just becoming a minister
Parliament feels rather quiet at the moment, and it’s not just because there are no longer constant knife-edge votes on…
Judgment day: the danger of courts taking over politics
Who runs Britain? When Boris Johnson’s lawyers made their case in front of the Supreme Court this week, defending his…
Word of the week: ‘prorogue’
It was most unlooked-for that a king should ally with Whig politicians to seek parliamentary reform, but that was what…
Why October 10th is Boris Johnson’s best bet for a snap election
Boris Johnson thrives on risk. His political life so far has consisted of a succession of gambles that have paid…
Portrait of the week: Brexit flextension, the demise of Debenhams and a real shower in the Commons
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, wrote to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, asking for an extension…
Westminster’s splitting headache: who will quit next?
The first thing to note about the ‘South Bank seven’ is that they are nothing like the four former Labour…
Taking back control: parliament’s plan for Brexit
Straight after the government’s epic defeat in the House of Commons on Tuesday night, the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, the Business…
Nick Boles’s plan is certainly crazy. But it just might work
At first, it seems fanciful. A backbench MP, Nick Boles, proposes to take power away from the government and place…
The unbearable pointlessness of Parliament
Christmas books pages usually invite columnists to nominate their publishing event of the year. Well, here’s a corker: The Ties…
Britain is heading towards a soft Brexit or a second referendum
Unless Theresa May delays the vote, 11 December 2018 might be about to become one of the most important in…
War-gaming the Brexit vote: seven scenarios for what happens next
Parliament is in deadlock over Brexit. So what can we expect in the coming days and weeks after the vote?…
Portrait of the week: Mark Carney’s kind offer, the return of Parliament and Steve Bannon vs the New Yorker
Home Mark Carney kindly said he would stay on as governor of the Bank of England if it helped the…
Order, order! In the Commons, you are where you sit
Diet nannies will spend Christmas telling us ‘you are what you eat’ but in the House of Commons ‘you are…
Cull the lawyers – there are too many for democracy to work
Last week the Daily Telegraph’s front page showed the 15 Tory MPs who had voted against the government under the…
Rumours of sexual misconduct swirl around Westminster
Home A great ferment of accusations of sexual impropriety was made against people in Parliament and out of it. Bex…
It’s not victim shaming to suggest there might be two sides to every story
Somewhere towards the end of the 1980s I was suddenly promoted three grades upwards in my job at the BBC;…
Britain über alles
David Cannadine was a schoolboy in 1950s Birmingham, which was still recognisable as the city that Joseph Chamberlain had…
Can we be friends?
Have you heard the one about the new Labour MP who refuses to be friends with Tories? When Laura Pidcock…
Labour must stop feeling repulsed by the idea of Englishness
My party needs to stop being scared of patriotism
Life inside Jeremy Corbyn’s crazy party
What life is like inside the Labour party right now
Portrait of the week
Home After it was twice defeated in the Lords on its plans to reduce working tax credits, the government announced…
Charles Moore’s Notes: what the Labour party needs is a parliamentary representation committee
When the Labour party began, its purpose was the representation of labour (i.e. workers) in the House of Commons. Indeed,…
How Labour can depose Jeremy Corbyn
Labour’s centrist forces could take years to recover. Or forever
