Parliament

Word of the week: ‘prorogue’

7 September 2019 9:00 am

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

15 August 2019 4:00 pm

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

13 April 2019 9:00 am

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?

23 February 2019 9:00 am

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

19 January 2019 9:00 am

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

19 January 2019 9:00 am

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

15 December 2018 9:00 am

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

8 December 2018 9:00 am

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

8 December 2018 9:00 am

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

8 September 2018 9:00 am

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

16 December 2017 9:00 am

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

25 November 2017 9:00 am

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

4 November 2017 9:00 am

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

4 November 2017 9:00 am

Somewhere towards the end of the 1980s I was suddenly promoted three grades upwards in my job at the BBC;…

Bristol ablaze: anger at the Lords’ rejection of the Second Reform Bill sparked riots in Queen’s Square, Bristol, October 1831 (William James Muller)

Britain über alles

23 September 2017 9:00 am

  David Cannadine was a schoolboy in 1950s Birmingham, which was still recognisable as the city that Joseph Chamberlain had…

Can we be friends?

23 September 2017 9:00 am

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

21 May 2016 9:00 am

My party needs to stop being scared of patriotism

Life inside Jeremy Corbyn’s crazy party

5 December 2015 9:00 am

What life is like inside the Labour party right now

Portrait of the week

29 October 2015 9:00 am

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

19 September 2015 8:00 am

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

5 September 2015 9:00 am

Labour’s centrist forces could take years to recover. Or forever

Spectator letters: Cutting the Lords, and a defence of Edwin Lutyens

29 August 2015 9:00 am

Trimming the ermine Sir: I am a new boy in the House of Lords compared with Viscount Astor — though…

Why MPs have a duty to resist online petitions

15 August 2015 9:00 am

It is the duty of MPs to resist Twitter storms and online petitions

Look beyond the Sewel video: the House of Lords still works

1 August 2015 9:00 am

The shaming of Lord Sewel was a classic tabloid exposé. The fact that a peer of the realm (albeit one…

Why lawyers deserve Michael Gove

27 June 2015 9:00 am

A great test of political leadership is how well you deal with vested interests on your own side. In his…