Politics (UK)
Slippery Jack
A mad, muscular Sally Bercow cavorts on the Commons chair, diminutive husband on her knee, his features impish. With a few scratches of the nib, the Independent’s merciless Dan Brown,… Read more
Palace intrigue
Plunging into the second volume of Alastair Campbell’s diaries is like opening a Samuel Richardson novel. Plunging into the second volume of Alastair Campbell’s diaries is like opening a Samuel… Read more
Yesterday’s heroes
The Labour peer and historian Kenneth Morgan is perhaps best known for his accounts of the Attlee government, Labour in Power, and the Lloyd George coalition, Consensus and Disunity, a… Read more
What’s the big idea?
If you’re not quite sure what the Prime Minister means when he talks about the big society, you’re not alone. If you’re not quite sure what the Prime Minister means… Read more
Politics: From Red Ed to Steady Eddie
Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are locked in a political duel, and only one of them can survive. Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are locked in a political duel, and… Read more
Politics: Get ready for a year of upheavals
This will be the year of the political identity crisis. This will be the year of the political identity crisis. As we enter 2011, all three major parties are having… Read more
The making of the coalition
David Cameron was despondent on the evening of 10 May. Although the election result was pretty much as he had predicted privately, he feared that his ‘big, open and comprehensive… Read more
Built on columns
The timing was obviously important: there’s a guaranteed post-election market for books about the campaign, usually made up of people who followed the real thing slightly too closely. The timing… Read more
The other Prince of Darkness
This is a clever publishing idea, a light academic-historical cloak for another set of political memoirs. Jonathan Powell, chief of staff (the term should not be taken literally) at No.… Read more
Not good enough
Tony Blair gave his record in government ten out of ten, though an ungrateful electorate scored rather less well and his Cabinet colleagues performed even worse. Sadly, they were ill-equipped… Read more
Politics: After the cuts, a growth strategy – this is an electoral as well as economic plan
On Monday night, all new Conservative MPs were summoned to a meeting with the chief whip in Portcullis House. On Monday night, all new Conservative MPs were summoned to a… Read more
Fair is foul
By the time one has waded to page 22 of Them and Us, through what may most politely be described as a stream of consciousness, assailed by random thoughts and… Read more
Straining for effect
A saint of self-deprecation, Chris Mullin closed the first volume of his diaries A View from the Foothills ‘contemplating oblivion’ after his dismissal from ministerial office. A saint of self-deprecation,… Read more
Was his diary his downfall?
The audiotape of Alan Clark’s Diaries — barely mentioned in this rather Dr Watsonish, sensible shoe of a biography — is well worth hearing. The audiotape of Alan Clark’s Diaries… Read more
Modesty in words and work
Attlee’s Great Contemporaries: The Politics of Character, edited by Frank Field This book consists of a 50-page introduction in which Frank Field, shrewdly though large- ly in eulogistic vein, analyses… Read more
Latest blogs
- Spectator Play: what’s worth watching, listening to or going to this weekend Camilla Swift
- Drummer Lee Rigby Douglas Murray
- Eight Golden Rules for Tragedy Tweeting Freddy Gray
- Government behaving badly over ‘quietly aborted’ lobbying reform Iain Anderson
- Vice is vanishing from Britain Leo McKinstry
- Edmund Burke and post-modern conservatism David Blackburn
- Why, once again, a fall in student immigration is good Andrew Green
