Politics

We are all of us to some degree prisoners of our own experience. Experience may teach, of course — may counsel or illuminate. But it is also capable of trapping us. We make connections in our imagination between what we saw then and what we see now, and when these memories are of a personal kind and unavailable to others, we’re inclined to treat them as something special: our private mentors. Sometimes that mentoring will be inspired, sometimes mistaken. I once (in the months before last year’s general election) decided to block my ears to opinion pollsters warning that the Tories were hopelessly bogged down, and instead followed my own

If all goes according to David Cameron’s plan, then the EU referendum campaign will be under way very shortly. Cameron himself will be the main figure on the In side of the argument. The Home Secretary Theresa May will also throw herself into the campaign, as Rachel Sylvester wrote this week. Another face of the effort to keep Britain in the EU will be Alan Johnson, the former Home Secretary, who is running the Labour IN campaign. The Remain side of the argument will, as the above list shows, be able to call upon a formidable amount of political firepower. But what is not yet clear is what kind of

The Duke of Cambridge caused much excitement today with a speech he gave to British diplomats at the Foreign Office. In the speech, Prince William spoke about the importance of uniting with other nations: ‘In an increasingly turbulent world, our ability to unite in common action with other nations is essential. It is the bedrock of our security and prosperity and is central to your work. Right now, the big questions with which you wrestle – in the UN, Nato, the Middle East and elsewhere – are predicated on your commitment to working in partnership with others.’ Story hungry hacks took his words as a hint that the royal is backing the In campaign in the

All Westminster might be agog with the latest shenanigans vis-a-vis the got-to-happen-at-some-point EU referendum but most sentient folk in this blessed land are magnificently uninterested in the matter. Not even this morning’s Telegraph splash – ‘Attorney General may back Brexit’  – can stir them from their slumber. At best the majors will have asked, over their E&B this morning, ‘Who is the Attorney General these days?’ North of the border, matters are just as quiet even though another great question remains unsettled. As yet, you see, there is no agreement on the terms of a ‘fiscal framework’ which will underpin the relationship between the finances of the devolved parliament in Edinburgh and the