John McTernan was political secretary to Tony Blair
It doesn’t matter how loyal a candidate is. Once elected, all MPs (to a greater or lesser extent) conclude they have won their seat because of their unique qualities and personal vision. When they look in the mirror, many will see a future prime minister. Almost every backbench MP believes they are one reshuffle away
Diane Abbott is a giant figure in the modern Labour party. As the first black woman ever to be elected to the House of Commons, and the longest serving black MP, she is an inspiration to black and brown communities – especially women – across the country. Abbott also wrote a crass and offensive letter
Offering Sue Gray a job as his chief of staff is one of the most consequential decisions Keir Starmer is ever going to make in his political career. For a senior politician, your chief, together with your communications director, and your campaign director, are force multipliers. They represent you in meetings and briefings you can’t
Boris Johnson and No. 10 staff could soon face being interviewed under caution over partygate. While this is remarkable, it is not unprecedented: Downing Street has been the focus of a police investigation before, when Tony Blair, my boss, was prime minister. Fifteen years ago, the ‘cash for peerages’ affair led to me and my colleagues being interviewed
Tony Blair had a breakthrough moment in the mid-1980s. As an opposition frontbencher, he observed that UK politics was paralysed by Margaret Thatcher. The Conservative party were in awe of her and Labour were mesmerised like a snake in front of a mongoose. Politics was binary: are you for or against Thatcherism? Tony realised that
If we learned one thing from Labour Party Conference it’s that capitalism is bad. The union leaders said so, the delegates said so, Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Labour Party, said so – at length. And do you know what? They’re right. Capitalism is bad, very, very bad – at defending itself. As anti-business
Claiming credit for things that are nothing to do with you is where trouble starts in politics. You can claim that you have abolished ‘boom and bust’, even when occasionally qualified as ‘Tory boom and bust’, but the economy will disprove you – as Gordon Brown spectacularly found out during the Global Financial Crisis. George
It takes some skill to turn the BMA into the NUM – but Jeremy Hunt has done just that. It takes nearly as much skill to persuade the public that people on £53,000 a year are scions of the oppressed working classes – but the BMA, aided by Hunt, have done that too. How did
David Cameron should be in real trouble over Calais. It goes to the heart of two of the central issues by which British voters judge governments: are you competent and can you control immigration. Judging by the unstoppable growth of the chaotic ‘Jungle‘, the increasing number of assaults on Eurotunnel staff and the rising number
Here are four things that Liz Kendall has said during the Labour leadership campaign. First, that she would never close a successful school. Second, that the country should always come first, not the party. Third, that the UK should spend at last 2 per cent of GDP in defence. And finally, that Harriet Harman is
In a valedictory interview, Sir David Nicholson was quite frank about the state of the health service that he has run for the last eight years. ‘In its current form,’ he declared, ‘the NHS is unsustainable.’ It is hard to imagine Simon Stevens, who takes over as NHS England chief executive this week, having to
