Stephen Daisley

‘There is no step, thought, action, or lack of action under the heavens,’ wrote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, ‘which could not be punished by the heavy hand of Article 58’. Unite the Union’s rules appear to operate on much the same basis as the Soviet provision against ‘counter-revolutionary action’. Gerard Coyne, Unite’s West Midlands secretary, has been

‘Get back to the day job.’ The six magic words that delivered the Scottish Tories their best election night in decades. Ruth Davidson recited this incantation endlessly during the campaign and Labour and the Liberal Democrats quickly joined in. As messages go, it was blunt but effective, capturing the public mood that Nicola Sturgeon has

Nick Timothy has penned an honest and reflective piece about the Tory election boorach. It can’t have been easy to write less than a week on from defeat and his departure from Downing Street. The most important point he makes is substantive. Theresa May abandoned the One Nation vision she sketched out on the doorstep of

When I heard the Tories were cutting a deal with a party of bigots and terrorist-sympathisers, I thought, ‘would a national unity government really work?’ It turns out Theresa May is tapping up the DUP rather than the Labour Party. PMQs is accused of ‘yah-boo politics’ as it is; wait till the questions are asked

When Alex Salmond lost the Scottish independence referendum, he sought to console himself and the ranks of the vanquished by declaring ‘the dream shall never die’. It was the salve that soothed the disappointment of a nationalist movement. But today that dream appears to lie in ruins. Two years ago, the SNP swept all before

For Labour moderates agonising over whether they can vote for the party led by Jeremy Corbyn, an answer to their dilemma comes from a surprising quarter.  The quandary of party or principles comes down to whether you agree with Margaret Thatcher or Enoch Powell. Early in her premiership, Mrs T paid a visit to the Conservative

Campaigning starts again tomorrow, but in his speech in Carlisle today Jeremy Corbyn made what is – for any Labour leader – a fairly obvious point: ‘You cannot protect the public on the cheap. The police and security services must get the resources they need not 20,000 police cuts. Theresa May was warned by the Police

Paul Nuttall doesn’t want to be a hangman after all. There was some doubt over the weekend when the Ukip leader said he’d bring back the death penalty and would even pull the lever himself.   This left Andrew Neil somewhat curious and so he used his election interview to enquire if Nuttall had been signalling a

We learned something important from Jeremy Corbyn’s interview with Andrew Neil: The Labour leader wants to be Prime Minister and will do whatever it takes. His soppier critics often announce their sympathy for a man who would be much happier on the backbenches. Do not believe a word of it. Listen instead to what he told the BBC

The security services are a rum lot. All that intrigue gets to you eventually, and that’s not counting those who sign up with less than laudable intentions. Harold Wilson was paranoid but not necessarily wrong.  So when Jeremy Corbyn’s MI5 file finds its way onto the front page of the Daily Telegraph, even those not

The Conservatives are going to win the election — that much we know. The question is what kind of opposition Britain is going to be left with. If a slew of moderate Labour MPs are swept out, the Corbynite grip on the party will strengthen. The leader will not go and Labour will take a great

Prime Minister, I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that you have been denounced in the letters page of the Daily Telegraph. One correspondent huffs: ‘I wonder if Theresa May and her small group of advisers closeted in Westminster are aware of the fact that each initiative they introduce in an

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for Labour, Noam Chomsky goes and endorses Jeremy Corbyn. ‘If I were a voter in Britain, I would vote for him…He’s quiet, reserved, serious, he’s not a performer,’ Chomsky told the Guardian. But the more you read of Chomsky’s endorsement, the more you wonder if he was

Theresa May spent the weekend in Scotland and not even the civilised bit. The Prime Minister was posted to the wilds of Aberdeenshire, which are handsome and underpopulated but not exactly a commuter hub. Journalists grumbled about the remoteness of the location, well aware that inaccessibility was the point. May has not been campaigning in

In this, as in all things, Paul Keating was right. It was the former Aussie Prime Minister, a Beethoven of political invective, who called his country’s Green Party ‘a bunch of opportunists and Trots hiding behind a gum tree trying to pretend they’re the Labor Party’. Keating’s acid scherzo could apply just as readily to

Len McCluskey has seen off a challenge to be elected to a third term at the helm of Unite. And what a seeing off it was. When the votes starting to come in, and reportedly showed the top two contenders neck-and-neck, McCluskey’s rival was promptly suspended. Gerard Coyne was stripped of his duties as West Midlands

I worked on the first TV debate of the Scottish referendum. I was involved in countless more. I was to be found on the production team for televised clashes during the 2015 general election and the 2016 vote for Holyrood. So I speak with some experience when I say TV debates are a terrible idea.