Patrick O’Flynn

Boris's cunning has allowed him to share in England's Euro 2020 glory

10 July 2021 3:45 pm

You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. That was the formula of legendary New York governor Mario Cuomo and…

Stop politicising football

9 July 2021 9:15 am

Before the England football team plays in the Euro 2020 final on Sunday we need to get one thing straight: who…

How Keir Starmer can rescue his leadership

2 July 2021 8:23 pm

In January 1990 things looked truly bleak for Alex Ferguson as Manchester United manager. He had not won a trophy…

What does Starmer actually stand for?

29 June 2021 11:55 pm

The biggest reason Keir Starmer has proved a flop is not that he leads an unelectable rabble, or that Labour’s…

It's time for Rishi Sunak to stand up to Boris Johnson

27 June 2021 4:00 pm

Finally the pandemic fog is lifting and the outlines of post-Covid politics are starting to take shape. While the Government…

Brexit, lockdown and the fracturing of British politics

17 June 2021 8:45 am

Is our society becoming less tolerant and more viscerally tribal? Or is our politics provoking people into committing more angry…

Priti Patel is running out of excuses for the Channel migrant crisis

9 June 2021 4:50 pm

When immigration minister Chris Philp announced last summer that he was in the process of agreeing a ‘new operational plan’ with…

Labour is the culture war's greatest victim

3 June 2021 7:45 am

How damaging is the ‘culture war’ to the Labour party’s hopes of one day regaining power? On the left there…

'There is no alternative': Why Boris will keep winning

30 May 2021 4:00 pm

Those of us who generally wish this Government well and consider Boris Johnson a preferable holder of the office of…

An electoral pact would be disastrous for Labour

26 May 2021 4:00 pm

How do you tell a politician who has just been punched in the face by the electorate that something is…

Boris’s Tory enemies don’t know how lucky they are

22 May 2021 7:01 pm

It is often said that most Conservative MPs have a highly ‘transactional’ relationship with Boris Johnson. The inference is that…

Andy Burnham is Labour's king over the water

19 May 2021 3:00 pm

There are few things so perilous for an under-performing opposition leader as the emergence of a ‘king over the water’.…

Labour are deluding themselves about Boris's 'vaccine bounce'

15 May 2021 3:30 pm

That vast battalion of pinko pundits who confidently expected Boris Johnson to get a drubbing in last week’s elections has…

Starmer is Labour's Iain Duncan Smith

10 May 2021 9:25 pm

After a gruelling election campaign the most important thing to do is to have a rest and have a think. Everyone…

The London mayoralty needs to be reformed

9 May 2021 8:23 am

Who does a capital city belong to? In the case of London tonight, one answer could be ‘Labour’, now that…

Labour is doomed whether Starmer stays or goes

7 May 2021 7:37 pm

So the Conservatives have won the ‘pools, as we used to say of jackpot winners before the advent of the National…

Hartlepool and the theft of the Labour party

5 May 2021 4:00 pm

When the unthinkable happened in 1882 and England lost a test match on home soil to Australia there followed a…

How Boris eclipsed Cameron

17 April 2021 3:45 pm

Remember the days when David Cameron was the sleek young prime minister who had brought to an end 13 years…

Sadiq Khan's victory could be bad news for Labour

4 April 2021 3:45 pm

Let’s take a look into a political crystal ball: it is Friday 7 May and a beaming Sadiq Khan is…

Diane Abbott has exposed Keir Starmer's Red Wall dilemma

20 March 2021 6:15 pm

Were Keir Starmer more like Gordon Brown in temperament then by now he’d be throwing his mobile phone at a…

The Green party is missing a trick

2 March 2021 10:53 pm

The British left is moribund. The Labour party’s ratings are sliding under Sir Keir Starmer, aka ‘Captain Hindsight’, as he…

The greatest threat to Boris's legacy

28 February 2021 6:31 pm

The government is starting to have an opinion poll problem, but it has nothing to do with any great threat…

Can Labour capture the spirit of the post-war era?

21 February 2021 6:00 pm

The right is usually much better than the left at harnessing the awesome power of the folk memories that surround…

Labour’s revealing support for reparations

15 February 2021 11:28 pm

The most extreme measure in the entire Labour Party manifesto of 2019 – and this is a high bar –…

Do Tories know the truth about Boris Johnson?

24 January 2021 6:15 pm

Exactly 40 years ago tomorrow, four Labour party grandees issued the Limehouse Declaration, signalling ‘the re-emergence of social democracy in…