Burnham’s bet: is the Prime Minister planning to call an election?
On 1 September, Andy Burnham gathered Labour MPs in No. 10 for a rousing speech. ‘We are a fighting force,’…
Burnham pours cold water on a snap election
Andy Burnham has just ruled out a general election next May. As I wrote in my cover story this week,…
Revealed: Ed Miliband ignored MI6’s warnings over Israel sanctions
When Andy Burnham was quizzed at PMQs last week about his and Ed Miliband’s decision to sanction the Israeli government…
Andy Burnham’s deafening silence on the Russian threat isn’t sustainable
It’s hard to keep up with what might kill us first. A week ago, the tech-bros were competing to tell…
Meet the most powerful woman in Britain
Some years ago Antonia Romeo, now the Cabinet Secretary, was stuck in a boring meeting about civil service reform. She…
How real is the ‘Burnham bounce’?
We’re still in the dead zone between Reform UK’s conference and the TUC and Lib Dems’ next week, with Labour…
The five takeaways from Reform’s conference
1) THE SPEECH Nigel Farage has made his big speech to Reform’s party conference in Birmingham this evening. It was…
Reform UK is a party in crisis
Deputy heads have rolled. Britain’s populist Reform UK party, in the person of chairman Lee Anderson, announced this morning that…
Revealed: the feuding at the heart of Reform
If Tolstoy had written about British politics, he might have noted: ‘Happy parties are all alike; every unhappy party is…
This year’s silly season has turned sinister
There’s a great scene in The West Wing where the White House is engulfed by a crisis in the Middle East…
Politicians’ contempt for the press is contempt for the public
I was hacked by the Chinese a few years ago. Security at News UK, where I was employed on the…
Five things we learned from the Clacton by-election
1) Nigel Farage is king of Clacton The Reform UK leader won the oddest by-election in UK political history. His…
Rod Liddle was one of the finest journalists of his generation
I only met Rod Liddle a few times, though at The Spectator and the Sunday Times I worked alongside him…
No election? Don’t bet on it
When Dwight D. Eisenhower had to decide whether to launch the D-Day armada he kept a close eye on the…
Andy Burnham’s centrist act isn’t fooling anyone
When Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood arrived in Downing Street on Monday afternoon, the image of political rivals arm in…
Voters are buying what Burnham is selling
We are approaching the end of Andy Burnham’s first week in power. There are as many questions as answers about…
Andy Burnham can’t afford to please everyone
Andy Burnham thinks his critics need a new joke about him. The old one about a Blairite, a Brownite and…
Andy Burnham has a plan – but he won’t tell us what it is yet
Burnham’s schtick is that he is going to re-discover Labour’s true faith When I was covering Barack Obama’s battle with…
Will Nigel Farage’s big gamble pay off?
When Reform high command gathered in the boardroom of their Millbank headquarters last Tuesday, the meeting was supposed to be…
Westminster reels at Ann Widdecombe murder probe
Westminster is reeling from the news that police believe Ann Widdecombe, the former shadow Home Secretary, was murdered. She was…
Reform is right to fear the return of Boris
The man from Reform had barely sat down at our table at the French bistro when he leant forward conspiratorially…
Can Labour’s Golden Generation deliver?
Andy Burnham is just finishing an ‘ask me anything’ Reddit interview, which may shed some light on his plans, but…
Can Burnham resist the siren call of the left?
Power, when it is gained and lost, is transferred in stages: the actual, the visual and the constitutional. The latter…
Five things I’m hearing about the Burnham ascendancy
We are at the phony war/silly season stage of the Andy Burnham ascendancy and there’s a lot of nonsense flying…
The 42 reasons why Keir Starmer failed
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he wanted it. ‘Because I’d be good…
