Boris Johnson
Entrepreneurship – not Johnson’s New Deal – will lead us back to prosperity
John Maynard Keynes looks down and smiles, recalling his own perhaps too-often quoted remark that ‘when the facts change, I…
Plan to fail
How was Britain so ill-prepared for a pandemic?
Rewiring the state
Covid has revealed what is wrong with Whitehall
Author’s Notebook
From the balcony where I take my daily exercise there is a view of the commercial centre of London that…
Portrait of the Week
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said he was ‘as fit as a butcher’s dog’ and did press-ups to prove…
A whole new deal
If Boris wants to channel Roosevelt, he should end lockdown
Does Boris’s ‘new deal’ offer anything new?
Today Boris Johnson launched his ‘new deal’ for Britain – billed as an economic recovery plan to follow the Covid…
Britain emerges, blinking
The Prime Minister’s announcement that pubs, restaurants and many other facilities will be able to re-open on 4 July amounts…
Why Biden might be better for Brexit Britain
At the best of times, US presidential elections require the British government to walk a tightrope. In 1992, a Tory…
Will there ever be another Conservative mayor of London?
Even in these strange political times, it looks very difficult for a Conservative politician to become Mayor of London. In…
Time to recover
The discovery in Britain that a £5 steroid, dexamethasone, can be effective in treating Covid marks a potential breakthrough in…
Is the Brexit deadlock about to be broken?
Trade talks between the UK and the EU are in a better place than they have been at any point…
Take back control
There is a grim inevitability to the trickle of round-robin letters from scientists who feel aggrieved at the government’s handling…
Case history
Boris’s new permanent secretary is a complicated choice for No. 10
Normality won’t return until schools do
From Monday, you will be required by law to wear a face covering on public transport. Paradoxically, this is a…
Low life
Saturday night we ate outside next to the floodlit rock face. Four adult guests came puffing up the path and…
Could Keir Starmer become a populist politician?
It has been a remarkable week. Boris Johnson’s refusal to sack Dominic Cummings for what the vast majority of Britons…
Boris Johnson’s majority is not as big as it first appeared
The last week has shown that Boris Johnson’s majority of 80 isn’t as big as it first appeared, I say…
Out of the dragon’s den
Boris Johnson’s plan to reduce Britain’s dependence on China
It’s not only Cummings whose fate is at stake
When the cabinet met by conference call on Monday, three ministers spoke in support of Dominic Cummings: Jacob Rees-Mogg, Suella…
The UK is preparing for a major Huawei U-turn
The UK has made a strategic choice to get ‘off the trajectory of ever-increasing dependence’ on China, I revealin the…
Dominic Cummings has a human shield: Boris Johnson
The rule of modern politics, let’s call it Trump’s first law, is that if you are being attacked for apparently…
Boris Johnson needs to admit his coronavirus mistakes
Be careful what you wish for. Over the past few years, a fair number of thoughtful Tories have included a…
Floor
In the game of ‘U’ and ‘Non-U’, begun by Alan S.C. Ross (1907-80) and popularised in Nancy Mitford’s volume Noblesse…
Two big gaps in Boris Johnson’s lockdown statement
There were three messages in Boris Johnson’s address to the nation, and quite a lot of important gaps. The messages…
