David Cameron
Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and the return of Tory wars
From the moment he took his job, Michael Gove knew that he would make energetic and determined enemies. The teachers’…
Libya is imploding. Why doesn't David Cameron care?
A few days ago I went to a talk about Syria; one of those events for the concerned layman, in…
Welcome to the age of four-party politics
Two things will make the next general election campaign quite unlike any previous election in this country. The first is…
Only Angela Merkel can save David Cameron now
British politicians still prize a visit from the President of the United States above all others. Yet no American President…
If David Cameron can't get the floods right, all his hopes will wash away
It is all hands to the pump in Downing Street. The entire No. 10 operation from the Prime Minister down…
Alexander McCall Smith’s diary: Meeting Babar’s creator
As any author will tell you, literary festivals differ widely. If you are invited to Willy Dalrymple’s Jaipur Festival, with…
How the first world war inspired the EU
To understand the real meaning of the EU, you must grasp that it originated in the first world war, rather than the second
What the NHS owes the Tories
Pinned to the wall of Jeremy Hunt’s office in the Department of Health is an A1 piece of paper detailing…
Why foreign aid fails - and how to really help Africa
David Cameron’s favourite authors on what the government gets wrong about tackling poverty
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that English local authorities would be allowed to receive all the business rates…
Cameron’s mission for 2014: stay out of third place
European elections are normally an afterthought in British politics. As even David Cameron admits, most of us struggle to remember…
When trolling pressure groups cause real harm
My grandmother, Nanny Nancy, is 99 and going strong. But it can’t be denied that while she’s all there mentally,…
Peter McKay's diary: The Old Etonian David Cameron should have been
David Cameron gives Old Etonians a bad name. Critics deplore his Old Etonian-ness, his Lord Snooty Factor. Childish, but it’s…
Why should Nigel Farage have to fight the ghost of Enoch Powell?
One of the genuine seasonal pleasures to be enjoyed as 2013 slipped around the U-bend was Enoch Powell making his…
High tea in Sri Lanka's Hill Country
Alex Massie relaxes amid lush lawns and eccentricity
John Bercow must rein it in — Parliament can't afford to depose two Speakers in a row
John Bercow could go down as a great reforming Speaker of the House of Commons. It’s thanks to him, in…
The next election will break all the rules
Ed Miliband’s aides used to scurry around the parliamentary estate, their shoulders hunched. A look in their eyes suggested that…
Tristram Hunt's diary: Why has Gove allowed a school that makes women wear the hijab?
ONE OF THE MINOR sociological treats of being appointed shadow education secretary is a frontbench view of David Cameron’s crimson…
Don't hug me! (Even though sometimes it's rather nice)
Have we gained from abandoning the handshake?
In it together? Matthew d'Ancona's book on the coalition is a huge letdown, says Peter Oborne
There are two ways of being a political journalist. One is to stay on the outside and try to avoid…
Max Hastings’ diary: I love the British Army (but not the Blackadder version of it)
The looming centenary of the outbreak of the first world war offers an opportunity to break away from the Blackadder/Oh!…
David Cameron’s wars: How the PM learned to love precision bombing
Supporters of intervention in Syria will be the first to desert Cameron when the going gets tough
This cant about protecting children from porn is really about protecting the coalition
I have tried very hard to become an afficianado of pornography, seeing as it is by far the most popular…
