General election 2015
Grand National Notebook
‘How’s your shoulder?’ someone asked recently, and it was only then I realised, for the first time in a while,…
Miliband vs Millwall
I’ve been trying to think of a good football analogy to describe the battle between the two main parties as…
Pious
Married to a public-school man (I almost said boy) for many a long year, I can’t bring myself to disqualify…
Barometer
Service record The government is to form a design panel to improve motorway services stations. These have not always charmed…
Return to the rose garden
The Prime Minister could never admit it, but he’s dreaming of – and scheming for – another coalition
Salmond’s plan for Miliband
‘Would you like a glass of pink champagne?’ asks Alex Salmond at 3.30 p.m., sounding very much like a man…
Why we lie to ourselves about opinion polls
A strange ritual takes place on Twitter most evenings at around 10.30 p.m. Hundreds of political anoraks start tweeting the…
Migrant muddle
For a long while, the Conservatives have been puzzled about their lack of popularity among immigrants. In theory, the Conservative…
Portrait of the week
Home In a Budget intended to have ‘no gimmicks, no giveaways’, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, offered pensioners…
Diary
It’s dangerous, in my line of work, to promise you’ll be anywhere by 8 p.m. I made this mistake recently,…
Osborne’s decisive moment
George Osborne usually tells his aides to prepare for each Budget as if it were his last. This time round,…
Kitty corner with the PM
David Cameron is too cowardly, or too cynical, to debate with Ed ‘Two or Possibly Three Kitchens’ Miliband — which…
Exit, pursued by a bear
In the 1984 US presidential election, Ronald Reagan came up with an effective way of embarrassing his rival Walter Mondale…
Healthy ambition
Andy Burnham on the NHS, ‘mainstream Labour’ and his party’s leadership
Is that Green or red?
Few people know this, but hidden within the FedEx logo, between the E and the x, there is a small…
Did Cameron ever really want to be nice?
I have a friend who was a Young Conservative. Just the one, I promise, and he’s grown out of it…
Northern exposure
George Osborne on his love affair with Greater Manchester, and his party’s need for ‘a bit of the Heseltine’
What real debate looks like
Ancients would have been astonished that parties never debate against each other in open, public forum except on the telly…
The not-very-general election
There’s normally an easy way to tell which party is losing a general election campaign. Whenever one side starts telling…
Divided we fall
A landslide for the SNP will inevitably lead to the end of the Union
The Lib Dems aren’t scared of this election. But they should be
One of the most remarkable features of this parliament has been the sangfroid of the Liberal Democrats. Nothing seems to…
Escape to victory
Will politics take second place the day after the election?
Laying down our arms
Britain is forfeiting its position on the world stage. With no national debate, we are surrendering our claim to be…
Where is the Tories’ secret weapon?
‘You did this,’ David Cameron repeatedly declared to Tory donors as he reeled off a list of the government’s achievements…
School’s not out
For those who assumed that the removal of Michael Gove as Education Secretary marked the end of the Conservatives’ scholastic…
