Labour Party
Corbyn’s salvation
If Labour’s atheist leader could show he was at peace with religion, it would go a long way to making his job more secure
Diary
With four days to go until the result of Labour’s leadership election, a call from the Sunday Times. Would I…
Barometer
It’s their party Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership contest with 60% of the vote among four candidates in the…
The Spectator’s notes
When the Labour party began, its purpose was the representation of labour (i.e. workers) in the House of Commons. Indeed,…
Labour’s lost thinker
Jon Cruddas is still looking for ways to renew his party.They’re unlikely to please his new leader
Twitter speak
‘Tweeting’s like text messaging, isn’t it?’ said my husband confidently, though not, as usual, from any knowledge of the matter.…
How Gordon Brown’s hit man became Labour’s peacemaker
Last week I was talking to a member of the shadow cabinet about Jeremy Corbyn’s impending victory as Labour leader.…
Credible
In a wonderfully dry manual of theology on my husband’s bookshelves, written in Latin and printed in Naples in the…
Diary
‘Devon, Devon, Devon/ Where it rains six days out of seven.’ Nothing beats a British seaside holiday. And north Devon…
Corbyn and the plebs
Last week, guru Corbyn was invited to reflect on the 2,500-year-old Roman origins of the republicanism to which he is…
The green ink brigade is now running the show
Daily they drop into my email account — alongside the more obviously useful stuff about how I might elongate my penis…
The Corbyn enigma
How do you solve a problem like Jezza?
Surviving the purge
Labour’s centrist forces could take years to recover. Or forever
Just how republican is Jeremy Corbyn?
True to his antique, bearded ideology, guru Corbyn is a ‘republican’, a form of government invented 2,500 years ago. ‘Republic’…
Labour MPs’ next choice: which leadership coup to back
Jeremy Corbyn’s close friend Tony Benn had five questions he always asked of those in power: ‘What power have you…
Time is running out for Labour
The Labour leadership contest was supposed to be a debate about the party’s future. Instead it has oscillated between petty…
Labour’s losing instinct
The party always swings left after defeats. But this time is worse
Long life
I’m going off Jeremy Corbyn. He seems more and more pleased with himself by the minute. But I understand why…
Taleban
Toxic virus or Taleban: it’s funny how the mild-mannered Liz Kendall has attracted for her Blairite associations the most violently…
Party-naming with Plato
In order to make a sensible choice of new leader, the Labour party is trying to work out what its…
If Corbyn wins, he could split the Tories too
‘Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?’ asked C.P. Cavafy in his poem ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’: Because night has fallen…
The agony of Labour’s old-fashioned modernisers
The exhausted Labour leadership contest takes a bucket-and-spade holiday next week, with all four candidates agreeing to an uneasy truce…
If Corbyn becomes PM, I’m blaming you lot
Imagine, for a moment, the following scenario. In 2016 Britain votes narrowly to remain within the European Union, despite the…
Why MPs can’t switch off this summer
There are few quicker ways to annoy an MP than to suggest that they are on holiday when the House…
Why I voted for Jeremy Corbyn
Is the ‘Tories for Corbyn’ campaign politics at its most infantile? As one of the few conservative commentators willing to…
