Tory party
What does Michael Gove want?
Tory conference has long been more stage-managed than other party meetings, but this year the official speeches from ministers have…
Boris Johnson was a terrible strongman
The ejection of Boris Johnson from Downing Street today proves that the UK has not gone the way of Donald…
The problems of mid-term PMs
Any Prime Minister who takes over mid-term has to contend with a certain set of problems. Liz Truss will wish…
The Conservative party is a void
Like the winter of discontent, the summer of 2022 is a season that will burn itself into the national consciousness.…
Construction works
It’s time for some old-fashioned Tory state-building
Diary
Two and a half years ago I joined the Tory party to vote for Boris, then unjoined as soon as…
Barometer
The longest heatwave How did the recent heatwave compare with that of 1976? That year, the temperature peaked at 35.9˚C…
The Tories abandon fiscal conservatism at their peril
And then there were two. Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss now go to the membership. There’s much talk today about how…
The Conservative party has ceased to be serious
I’m not sure that the Conservative party wants to win elections. Tom Tugendhat was knocked out of the leadership contest…
The latest Tory leadership debate was a grim spectacle
The eyes had it, in last night’s leadership debate. Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak took turns directing to the camera…
Labour won the Tory leadership debate
That was quite a debate.I’ve never seen senior Tory ministers and MPs lay into each other so publicly. Rishi Sunak…
Sunday shows round-up: Penny under the spotlight
Penny Mordaunt – I’m being smeared over self-ID claims No Conservative party leadership race is ever without drama. With the…
Big tech’s big failure
A few years ago the Conservatives were excited about the march of the tech giants. Uber was offering an alternative…
Why the Tories are more diverse than Labour
‘The candidates fighting to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative party leader and Britain’s prime minister reflect the country’s rich diversity,’…
What the Tory candidates’ logos say about them
There’s a particularly amusing picture from the 1997 Tory leadership contest of Ken Clarke and John Redwood awkwardly paired up…
Gove backs Kemi Badenoch for prime minister
Michael Gove has endorsed Kemi Badenoch for Tory leader. Badenoch, who was one of his junior ministers at the Department…
The truth about life as a gay Tory MP
Male Tory MPs molesting young men? Buttock-squeezing and groin-fumbling at a private members’ club? A middle-aged politician slipping into a…
Boris skewered – for one last time?
A brutal encounter at the Liaison Committee this afternoon. Boris was grilled for two hours by a gang of aggressive…
Who says Boris has to go?
As the cameras burped and clicked, as an aggravated nation watched, Boris Johnson announced that he was giving up. ‘Let…
The silence of Nadhim Zahawi
One by one, cabinet ministers are confirming that they are not resigning this evening, leaving a very small group of…
Will tactical voting topple the Tories?
Boris Johnson has always been a celebrity politician. It is one of the reasons why the normal rules of politics…
British politics is stuck
One of the favourite phrases of British political commentators is ‘oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them’. As with all…
Boris could be toppled by accident
Every Tory leader fears a plot against them. Their paranoia isn’t helped by the layout of Westminster, which lends itself…
Now for the hard bit
Boris Johnson has been plunged back into the mire of partygate. The publication of a photograph of Johnson raising a…
Boris’s fighting talk
Boris Johnson has never quite been able to decide whether he wants to be a great unifier or a great…
