December may not turn out to be the Brexit election after all October 25, 2019 I was 14 when I voted in my first election. Not for real, of course, but in a school-wide mock poll to get us all engaged with politics back in 2005. Sixth-form students assumed the role of candidates (one for each party) and published simplified manifestos based on what the national parties had put forward. [...]
Kinks aside, the porn block was a puritanical attack on sexual expression October 18, 2019 Farewell to the porn laws, one of the worst thought-through pieces of legislation ever to have been at risk of becoming law. First cooked up in 2015 by David Cameron’s team, the “porn blocker” plan which would supposedly have prevented children from stumbling across adult content on the internet has faced repeated delays, and on [...]
MPs must unite to save Britain from no-deal October 18, 2019 Three months ago, EU leaders were adamant that, whatever the new Prime Minister claimed, the withdrawal agreement hashed out with Theresa May was not up for renegotiation. Progress over the summer was glacial, and at the start of last week, experts were still claiming that the chances of a new Brexit deal were next to [...]
Rory walks on with a campaign to spice up the race for London mayor October 11, 2019 Watch out London, your favourite selfie-taking, tie-rejecting, accidental-opium-smoking, politician/rambler is coming to a Tube station near you. Yes, it’s Rory Stewart time once again. For those of us who were mesmerised by the former international development secretary’s short-lived sensation of a campaign to be Tory leader, now we get to enjoy the sequel, after Rory [...]
Could the Prime Minister’s fledgling Brexit plan end this paralysing uncertainty? October 4, 2019 “Unrealistic and damaging proposals”, or a “genuine attempt to bridge the chasm”? That was the debate raging in parliament yesterday, as the Prime Minister briefed MPs on his new plan for a Brexit deal. The reaction to Boris Johnson’s innovative attempt to break the Brexit deadlock has been mixed. Labour and the Liberal Democrats have [...]
Blame the Fixed-term Parliaments Act for this utter chaos in Westminster September 27, 2019 The BBC podcast series The Political Butterfly Effect explores the theory that even the tiniest of events can have vast and unintended consequences. If you’re curious how a bar fight may have caused Brexit, or what the meat extract product Bovril has to do with keeping Britain out of the euro, it’s worth a listen. [...]
Could MPs on all sides please stop acting like unruly school kids? September 13, 2019 The end of the school term goes hand-in-hand with discipline being somewhat relaxed. Lessons focus on pointless activities, farcical excuses for lack of homework are proffered, and boisterous singing will probably break out at some point. So it has proved too with the end of the parliamentary term. On Monday, having lamented that the prorogation of [...]
Neither tragic nor hero, Boris is simply in thrall to the Brexit fates September 6, 2019 When a Prime Minister who has spent his career leaning heavily on his classical education – peppering speeches with references to Pericles, the sword of Damocles, and how the EU subjecting Britain is like the Romans trampling over Carthage – loses his first four votes, his majority, and 23 MPs in the space of four [...]
This epic proroguing gamble shows that Boris is not about to let dithering be his downfall August 29, 2019 Countless criticisms were levelled at Theresa May during her final months in power. She was accused of being stubborn, blinkered, deaf to the mood of the public, and innumerate when it came to considering the parliamentary maths. These are legitimate rebukes, but they were not her biggest failing. The fatal flaw in the tragedy that [...]
The summer is over, now it’s back to Brexit August 28, 2019 The board is set, the pieces are moving, to quote Gandalf from The Lord Of The Rings. Next week, MPs return from the summer recess and both the Brexiter and Remain sides are rallying their troops for the autumn battle. After a summer of insults and infighting, opponents of a no-deal Brexit (including Labour, the [...]
