The Culturally Rich Get Richer

Allow for a moment this flash of irritation. It does have the ghost of a point.

Why can the success of others arouse such annoyance?

The Brexit Party Crack-Up

At the start of the year, the Brexit party didn’t exist. When it roared to success a few months later in the European parliamentary elections, much was made of how unlike a normal party it was. Nigel Farage was fond of telling audiences that his MEPs included Tories and former members of the Revolutionary Communist party. What else could unite them, he would ask, but the need to leave the European Union? Yet that common cause is now proving to be the party’s undoing in the wake of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.

The Westminster Sexual Harassment Scandal That Wasn’t

British politics, from the outside looking in, appears decorous and bland. Steeped in archaic tradition, it can seem almost quaint, with displays of partisan animosity reserved for the theatre of Prime Minister’s Questions, and everyone in Parliament addressing each other with superficial politeness, never omitting the correct honorifics.

Brexit Obsession and Foreign Policy

Leaving the European Union (EU) is beginning to get difficult. In recent weeks the prime minister has faced muted opposition in the House of Commons and active defiance in the Lords.

The Coming British Rapprochement with Russia

After the British electorate voted to leave the European Union last June, things began to change rapidly. The prime minister speedily resigned and was replaced. His successor brought in a host of ministers – some new people and some rather old ones – to take account of this dramatic shift in public opinion. Those who had been on the fringes of the governing Conservative party – for example David Davis, an archetypal antique face – are now in the cabinet.

David Cameron and Continuity

For the first time in years, things can be said to be changing in Britain. For over half a decade, during the Cameron era, politics in this country had exhibited a particular sort of inertia. Though the ordinary stuff of government – and the attendant challenges involved with governing – took place, change never seemed to be the order of the day.

An Afterword to the Cameron Era

This last week has felt terribly strange. It was – at least in domestic terms – the first time in my politically aware life that things have seemed tremendously, dreadfully significant. I have lived through many wars and revolutions in foreign countries (and I have followed many of them with interest), but the current chaos overtaking Britain’s political system seems different again; it is both less severe and in a way worse, not least because it is entirely self-inflicted. Ministers have resigned; shadow ministers have been fired; and every political party (with a few exceptions) now faces real internal turmoil. This is not the stuff of stable government; it is not the ideal breeding ground for a generation of sensible, pragmatic leaders and statesmen.

Mea Culpa

Over a year ago, I made a very optimistic prediction. During the 2015 election campaign, when the Conservatives proposed holding a referendum on our EU membership, the then Labour leadership and others united to say that it would be a bad idea. They said it would be divisive, that it would harm the very democracy it was intended to strengthen, and that virtually nothing good could come out of the exercise.

A Specialist in Failure

Jeremy Corbyn’s term as leader of the Labour party has not been terribly accomplished. Short as it is, it already contains examples of staggering incompetence, which is almost as much of an obstacle to some voters as his inflexible ideology. In this he is not atypical; all politicians make mistakes, and all who aspire to government are capable of failing to exploit certain situations to their utmost. But Corbyn in many ways is a special case; he is almost uniquely unable to exploit favourable circumstances, to build up political momentum in any way.

David Cameron’s Counter-Intuitive Achievement

The Conservative party, according to some commentators and a smattering of gleeful Labour politicians delighted to see it happening to someone else, is in crisis. Indeed, it is reckoned by many to be on the verge of civil war. A terrible chasm beckons, the result of ancient fault lines surrounding the issue of Europe. In reality, I doubt this is true.