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Martin KettleThe Guardian |
Faced with a crisis in its direction and its fortunes, a political party can sometimes change. Labour has managed that since 2019. But parties do not...
David Marquand and Frank Field, both of whom died this week, never sat on the Labour benches together. The professor of politics and the long-serving...
“Who do you think will lead the Labour government’s revolt on Europe?” asked my walking companion, steeped in politics, as we battled a cold...
Addressing the Labour conference in October, Keir Starmer promised to lead a decade of national renewal. After Covid, Brexit and the cost of living...
Incredible though it may seem, it is increasingly likely that Rishi Sunak’s Conservative leadership will be challenged in June. To many, the idea...
The Conservative party needs another leadership election right now like it needs a hole in the head. Most observers agree about this. Even Jacob...
As racist, misogynist and generally incitement provoking remarks go, Frank Hester’s are not even borderline. Looking at Diane Abbott makes you...
There is nothing, says the former chancellor Ken Clarke in his memoir, “so dead and forgotten as old budgets”. A chancellor’s budget is the...
More than four months into the Israel-Hamas war, and after the Labour party’s Rochdale byelection candidate shambles, it can come as something of a...
On this, at least, everybody can identify with King Charles. His cancer diagnosis this week is a traumatic moment, and not just for him but for his...
Start with the positives, for they are hard to dispute. The new Northern Ireland plan unpicks some of the economic and political damage inflicted by...
Recent prime ministers have been all too obviously thrilled by the adrenaline rush of the flak jacket and international conflict. One or two others...
Next year’s general election will be the 22nd in Britain’s postwar history. Only a handful of these can be described as pivotal. Three stand out:...
Watching the parliamentary year dribble towards the Christmas recess this week, three glaring reasons for Britain’s political malaise shone out as a...
For Keir Starmer, the Tory party is the gift that keeps on giving. If Labour has one overriding wish as the start of general election year approaches,...
François Mitterrand once said that the most essential single attribute for success in politics is indifference. France’s former socialist president...
Once again, a spectre is haunting Europe. Yet the spectre is not communism, as Karl Marx wrongly predicted nearly 200 years ago. Far from it. The...
Observing events from outside the region, one habitually hesitates. Nevertheless, it feels clear that the four-day truce between Hamas and Israel,...
Ever since Brenda Hale stepped down as president of the supreme court in 2020, it has not been difficult to find lawyers who worried that her more...
Political demonstrations are frequently controversial. Any issue that can mobilise tens of thousands of people is likely to involve fierce passions,...
Let us start with a quiz question. A British tradition dating back more than two centuries faces abolition, even though it is both hugely popular and...
Less than 24 hours after the king’s speech, supposedly one of the most reverberant events in the parliamentary calendar, Wednesday’s political...
Yes, Dominic Cummings was in almost every way the ultimate colleague from hell. Yes, Boris Johnson was in a different way the sum of all nightmares as...
Another week and, with disturbing predictability, yet another miscreant MP. Another recall petition looms as a result, carrying the likelihood of...
As temperatures fall and a second winter of war approaches, Ukraine fears that the international enthusiasm for its cause that followed Russia’s...
In what already feels like a different political era, but was really only last year, Nicola Sturgeon named this Thursday as the target date for a...
The White House’s collective stress level must have gone up several notches as Joe Biden and his entourage sat on the runway waiting to leave for...
H amas’s murder of Jewish civilians in the Kfar Aza kibbutz on 7 October was “without doubt a war crime”, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen concluded in...
S tunning. Unprecedented. Uncharted territory. A first in American history. Kevin McCarthy’s removal as speaker of the House of Representatives on...
R ishi Sunak has spent Conservative party conference week claiming he wants to do politics differently. If only. In fact, yesterday’s speech –...
I t’s not every day that you see a pope paying tribute to a former communist – but it happened this week in Rome. By the same token, it is a...
R ishi Sunak’s retreat from the government’s net zero pledges triggers large- and small-scale conclusions alike. These range from a message about...