What will it mean to vote Conservative this December?

One surprisingly interesting question to come out of the last two years - particularly with the December election now approaching - is what the Conservative and Unionist Party now represents for voters. By this point in 2019, do its core values remain the same? Can those voting for it still trust its MPs to be …

Liberal-Conservative Déjà Vu

There's a dark sense of déjà vu about this turn of events, as Boris Johnson joins Jo Swinson as a new party leader in the Commons. Some may remember one sunny day, in a certain rose garden nine years ago, when two fresh-faced political leaders, one Liberal and one Conservative, smiled and laughed and pledged …

On the Consequences of an Unrepresentative Prime Minister

Is the Tory leadership race still on? You wouldn't know it from the political atmosphere in the UK at the moment. Though the technicality of a month-long Hunt v. Boris battle trundles on, you'd be forgiven for no longer thinking that there's a genuine contest on at this point. For the most part, public interest …

The British Ambassador, Huawei, Trade Deals and the BRI: Britain’s Declining Influence in 2019

The political drama this week is that Britain seems to have got itself in a bit of a bind. The American President is directly and continually insulting one of the highest ranking British ambassadors and the government seems to be responding rather limply to it. Nor is that the end of the matter. President Trump …

The Social Weight of Brexit

A recent discussion I saw, comparing Brexit to Thatcher, concluded that whilst Thatcher had an undeniably massive impact, it was clear, even to those who disliked her, that she had a plan. In contrast, the participants saw Brexit as being fundamentally without any plan, singular authority or guiding light, whilst threatening to fundamentally change British …

Taking a chance on Chuka

Chuka Umunna, formerly of Labour and ChangeUK, is now a Lib Dem. As might have been entirely expected, reactions are split. Some praise his conviction and look forward to absorbing him into the Liberal cause, whilst others damn his weasel ways and call (not for the first time, nor unreasonably) for a by-election. After all, …

Rory vs Boris

The results are in and the first ballots cast. Four contenders are out, with six remaining. Already Boris Johnson has more votes than most of the candidates combined, though he holds only around a third of the support of the entire MP electorate (330 in total). It seems impossible that he could fail - except, …

An Absence of Negotiation: May vs Trump

It seems like a contradiction: one represents the ultimate populist, celebrity leader; one, the ultimate traditional, Conservative establishment. Yet both have held their respective governments to ransom over problematic foreign policy: for Trump, the trade war; for May, exacerbating Brexit. Both have reached for the claim to hold a people's mandate in order to override …

Understanding the Local Election Results

It's only 4:30pm and only 202 of 259 councils have declared results, but patterns are already becoming apparent in these elections. It's impossible to ignore the giant blue bar descending on the left of that results graph: the Conservatives are losing, and losing hard. Theresa May, of course, still sees these results as a mandate …

A Note on Definitions: politics, policy and the constitution

We hear an awful lot about how Brexit is breaking the UK constitution, written though uncodified as it is. It certainly seems that way: politicians are running amok regardless of party discipline, the minority government is pushing the limits of what the executive and parliament can do, MPs are abandoning their parties altogether, the parties …