Slippery Jack
A mad, muscular Sally Bercow cavorts on the Commons chair, diminutive husband on her knee, his features impish. With a few scratches of the nib, the Independent’s merciless Dan Brown, in his cover...
View ArticleThe problems of PR
Two centuries ago, Edmund Burke famously mocked the intellectuals of revolutionary France for trying to devise a perfectly rational constitution for their country. The Abbé Sieyès, he wrote, had whole...
View ArticleSex party
The news is dominated by tales of ‘sexual misconduct’ by men in positions of power, and nowhere is the smell of sleaze as strong as in Westminster. Our politicians work in a building formally known as...
View ArticleWhy did my old friend Patrick Mercer fall for a sleaze sting? I’m pretty sure...
It’s sleaze time again in Westminster. A few good stings by the broadcasters and the press and we see his lordship ‘Nuclear’ Jack Cunningham coining it by asking for £12,000 per month to make use of...
View ArticleI might not be politically correct enough for Ukip
A few weeks ago I drove to Market Harborough for my test as a potential Ukip candidate. The process was very thorough. There was a media interview section, where one of my examiners did a bravura...
View ArticleThe revenge of Parliament
They should have seen it coming. A government defeat on an issue of war may be unprecedented, but defeat on the Syria vote did not come out of the blue. You can certainly blame poor party management,...
View ArticleThe awkward truth about democracy in action
After David Cameron’s decision to seek parliamentary approval for air strikes against Syria, two lobbies came charging in, banners aloft. Now their attention has moved to Barack Obama’s decision to...
View ArticleHave I gone to the wrong party?
I’m still weighing up whether to run for Parliament, but after this week’s reshuffle I’ve concluded I’m in the wrong party. If you’re a middle-aged white male, particularly one who’s been to Oxford,...
View ArticleBarometer
Fat chances The National Obesity Forum said that Britain is reaching a ‘doomsday scenario’ where half the population is obese. What happened to previous government campaigns to tackle obesity? —...
View ArticleCrimean notebook
Vladimir Putin still swears that there are no Russian troops in Crimea, so their mission is to say as little as possible as they invade this holiday region in their unmarked uniforms and vehicles. It...
View ArticleBarometer
Commons inheritance Emily Benn, granddaughter of Tony and niece of Hilary, has won the right to stand for Labour in Croydon South. Which party produces the most political dynasties? Current MPs who had...
View ArticleThe high price of public service
I feel some sympathy for Mark Simmonds, the Conservative MP who’s resigned as a minister and is stepping down at the end of this Parliament because he can’t support his family. His announcement has...
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Could you afford to become an MP?
Mark Simmonds has been in politics long enough to know not to expect much sympathy from his constituents. He resigned as a Foreign Office minister this week because his £89,435 ministerial salary was...
View ArticleNobs and numbskulls
Suppose Charles were to reign as a meddlesome, self-pitying, indecisive plonker. It’s a thought. It’s now a play, too, by Mike Bartlett. In his opening scene he bumps off Lilibet, bungs her in a box...
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A third way to war
Jesse Norman was permitted three minutes for his speech to the Commons in last Friday’s debate. But the contribution from the Conservative MP for Hereford & South Herefordshire was one of the more...
View ArticleLetters
Faith and flexibility Sir: What a contrast in your two articles on religion last week: one liberal atheist parent (Claire Stevens) concerned about her son’s turn to conservative Islam, and one...
View ArticleAristotle on Brooks Newmark
News that the soon-to-be-ex-Tory MP Brooks Newmark has sent pictures of his genitals to a second (presumed female) contact has centred yawningly around ‘rights’, ‘exploitation’, ‘power’ and so on....
View ArticleWhat’s behind the Boris show?
Coming in from the pouring rain, I make my way to the office on the eighth floor of City Hall. With its curving windows, many books and bust of Pericles tucked away in a corner, it reminds me both of a...
View ArticleThe election where everyone loses
On 19 June 1815, after the battle of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington declared that ‘nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won’. Two hundred years later, David Cameron or...
View ArticleOaths for MPs
Before taking their seats in Parliament, all MPs must swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. Mark Durkan, MP for Foyle in Northern Ireland, recently suggested that they should also swear an oath to...
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