Conservatives

What does a dying government sound like? At 12.08 p.m. on 4 February we got an answer. Keir Starmer admitted to the House of Commons that he knew about Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein when he made him ambassador to the US in 2024. There was a sharp intake of breath from the shocked Labour benches. It was the kind of moment that defines a premiership. And it was also testament to an effective Leader of the Opposition. In the drama of Mandelson’s disgrace, the Conservative party played its part well. After besting Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions, Kemi Badenoch turned to coaching the Labour backbenches. She had put

I mentioned here recently that to my mind Boris Johnson bears a fairish similarity to Dr Faustus, as Christopher Marlowe portrayed him: selling his soul only to then waste his time in futile and silly gestures. The Conservative party is one of the only political parties whose leader seems to rather dislike its own voters Perhaps I can now add Rishi Sunak as another possible stand-in for that role. As Sunak announced a general election in the drenching rain last week, I was forced to ask again: ‘What was the point of all this? What was the point of rising up the ladder, of knifing his predecessor, of working, campaigning

Who is the most divisive figure in politics? Last year the Daily Mirror claimed Lee Anderson was ‘the worst man in Britain’. This week the Conservative MP is managing to cause a headache both for Labour and his own party. Anderson is a grassroots favourite who even before he was made deputy chairman of the party was near top of the list when it came to the MPs local associations wanted to speak at their events. When No. 10 gave him the role back in February, the idea was that he would help Rishi Sunak in his appeal to the 2019 coalition – with Anderson a straight-talking red wall MP.

The political world splits in two whenever fresh evidence emerges that Boris Johnson does not think that life’s rules and norms apply to him. One faction, the majority, humourlessly harrumphs about standards and brands him unfit for high office. Another tries to excuse the latest infraction. It’s a grey area. It’s not a serious matter. There’s a vendetta against him. Today we saw the latest case of Johnson finding it churlish to expect him to stick to the ‘network of obligation that binds everyone’ (a phrase that should be copyright of his Eton classics teacher, Martin Hammond). According to the Sunday Times, the BBC chairman and former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp

Conservative governments have a habit of self-destructing: they die not in battle with political enemies but as a result of vicious infighting. It’s been less than three years since Boris Johnson’s triumphant 80-seat election victory, which seemed at the time to come close to condemning Labour to oblivion. Yet this week in Birmingham it was the Conservatives who have looked doomed, posing a far greater threat to each other than to Keir Starmer. In her conference speech, Liz Truss laid out a confident and coherent agenda. She is correct about the need to harness the power of free enterprise to kickstart growth, but she failed to prepare the ground for

Tory conference has long been more stage-managed than other party meetings, but this year the official speeches from ministers have also been condensed into a very strange late afternoon slot lasting just two hours. The rest of the time is free for fringe meetings and plotting. Ministers and their aides have been told they have to keep their addresses to the hall announcement-lite, which makes those two hours feel largely pointless. Kwasi Kwarteng didn’t announce very much at all, even though his two U-turns have dominated the day’s agenda. This morning, the Chancellor dropped the plan to abolish the 45p rate of tax, and this evening it has emerged that

Is there a way for the government to get out of the mess that it is in? This is the question obsessing ministers and Tory MPs. If the government doesn’t set out how it intends to square the circle, it’ll be risking more market mayhem. But as I say in the Times today, it is very hard to see a way out of this that is both politically palatable and economically possible. Nervous Tory MPs are being told by one of Truss’s cabinet allies ‘the solution is to be very tough on public spending’ A rapidly growing number of Tory MPs think the government should abandon or delay the abolition

Tom Tugendhat and Penny Mordaunt both took to the BBC Sunday Show this morning. Tugendhat’s appearance came straight after the chief of the defence staff Tony Radakin and Tugendhat immediately went on foreign policy his strongest suit. His answers in this area are crisper than his ones on domestic issues.  Tugendhat made much, as he always does, of the ‘clean start’ he would offer. He did, though, credit Boris Johnson with breaking the Brexit deadlock and levelling up, though said he would take it further. He reiterated his call for a further cut in fuel duty, he wants 10p off. But on energy more broadly he talked about the need

Can Liz Truss gather momentum behind her leadership bid? That’s the challenge facing the Foreign Secretary today ahead of the second round of voting in the contest. Truss is vying for votes among the right of the party along with Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch. Of the three, she came out on top in the ballot on Wednesday with 50 MP nominations to Badenoch’s 40 and Braverman’s 33. There is now a push to get these MPs to rally around one candidate. As a supporter of Truss remarked last night: ‘Lots of people need to do some soul-searching.’ When asked why she hadn’t resigned from Johnson’s cabinet, she responded that