James Kirkup is a partner at Apella Advisors and a senior fellow at the Social Market Foundation.
Greggs’ sausage rolls are part of the national conversation. The smart shift to offer a vegan variant caught the mood and bragging about your love of Greggs is an easy way for politicos to signal their down-with-the-proles ordinariness. In fact, political types should be paying more attention to the company behind the sausage rolls, because
Government by headline is always tempting, and always a mistake. Some of the worst such mistakes concern the machinery and cost of politics, where it’s all too easy to announce stuff that sounds good for a day or two yet inflicts long-term harm on the quality of politics and government. Scrapping and merging Whitehall departments
One of the (many) frustrations of writing a lot about sex and gender is knowing that there are a lot of people who are concerned about these issues but who do not, for various reasons, say so. I’ve written quite a lot about the politicians, of all parties, who have private worries and criticisms about
First, a warning. This is one of those articles where I use the word ‘penis’ a lot. Yes, another one. No, I don’t enjoy it much either, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Sorry. Now, some law. Specifically, the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Among other things, it defines the crime of rape, in Sections 1 and 5.
Put aside the surprise at the scale of the Tory gains and look at where those gains came, and consider what is now the central question of British politics: how will the Conservatives try to keep their gains at the next general election? Don’t assume that’s in 2024. The Fixed Term Parliaments Act may well
Jo Swinson won’t be our next prime minister but her election campaign has achieved one significant thing already: she’s helped the BBC to start doing the job of journalism on trans rights issues. The Lib Dems have taken a conscious decision to go into the election campaign as the party of trans rights and inclusion.
Here’s a curiosity of the 2019 general election: given that both the big parties agree that austerity is over and Britain wants a more generous state, why is no one doing much to help the poor? And why is no one talking about that failure? These questions start with Labour. Jeremy Corbyn’s fans see him
A great deal of the transgender debate is unexplained. One of the most mystifying aspects is the speed and success of a small number of small organisations in achieving major influence over public bodies, politicians and officials. How has a certain idea taken hold in so many places so swiftly? People and organisations that at
Where to start with the Conservatives’ “Buy British” promises to end EU state aid rules? The obvious point is that dumping rules that prevent governments subsidising domestic firms will make it much harder to strike a trade deal with the EU after Brexit. Limiting state aid is pretty much fundamental to the EU’s very existence
Sir Ivan Rogers missed his calling. Our former envoy to the EU would have made a fine newspaper columnist, albeit one who struggled to file to length. His ability to capture the big issues of the Brexit process and make a compelling argument about what happens next is quite something, and explains why a Rogers
The Labour plan to nationalise broadband is a good illustration of why the Corbyn-McDonnell team are much better at politics than their Conservative critics realise. It is also more evidence that the allegedly radical socialist Corbyn is actually engaged in an almost Blairite exercise of calculated branding and positioning. If you read certain newspapers and
Hillary Clinton’s BBC interview in London is making headlines mainly about Russia, but students of the debate about transgender rights and self-identification should pay close attention to another moment in the interview. For Clinton, still the most prominent women on the left of politics in the world, said there are ‘legitimate concerns’ about the way
How long should we remember the MPs’ expenses scandal? Should someone who used taxpayers’ money to kit out their home and renovate their swimming pool be allowed a second chance at being an MP? The imminent selection of a Conservative candidate in Sevenoaks raises such questions. Selections are politics in its most raw and spiteful
Until a year or two ago, if you’d asked me to describe the archetypal Conservative, I’d have sketched out someone who looked a lot like Philip Hammond. Hammond is a self-made man who made a small fortune in several areas of business. He represents a seat in Surrey. He drives a Jag. Politically, he’s small-c
Whatever else is true of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, they have communicated a fairly clear idea of what they think about economics. The same cannot be said of the Conservatives – and that is unlikely to change. What with Brexit, Corbyn-bashing and low-level culture wars, I suspect the 2019 general election campaign will be
I’ve been surprisingly kind about Theresa May in many of the articles I’ve written here and elsewhere. Surprising, because I never thought much of her as a politician or a person before the spring of 2017. Politically, I found her approach to immigration while Home Secretary to be dreadful and borderline dishonest. That continued seamlessly
What happened in Brexit this weekend? Here is the story in one sentence. Boris Johnson asked the EU to extend UK membership, something he said he would never do. The rest is spin. How many times did Boris Johnson promise not to seek an extension of the UK membership of the EU? More than I
Reflecting on Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, I have many questions. Why are people who rejected the possibility of Northern Ireland being subject to EU rules and regulation via a contingent backstop now embracing the certainty of that happening? How could anyone reasonably expect the DUP to sign up to something that really does make Northern
What is the purpose of the police? Maybe your answer has something to do with “preventing crime” or “arresting criminals”. Or maybe you think it’s the job of officers of the law to tell us how to behave, to police our conduct, and to make sure we all speak to each other nicely. In which
Oxford is suffering a crime wave. Police are investigating numerous serious offences over more than six months. Thames Valley Police has issued this sweeping statement about unacceptable acts in the city: “Thames Valley Police is appealing for witnesses following a number of public offences in Oxford. Officers are investigating a large number of offensive stickers
