Politics

To say that the May administration is ‘the worst government anyone can remember’ is to abuse the English language. It isn’t a government but a collection of factions so far apart I am surprised they can stay in the same cabinet. On the backbenches the European Research Group operates as a separate English nationalist party. Everywhere Tory politicians are scrambling to position themselves to succeed Theresa May, rather than holding on to any notion as quaint as putting their country before their careers. Yet faced with this ungoverning government, a maladministration that is so exhausted it is running out of Conservative MPs who can serve as ministers, the opposition is

Statistically, a Tory victory at the next election is unlikely. British voters tend not to grant a fourth term to governments: it has happened only once in our post-war history. That was under John Major in 1992 in an election in which the government lost 40 seats. But this time, the Tories would go into a general election as a minority government. If this were not handicap enough, they’ll also have to fight the election having spent years dealing with Europe, the subject that splits the party most deeply. Yet, remarkably, the Tories are still in with a chance of winning a fourth term. They have one man to thank

If you’ve ever travelled on London’s Piccadilly Line, you may have noticed that on the stretch between Green Park and South Kensington, the north-facing tunnel twice changes to a peculiar dark grey rather than the familiar charcoal black. I always used to look out for these grey bricks when I took the Tube back home to Hammersmith. This is because I was obsessed with disused, or ‘ghost’ stations, and on this stretch were two of the most distinguished: Down Street and Brompton Road, both of which were closed in the 1930s. Down Street is of particular interest, having served in the following decade as a bunker for Winston Churchill during

My colleague Angus Walker has a grade A scoop on how Theresa May’s chief Brexit negotiator, Olly Robbins, thinks the PM may be able to rescue her Brexit deal. The headlines are these. 1) He expects MPs to be presented with a choice in March of her deal or a potentially very lengthy delay to Brexit. This is significant since even today the PM denied she was remotely contemplating a Brexit postponement. 2) Robbins concedes that the controversial Northern Ireland backstop was conceived as a ‘bridge’ to the long-term trading relationship between the UK and EU. This will be explosive because Tory Brexiters always feared the PM secretly saw some

Martin Selmayr is no stranger to using Twitter to offer his insight and call out those he thinks have got it wrong. But this morning, on the big news in Brussels, the so-called ‘Monster’ is keeping quiet. While Selmayr has today shared messages about ‘clean vehicles’, ‘TeamJuncker’ and (of course) Brexit, he has had nothing to say on the story relating to the controversial circumstances of his appointment as secretary general of the EU Commission. This morning, the European Ombudsman closed its inquiry into Selmayr’s elevation to the top job; its findings are damning. The Ombudsman says that ‘Mr Selmayr’s appointment did not follow EU law, in letter or spirit, and

Theresa May’s statement to the Commons didn’t contain anything dramatic. But it did show how May is going to try and pass a deal. There was lots in the statement on workers’ rights, an attempt to make the deal more palatable to Labour MPs. But May also sought to reassure her own side by ruling out Jeremy Corbyn’s customs union plan far more explicitly than she did in her Sunday night letter to him. There was little sign of a cross party consensus in May and Corbyn’s exchanges. The tone was, predictably, partisan. Things became even more heated when the SNP leader Ian Blackford got involved. He shouted ‘liar’ at