Conservative party

Sometimes crises end simply because all of the participants are exhausted. Essentially, this is what has happened with the post-election Tory leadership crisis. No one has the energy for a fight, so Theresa May carries on as Prime Minister. Conservative MPs say it is now almost certain that she will make it to the summer break and will still be in place at party conference. If the coronation of a new leader could be arranged, things would be very different. But it can’t be. From the great offices of state down, the Tories are simply too split – over both policy and personnel – for the succession to be resolved

What a very different atmosphere the House of Commons Chamber will have today for its first PMQs since the election. In the week before Parliament dissolved, Tory MPs were in a most obsequious mood, reciting the ‘strong and stable’ slogan that Theresa May started her campaign with, and even telling the Prime Minister that ‘I am confident that the country will be safe after the election under strong and stable leadership’ (sadly Peter Lilley, who made this prediction, stood down at the election and so is not in Parliament to offer his insight into how he feels about the state of the country now). It will be interesting to see

A political party barely known outside Northern Ireland now holds the balance of power in Parliament. Nobody saw it coming, but then that’s the new catchphrase in politics. So who are the DUP? And do they deserve the pillorying that has been coming their way since the general election catapulted them into the spotlight? I have been watching the party up close for decades. Yet while the DUP isn’t always a pretty sight to behold, the party is much more complicated than the hysterical stereotyping makes out. It’s true that the DUP has its roots in uncompromising unionism and religion. And for many years it was little more than a one-man’s fan club: the political extension of Ian Paisley’s hardline

Theresa May’s body language on leaving the European Council summit last night shows quite how much of a toll the past few weeks have taken on the Prime Minister. She looks exhausted. Now, you don’t have to feel sorry for May: she did, after all, decide to call the snap election that has proved to be her undoing – even though so many people thought she would be mad not to call it with the Labour party appearing to be so weak. But it is worth noting that the most important people in government – and the most important people involved in the attempts to keep the government together – are

Should it be Boris? He was twice elected mayor of a Labour city and if the Tory mission is to stop Jeremy Corybn, surely you need someone charismatic to see off a populist. Then again, David Davis is a dependable caretaker, a bruiser who can hold the line on Brexit. Or why not skip a generation? There’s the articulate Priti Patel and the accomplished Dominic Raab. And to make this party go with a bang, why not ask Michael Gove to be someone’s campaign manager? He’ll change his mind on the day and then: pow! They’ll all form a circular firing squad, like last time, and whoever’s left standing wins.

Today’s exchanges between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn in the Commons following the Queen’s Speech showed how much difference confidence makes to a leader’s performance. While Corbyn will never be a scintillating orator – speaking for far too long and ending with a sentence that seemed to be aimed more at entering the Guinness Book of Records than at making any sense – he made the most of the opportunity that such a threadbare speech presented him with. The election result may not have delivered him into government, but it has made him look like far more of a winner than the woman who called the poll. The Labour leader