Henry Hill is the deputy editor of ConservativeHome.
Do you remember when, last December, the Irish government took the United Kingdom to court over proposals for dealing with the legacy of the Troubles? They, and many domestic critics in the UK, said that plans to establish a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission – in which individuals could receive an amnesty in exchange for
It’s no surprise that Britain’s night economy is in dire straight given a quarter of people told pollsters they would like to see nightclubs permanently closed even after the pandemic. Yet nobody embodies modern society’s contempt for club culture quite like Amy Lamé, Sadiq Khan’s embattled ‘Night Czar’. Places that ought to be the capital’s dedicated nightlife
‘Mad’. ‘Disgusting.’ These are the words Rory Stewart, the great centrist king over the water, uses to describe Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to expel Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour party. He goes on: ‘Jeremy Corbyn, whatever you think of him, is a major figure who represents a very significant part of Labour history and heritage.’
Whoever wins the Conservative leadership next week, one can’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for them. Even if it’s Boris Johnson. Liz Truss fulfilled her inadvertent promise to ‘hit the ground from day one’, and her successor might do the same. One of first points of impact could be the Medium-Term Fiscal Statement
Last night’s spat between the Foreign Office and the Treasury was hardly reassuring for Unionists. If you missed it, a Treasury amendment proposed a change to customs regulations where ‘UK’ was replaced with ‘Great Britain’. What’s so bad about that, you might ask. The answer is that it would have codified the carving-out of Northern
When was the last time the Home Office produced some good news? Even in the middle of a crisis that most will concede the government has handled quite well, the department has managed to generate the usual abysmal headlines. Even the Foreign Office, slow as it was in cracking down on Russian oligarchs, couldn’t steal
Ideas, as a fictitious terrorist once said, are bulletproof. This might be stretching the truth a little, but at the very least they are not easily slain. So long as they appeal to someone’s sentiments or self-interest, no amount of logical dismemberment is enough to put them down for good. The zombie stalking the discourse
In his resignation letter, the Brexit minister Lord Frost justified his decision to quit by pointing to tax rises and Covid restrictions. But there is another potential reason given the timing. Late last week, the UK conceded that the European Court of Justice could have the final say over the Brexit settlement in Northern Ireland.
The British commentariat has not covered itself in glory in its reaction to Dominic Raab’s proposed reforms to judicial review. The Times reported yesterday that the government is planning to introduce a novel legislative tactic, the ‘Interpretation Bill’, to try to shift the balance of power back towards parliament. To be clear: there is no
What are the armed forces for? This is the question that hangs over every defence review, and one that recent governments have been averse to answering. The problem is this: since the end of the Cold War, defence has gradually slipped further and further down the political priority list. At the same time, ministers and
Given the enormous power that Conservative leaders wield within the party, it is not surprising that the party should come to take on the character of its leaders. In the case of Boris Johnson, it is his protean quality that seems to have rubbed off. Where a previous leader might have had a policy agenda or
One of the worst features of devolution is the tendency of devocrats to insist on doing their own thing in all circumstances and at whatever cost. The idea that decentralisation would lead to experimentation and the sharing of best practice now seems hopelessly naive. Instead, politicians in Edinburgh and Cardiff try to use nationalism to
Sinn Fein is not a normal party. It sometimes feels impolite to point it out in the era of the Belfast Agreement. But the legal amnesty from criminal charges offered to IRA terrorists as part of the peace process does not oblige individuals to abstain from moral judgement of their political wing. Especially when it
One of the reasons the SNP has dominated Scottish politics for so long is that it is extremely adept at turning any crisis into a political crisis. So it is with the recent figures revealing that the Scottish government has overseen a truly appalling rise in drugs deaths over the ten years it has been
I’ve written a lot about what unionists should do to help strengthen the Union with Northern Ireland. Top of the list is obviously securing much-needed changes to the Protocol before it turns the Province into an economic satrapy of the EU. Then there’s Westminster’s need to get to grips with its actual obligations under the
A common refrain from opponents of the Scottish National party is that ‘the SNP is not Scotland’. But it often seems they haven’t got the message, especially when Nationalist activists take it on themselves to stand guard on the border against the plague-ridden English. This week, the people who may really wish they’d done more
There is a lot to unpack in Sir Keir Starmer’s suggestion that he would campaign for the Union in the event of a future border poll in Northern Ireland. It’s a welcome repudiation of decades of Labour policy, which has been to support Irish nationalism. Would-be members in the Province were directed to join the
Look back through the archive photos of England’s victory over Germany at the 1966 world cup and you’ll notice something rather strange. The cheering supporters aren’t waving the flag of St George. Instead the jubilant crowds are draped Union Jacks — reflecting the more fluid blend of loyalties of an age when Britain was much
It has been almost 45 years since Tam Dalyell first asked the West Lothian Question. It is a damning indictment of devolutionary unionists that they are still flailing for an answer. Dalyell, a Scottish Labour MP with the uncommon foresight and courage to oppose his party’s embrace of devolution, first posed it during the parliamentary
Even a pessimist could be forgiven for being surprised by Joe ‘I’m Irish’ Biden’s ham-fisted intervention in the ongoing row over the Northern Ireland protocol. If Boris Johnson’s remark that the phrase ‘special relationship’ didn’t ring true before, they certainly must after the President opened his visit by quoting Y.B. Yeats on the Easter Rising…
