Patrick O’Flynn

Since Harold Wilson stood down as Prime Minister 45 years ago, there have been 11 general elections contested by seven different Labour leaders. Of those, only Tony Blair has managed to win, which he did three times in a row. The roll call of the defeated reads Callaghan, Foot, Kinnock (twice), Brown, Miliband and Corbyn

Of all the charges made against Brexiteers, the notion that we ‘don’t understand the modern world’ is the one that some Remainers have most often returned to; their equivalent of the boxer’s stinging jab that relentlessly wears down an opponent. In a global system increasingly dominated by a handful of big players with huge populations

Back in 2006, when he was close to executing his masterplan to chase Tony Blair out of Downing Street, Gordon Brown sought to address something that worried many voters: his Scottishness. ‘My wife is from Middle England, so I can relate to it,’ he pronounced, as if Middle England were a town somewhere off the

Exactly 40 years ago tomorrow, four Labour party grandees issued the Limehouse Declaration, signalling ‘the re-emergence of social democracy in Great Britain’. The declaration, made on a windswept bridge near the east London home of Dr David Owen, marked the formation of a Council for Social Democracy, that soon became a fully-fledged political party, the

At 3.48pm on Thursday the Sun’s political editor tweeted out an explosive story that Steve Baker, the co-convenor of the Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs, had warned that Boris Johnson’s party leadership would soon be under threat if restrictions were not lifted soon. Less than 100 minutes later, Baker put out his own tweet

Scots may be getting vaccinated against Covid, but they already have the highest rate of immunity to the appeal of Nigel Farage to be found anywhere in the UK. So it was not a particular surprise that Farage today stayed away from the launch of the Scottish offshoot of his new entity, Reform UK. Instead

Right-wing protest politics has just catastrophically over-reached in America, but it is suddenly back in business in Britain. Its dominant figure, Nigel Farage, has a new political start-up and is sounding rather pleased about it. Earlier this week the Electoral Commission finally — after more than eight weeks of humming and hawing — gave him

I have lost count of the number of times the Conservative Party has thought it has shot Nigel Farage’s fox. They stretch all the way back to David Cameron’s January 2013 pledge to hold an In/Out EU referendum, and include the party’s as yet unfulfilled summer promise to stop the illegal Channel crossings and its

Part of the soap opera appeal of politics comes from the idea that it is a competitive sport based on fine margins – with a result that will be determined by the relative performances of the teams and their captains. Under the British first-past-the-post system two major parties slug it out in an epic tussle

Amid all the euphoria about Boris Johnson sealing a final Brexit deal and the breaking-off of politics for pared down Christmas celebrations, perhaps you didn’t notice Keir Starmer losing the next election. Well, I did. And while I cannot be quite certain that Sir Keir has blown it absolutely for 2024 – events dear boy,

It will be some days before the full character of the Brexit trade deal and other future partnership arrangements with the EU become clear. The smoke and mirrors that often accompany budget statements surround this deal as well, and we must wait for expert analytical eyes to go through the body of the 500-page text

Richard Tice is tall and lean, has a hint of Imran Khan around the eyes, and the ladies on reception in the office building where we meet seem to like him. Were Jilly Cooper to write a political novel then he would be its hero rather than anti-hero. Tice was, after all, the clean-cut one

The verdict of the Twitter jury is in, articulated in a single, now viral tweet by broadcaster Matthew Stadlen:  ‘Keir Starmer would have been – and would be – a far better Prime Minister than Boris Johnson during this pandemic.’ It is a theme that Starmer has naturally been keen to develop, leading him to

You will doubtless have heard this argument many times: Britain will have to budge on the terms for a free trade deal with the EU eventually because there is a powerful asymmetry at work. The case runs thus: Though it is perfectly true that the EU runs a big trade surplus with the UK, it

If it’s No Deal, then it will usher in a crisis that will highlight the leader’s negative baggage and remind everyone why he should never be trusted, probably dooming him to ignominious defeat at the next election. If that is your view of the post-transition political landscape then I heartily agree. But, like most of

The terms of the Covid debate have changed markedly since Nigel Farage decided to re-enter the political arena after Boris Johnson’s second English lockdown. Even with multiple vaccines coming on stream, we can still not rule out a third lockdown — but we can be pretty darned sure there won’t be a fourth. It’s not the end

That the left-wing Labour MP Clive Lewis should have organised a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel opposing the deportation of Jamaican criminals hardly comes as a surprise. Being against the removal of foreign nationals, almost irrespective of what they have done to deserve it, is pretty standard fare for a member of the Socialist