Articles: 2009
- Cameron has only himself to blame for this mess on Europe - A shabby deal with the Sun and internal wrangling over the Lisbon treaty mean that the Tories still have one big Euro-headache - The Observer, 1st November
- Did Blair betray Britain for years in his bid to become EU president? - A new type of career politician is beginning to emerge: one who no longer sees 10 Downing Street as an end in itself, but rather as a stepping stone for higher things - 30th October
- Is David Cameron making the same catastrophic mistake as Iain Duncan Smith? - The Conservative Party has been paying the political price ever since its then leader threw his political weight behind the invasion of Iraq seven years ago - 23rd October
- Week the tectonic plates of politics shifted - There was not a single instance of class-based rhetoric at the Conservative conference, in contrast to the many spiteful attacks on Tory 'toffs' at the Labour conference - 10th October
- An utterly boring speech but what a thrilling message - David Cameron yesterday delivered the most boring party conference speech in recent political history. No jokes, no drama and not a single new policy announcement of the slightest importance - 8th October
- Enough poison about the Human Rights Act. It is Churchill's legacy - Instead of binning this maligned legislation, David Cameron should embrace it. It is thoroughly Conservative – our own bill of rights - The Guardian, 5th October
- The lesson David Cameron can learn from Margaret Thatcher - Exactly 31 years ago this weekend Margaret Thatcher, the 52-year-old leader of the Opposition, was preparing to make her journey to the annual Conservative Party conference in Blackpool - 2nd October
- BAE are targets of a deeply political vendetta - Fifty years ago Britain could still boast a magnificent and proud industrial base, but today we only have two truly world class manufacturing giants - 2nd October
- Brown chose to save his own skin - not rescue Britain - At a moment of grave economic crisis on October 3, 1978, Jim Callaghan gave what would turn out to be his final speech to a Labour conference as prime minister - 29th September
- The illegal housekeeper, a baroness on the brink and why Labour is incapable of cleaning up British politics - There are two basic codes of morality. The first is observed by the vast majority of the population who do their best to obey the law, pay their taxes, to tell the truth and generally observe the conventions of decent society - 25th September
- By George! How Osborne turned from being a widely mocked liability into the visionary who could rescue Britain PLC - When the economic crisis of the Seventies was at its darkest, the Conservative thinker and politician Sir Keith Joseph stepped forward with a series of great speeches that reshaped British history - 18th September
- Tony Cameron! Why the Tory leader will be doomed if, like Blair, he tries to be all things to all men - A few days before the 1997 General Election, the historical novelist and political commentator Robert Harris published a penetrating and farsighted study of Tony Blair's character as Opposition leader - 12th September
- Brown's evasiveness over Lockerbie raises the question: Can he last until the Election? - Prime Ministers fall into three categories. There are the truly exceptional individuals with the courage and the indomitable will to shape history - 5th September
- A blonde with a contempt for decency and how cynical, grubby and greedy MPs sabotaged moves to clean up Parliament - Fewer than three months have passed since British politics was convulsed by one of the greatest scandals ever to hit Westminster - 24th July
- Has David Cameron the integrity to derail 'President' Blair's Euro bandwagon? - Tony Blair's ambition to be President of Europe dates back at least ten years. I can remember the possibility first being discussed among his inner circle not long after he became prime minister - 17th July
- Amoral spiv or traditional Tory? Will the REAL Cameron stand up - For anyone who wants to know what kind of Prime Minister David Cameron would make, they need to understand that there are two very different sides to his political personality - 10th July
- The child murder epidemic: Deaths as shocking and avoidable as Baby P's happen every single week - Sadly, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the ordeal of Baby P. Deaths every bit as terrible take place nearly every week in this country, largely unnoticed - 10th July
- Our Right Honorable liars and the debauching of democracy - There is an long-held convention that MPs are men and women of honour and integrity who would never lie or mislead the House of Commons - 3rd July
- This reveals both moral and economic bankruptcy - Thirty years ago, the Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan found himself in almost exactly the same predicament Gordon Brown does today - 30th June
- Why David Cameron won't sack these expenses cheats - The death of the singer Michael Jackson could scarcely have come at a better time for Gordon Brown - 27th June
- Labour's sinister revolution will tear Britain's 700-year-old constitution to shreds in weeks - Yesterday was perhaps the darkest day in the 700-year-old history of the British Parliament. This magnificent institution on the banks of the River Thames, the scene of so many of the greatest episodes in our national life, suffered two hammer blows - 23rd June
- Europe and a squalid Blair, Cameron pact that could tear the Tories apart again - More than 12 years have passed since the last Tory government, fatally split over Europe and brought low by sleaze, was driven from office - 19th June
- Most candidates have had their hands in the till - this grubby race to become Speaker reveals MPs have learnt nothing - Only a few weeks have passed since the revelations about MPs' systematic thievery of taxpayers' money, which led to an explosion of public fury, a number of hasty resignations and the enforced departure of the Commons Speaker Michael Martin - 13th June
- How a Labour vacuum let in the bigots - The notorious fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, campaigning at the height of the Great Depression of the 1930s, never achieved a fraction of the electoral success the BNP achieved yesterday - 9th June
- Riven by hatreds, how can they hope to govern? - Gordon Brown has arguably saved his skin thanks to last Friday's Cabinet reshuffle - but one urgent question remains - 7th June
- Broken and compromised, Brown is the prisoner of his Cabinet and his sleazy Chancellor - Gordon Brown ensured his short-term survival as Prime Minister yesterday - but he has paid a terrible price - 6th June
- The day that Susan Boyle rang Gordon to check on his health - Last weekend, in a lame attempt to show he was in touch with the public mood, Gordon Brown rang up The Priory health clinic to ask about the condition of Britain's Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle, who had been taken there suffering from a breakdown - 4th June
- Assassins, chaos and Gordon Brown's nightmare - Two years ago, in the dying days of the Blair Government, a Cabinet minister took me aside and despairingly confided that Gordon Brown was not up to the task of being Prime Minister - 3rd June
- Operation panic: Plot to ditch Brown for Alan Johnson...and a shotgun wedding with the LibDems - Were it not for the shameful scandal of MPs' expenses, there would be only one topic dominating political discourse this weekend: the real and growing threat to Gordon Brown's leadership after next week's elections - 29th May
- New Labour's victims are Middle Britons who obey the law, work long hours and are taxed almost to extinction. This is plain wrong - There are just two categories of Briton who have done well out of New Labour. The first, it goes without saying, is the very rich - 28th May
- The man who must take the blame for this culture of lies and corruption - When a very large bomb detonates in a small space, it causes chaos and confusion - 22nd May
- So will the frauds and charlatans follow suit? - To believe that yesterday's resignation of the Speaker Martin means that the expenses scandal that has convulsed the House of Commons is over would be a terrible mistake - 19th May
- If he goes down, will he take Brown down with him? - Useless, arrogant and morally corrupt, it is now certain that the disgraced Speaker will be forced to quit. But one burning question remains: will Michael Martin bring down the Prime Minister and perhaps the Government with him? - 19th May *If only we could have Saint Vince for PM - He claimed next to nothing, bought no flats, stole none of your money (and got it dead right on the economy). If only we could have the Lib Dems' Vince Cable to replace Gordon Brown - 15th May
- Throwing out this greedy and arrogant man won't solve all our problems - but it would be a start - Yesterday afternoon, Speaker Martin, making a speech for the first time since the expenses scandal broke, ought to have done three things - 11th May
- Make them pay the money back, sack the spivs who let them get away with it - and put the thieves on trial - Ever since Parliament first met beside the Thames more than 700 years ago it has been inspired by one very powerful and wonderful idea: disinterested public service - 8th May
- Innocent victims of a bloodbath - at least George Bush never started a Pakistani civil war - Last week, the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton read the riot act to Pakistan President Ali Zardari - 6th May
- PM's enemies scent blood and they're circling for the kill - When prime ministers fail, it is often a single event which causes them to lose authority - 3rd May
- So, who will hand Brown the loaded revolver and bottle of whisky? - Since 1945, three Prime Ministers have self-destructed while in office, leading to a paralysis in the running of the country. Sadly, Britain has just embarked on yet another of these rudderless periods - 1st May
- Back to the dark ages: How life in Kabul is still punctuated with shootings, assassinations, kidnappings and bombings - Muhammed Wahaaj, an Afghan doctor, was brutally kidnapped on his way home from work by bandits posing as intelligence officers - 28th April
- Thieving MPs and why I was wrong... Brown will NEVER stop this culture of corruption - When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister he promised to end the squalor, sleaze and dreadful culture of cronyism that disfigured Tony Blair’s government - 24th April
- Credit crunch budget 2009: This bogus and dishonest mix was not a Budget for Britain but a desperate bid to cling to power - 23rd April
- A cynical scheme to hoodwink the voters - Many will instinctively welcome Gordon Brown's announcement last night that he is to impose a tough new system of MPs' expenses - 22nd April
- This is a fight to the death - This venomous war of smear and counter-smear has the potential to destroy Gordon Brown's government - 20th April
- The Tories must avoid the cult of the celebrity prime minister - Parliamentary democracy has been supplanted at Westminster by a regime of media hype, spin doctors and skulduggery - The Observer, 19th April
- At last, Gordon Brown's poodle turns on his master - Chancellor Alistair Darling is one of the nicest men in the Labour Government. He and his wife, Maggie, have turned 11 Downing Street into a very warm, pleasant and happy place - 17th April
- The Prime Minister is up to his neck in this squalid affair. But the real villain is Alastair Campbell - On becoming Prime Minister almost two years ago Gordon Brown pledged a new and more decent kind of politics - 13th April
- Sorry, but a Tory election victory is far from certain - At the Conservative spring conference at Cheltenham in two weeks' time, David Cameron is due to make his most important speech so far this year - 10th April
- How Ireland became an economic basket-case (...and the lessons for Britain) - Just two years ago, the Republic of Ireland was universally seen as one of the most dynamic economies in the world - 9th April
- Hubris, hoopla and claims that were false, cynical and very, very dangerous - Judging by yesterday's headlines, the Prime Minister pulled off an audacious triumph at this week's London G20 summit - 3rd April
- Masterly diary of a minister low in rank, high in wit - Major political diaries tend to be written by minor politicians. They see events in a clearer light and have more time to think - 3rd April
- Disloyalty. Humiliation. The week that Brown's grand vision was brutally shattered - For the past three months, Gordon Brown has truly cared about only one event: the G20 economic summit he will host in London next week - 27th March
- How a bitter war between the Bank of England and No10 could decide if Britain has to be bailed out by the IMF again - Over the past few months, Gordon Brown has used two principal policies, both highly controversial, to try to lift Britain out of the economic slump - 13th March
- Toughened by tragedy, has David Cameron now the courage to tell voters the truth? - David Cameron's leadership of the Conservative Party can be divided into two periods... - 7th March
- Speaking truth in power - The bravest but most necessary change Cameron should make is to break with New Labour's postmodern politics of spin - The Guardian, 4th March *Torture, and why the Blair years will be judged some of the most morally squalid in our history - When Tony Blair came to power 12 years ago, he promised to make Britain a better place - 27th February
- Treachery, sleaze and a Prime Minister in denial. This is a Government in collapse - The symptoms are always the same when governments break down: sleaze takes hold, the ambitious defect, ministers turn disloyal, connection with reality gets lost and it becomes a matter of hanging on pointlessly to the end - 20th February
- Borrowing to save the economy is like trying to sober up a drunk by giving him a large whisky - Hard though it is to believe, Chancellor Alistair Darling still claims that borrowing is under control, while Gordon Brown continues to insist that the British economy is built on ‘sound fundamentals’ - 20th February
- Vile torture. British agents. And questions Miliband must answer - When New Labour came to power 12 years ago, Tony Blair announced an ‘ethical’ foreign policy which, so he claimed, would turn Britain into a shining example of decency and high morality around the world - 19th February
- The crony with a gift for disaster - The scene is a glorious sunny day in July, and Lloyds TSB chairman Sir Victor Blank is in his element - 15th February
- Despite that cover-up by establishment stooges, Ms Smith is guilty of thievery (and I dare her to sue me) - My brother has a house in Wiltshire where his family lives, where his social life is based and where his children go to school... - 13th February
- I pray Ed Balls is wrong but fear he's right: This could be worse than the Great Depression - Most Labour politicians possess only the cloudiest and most naive understanding of how the British economy really works - 10th February
- Anyone else would be sent to jail - The revelations concerning Home Secretary Jacqui Smith come as another jolting reminder that far too many British MPs are, quite simply, corrupt - 8th February
- Rich men, dodgy money and the banana skin that could stop Cameron reaching No. 10 - Dances and balls are normally very showy affairs and the guests are expected to dress up and enjoy being on public display - 6th February
- A conspiracy that is as foul as it gets - The Foreign Secretary's very public denunciation of George W Bush's so-called war on terror may be exploding in his face - 5th February
- The boast that shows the ignorance of Mandy ‘Antoinette’ - When Gordon Brown brought Peter Mandelson home from Brussels three months ago and appointed him Business Secretary, the move was hailed as a masterstroke - 1st February
- Betrayal of our finest and why Britain must not become Obama's poodle - Over recent months it has been a convention for Gordon Brown, if there have been British fatalities in the war in Afghanistan, to begin Prime Minister's Question Time by reading out the victims' names... - 30th January
- Five years on from Hutton and we STILL haven't been told the truth about the war based on lies - Yesterday marked a sombre and important anniversary. A full five years have passed since the Hutton Report sensationally acquitted Tony Blair and his senior advisers of any wrongdoing in the death of Dr David Kelly - 28th January
- For centuries the Lords has been a beacon of integrity. Now it is a byword for sleaze. This is Blair's REAL legacy - The 'Lords-for-hire’ affair is threatening to become one of British politics’ worst corruption scandals since the end of World War II - 27th January
- 'Lords for Hire': Brown must act now to stop the rot - Almost 15 years ago, the Conservative government was shamefully embroiled in the cash-for-questions scandal - 25th January
- Obduracy, incompetence and the week I became convinced Britain faces national bankruptcy - There can come a time in the life span of a government when it suddenly loses its authority - 23rd January
- No wonder MPs don't want us to see their expenses - a lot of them are just plain criminal - Two years ago, when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, he pledged to bring to an end the dishonesty, greed and moral squalor of the Blair years - 22nd January
- We’re a nation on the brink of going bankrupt - All hopes of Gordon Brown managing to save the world with October's great banking bail-out have proved tragically misguided - 18th January
- Why should bailed-out bank bosses receive obscene salaries (and bonuses!) at our expense? - The average pay of a civil servant stands at around £40,000 a year, though exceptional individuals are able to earn considerably more - 16th January
- If you want to know what's wrong with Gordon Brown's masterplan, remind yourself what this man did to Britain - With his long sideburns, wide collars and oddly plausible manner, Welfare Secretary James Purnell could have walked straight off the set of Seventies sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em - 13th January
- More broken promises and the scandal of why MPs still refuse to admit how they squander our money - The is barely a week old and the direst predictions are already being realised, with news of fresh job losses being brought every day - 9th January
- Cameron is right - it's the prudent savers who really deserve help now - The biggest category of losers from this year’s economic recession will not be the profligate and sometimes irresponsible... - 5th January
- Ditch Speaker Martin, make Vince Cable Chancellor and freeze out the Tories... is this Brown's masterplan for 2009? - British politics changed fundamentally after Margaret Thatcher's famous election victory in May 1979. It opened the way to a prolonged period of one-party rule - initially with the Conservatives in power until 1997 and thereafter New Labour - 2nd January
- The pound may be in trouble but don't be fooled by the euro gloaters. Their bogus currency will never see its 20th birthday - This week marks the tenth anniversary of the euro - and every eurocrat in existence is hailing the single currency as an exquisite success - 1st January
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