His plan for 2024 is to say: “I may not be most exciting politician in the world. But I’m the more reliable of the two before you. What I promise I then deliver.” It’s unlikely to be enough on its own.
Under this scheme, the ’22 Executive would change the rules, Truss would go – and a high threshold would be set to ensure only a single nomination.
Every leader fails on one or more of my tests. However, her special achievement is to have flunked all of them in the space of a few weeks.
I called recently for the Cabinet to tell Johnson that the game is up, and Dowden’s resignation is the closest that any of them have got.
No Conservative leader has lost a challenge as Prime Minister, but neither have any survived their victories by as much as a year.
As Blair realised, but his successor apparently does not, hysterical denunciations of political leaders are liable to prove counter-productive.
As her Lord Chancellor, I would have resigned if she had brought forward such proposals (which she wouldn’t have done anyway).
When such Brexiteers as Michael Howard and Norman Lamont are tearing into you over international law, you have just a bit of problem.
I have decided to write a second volume of my life of Johnson, who has always been an affront to serious-minded people’s idea of politics.
My modest proposal is this: let’s do a major programme of controlled trials to test these ideas, and see what, if anything, makes a difference.
Few people understand better than the Culture Secretary how the government machine works, or fails to work.
The former Speaker’s autobiography is a disappointment. He writes as he talks – and after a time this becomes wearisome.
His big win marks the end of the EU Ascendancy and the beginning of a new era: that of Britain as a sovereign nation.
There is much to be said for incremental reform, but too much caution can tip over into a failure to act boldly.