Alistair Lexden: A century ago today, King George V opened the Parliament of Northern Ireland

It is a shame that IRA violence – and Westminster neglect – undid the hopeful and constructive spirit in which Stormont was born.

How disgusting Cameron’s critics are. He is a decent man – as were Baldwin and Blair.

All three PMs did about as well as anyone could in the circumstances, and all three, so far as one can see, are doomed.

From Walpole to Johnson, the rude, original vigour of the Prime Minister and the Commons have survived

A new study by Anthony Seldon of the office of Prime Minister gives too little credit to the many among its 55 holders whom he dismisses as failures.

How to advise Lord North, or Heath, or Thatcher, or Johnson

A new volume of essays puts special advisers in historical context, and suggests the Cabinet has been marginalised by a succession of over-mighty PMs.

Bevin, the working-class John Bull who stood up to Stalin and has no successors in today’s Labour Party

Andrew Adonis’s new biography of “the first of a new breed of ‘common man’ who would manage the British state” and became one of the great Foreign Secretaries.

We still do not understand Spanish flu – so no wonder the danger posed by the coronavirus is unquantifiable

The NHS issues studiously calm advice, and we wait to see whether the disease can be contained.

Strife between Johnson and the media is a good thing

He should be scrutinised as fiercely as he himself scrutinised Delors as a journalist 30 years ago.

Farage’s greed is Johnson’s opportunity. Why Conservatives should rejoice at the absence of a pact.

The two parties have different Brexit policies, and it would therefore be impossible for them to project a united appeal.

Sheila Lawlor: Ultimately, as the EU’s leaders recognise, the momentum is with Johnson

The big prize will be that the UK’s economic and trade freedom will be restored, something May’s backstop would have prevented, potentially indefinitely.

Richard Kelly: A lesson from May’s departure – and from history. So often, it’s Tory activists, not MPs, who bring down their leader.

Yesterday’s emergency National Convention meeting was a reminder of the influence and power of the grassroots.

From magic circle to one member one vote: a short history of Tory leadership contests

The present election will turn on whether MPs and activists put national popularity before ideological soundness.

The Establishment hated Beaverbrook, Churchill needed him

A new biography of the ruthless, devious, vulgar, brilliant newspaperman who in 1940 became Minister of Aircraft Production.

Andrew Gimson’s Commons sketch: How the news of the Prime Minister’s departure reached the waiting press

Where Thatcher’s leadership once hung in the balance, May promised to go.

Alistair Lexden: The Carlton Club meeting and the fall of the Lloyd George Coalition

How a proud, unbending leader misread his party, brought down a government, and set back the idea of sharing power for a generation.

May’s Brexit deal helps to show that British politicians are more honourable and efficient than is claimed

There has been a tendency to suppose that because Britain’s power has declined in relative terms they must have become totally useless.