
Staying in the Customs Union until 2022. The pluses. The minuses.
Speculation about pressure on Williamson, or calculation about Cabinet numbers, misses a key point: May must keep Davis and Fox onside.
Speculation about pressure on Williamson, or calculation about Cabinet numbers, misses a key point: May must keep Davis and Fox onside.
In my experience of departmental life, it will take at least six months before we can judge Javid’s management.
It is too fragmented to deliver this successfully – so a senior Cabinet minister should be tasked with bringing about change.
Parliament’s job should be to hold the Prime Minister and Executive to account for what they have to do, rather than becoming a party to it.
Here are just a few of the ways that I have seen work and that government should be adopting more broadly.
Tactical newspaper articles are necessary but insufficient. She should make a series of speeches to set out her stall and try to change the weather.
That the company is a government customer isn’t the whole story. After all, few customers must manage the consequences of their supplier’s collapse.
Many ministers are indeed well-suited – but it feels as if this is a secondary consideration: just check their CVs, and ask if we might sometimes choose better.
That doesn’t just mean talking about it – it means putting it into practice both in Government and in how we run our own Party operations.
Given Brexit, limited parliamentary time and a hung parliament, one priority is to demonstrate how leaving the EU will create specific opportunities for Britain.
Any new First Secretary of State should not have further ambitions of their own. And it would be pointless in any event to make any such appointment honorary.
Cameron or May? Clegg or Green? Osborne or Hammond? Hague or Johnson? May or Rudd? Fox or Williamson? Cable or Clark…
We backed Brexit to make those in power more accountable. The House of Commons must not be ignored as if it were a mere debating society.
We have allowed our enemies to infiltrate almost every power centre that matters and delegitimise our very existence.
The Prime Minister says that she intends to serve a full term and is “getting on with the immediate job”.