Osborne – Brexit’s saviour?

The Fixed Terms Parliament Act may pave the way to delivering Brexit by October 31. And for that, we can thank…

The civil service isn’t neutral. It shouldn’t be, it can’t be.

It must necessarily have a worldview. The question is whether or not this has caught up with the Brexit vote.

Alistair Lexden: Forty years ago, Thatcher was assembling her transformative Government

Disraeli defined conservatism as ‘love of country and an instinct for power’, and her successors should strive for her winning fusion of the two.

Alistair Lexden: I heard the bomb as it exploded. My memories of Airey Neave, for whom I worked.

He was murdered by terrorists 40 years ago today. Now there is a new, exemplary biography of him.

The first department to need boosting post-March. The Treasury? Business? Transport? No: Northern Ireland.

The challenge to “our precious union” will be as much constitutional as economic – Deal, No Brexit…or No Deal especially.

May is miscast as Prime Minister because she takes far too little trouble to find the right words

A new study of the 2017 general election shows May failing to insist on a message and a manifesto which supported each other.

Clegg’s career choice reflects how the House of Lords has become diminished

Parliament is struggling to retain senior figures. New peers should be chosen on their ability to raise the calibre of debate.

Lewis Baston: A bolder Callaghan would have won the 1978 election

So much of what now appears inevitable could have been very different – at least in the short term.

“Those who threaten our security would like nothing more than to see us fractured.” May’s security speech in Munich speech. Full text.

“If the priority becomes avoiding new cooperation with a country outside the EU, then this will have damaging real world consequences for the security of all our people.”

Lewis Baston: Poulson, sleaze, expenses. A history of recent Parliamentary scandals.

In the best of all worlds, standards would be upheld voluntarily. But in the world we have, we seem to need rules – and sometimes to extend them.

Lewis Baston: Election gambles that worked. And those that failed – like May’s this year.

And those that never were, such as 1978, 1991 and 2007. Prime Ministers tend to make the opposite error to that of their predecessors.

The political imperative of public empathy

The Prime Minister needs to be more self confident with the media.

Simon Tilbrook: I’m a lifelong Labour supporter and an arch-Remainer. Here’s why I’m voting Conservative.

Corbyn is unfitted to public office of any sort. All sensible Labour folk know it, but many cannot currently bring themselves to say it outright.

Richard Ritchie: Leaving the EU. What would Powell have made of the role of the Supreme Court?

My guess is that he would have argued that this is a matter for Parliament, with no need to resort to the judiciary.

Lewis Baston: That “racist Tory leaflet” in Smethwick was certainly racist – but it wasn’t Tory

None the less, the local Conservatives exploited the climate of prejudice, while Labour sometimes bent to accommodate it.