No spin. No waffle. Just politics.
Politics is all around us. From the price of a bus ticket to decisions on climate change, education and defence. For many people, especially young people, politics can feel distant, confusing, irrelevant and boring. This blog is here to help change that because the more we’re involved, the better it will be.
THE BLOG
- For Starmer, the End is Now Nigh
The resignation of John Healey as Defence Secretary is a seismic moment in the collapse of Keir Starmer’s Government. HM Treasury’s “victory” of reducing and postponing financial commitment to the modernisation and upgrading of the nation’s defence is achieved at… Read more: For Starmer, the End is Now Nigh - The Commons Weekly
The Commons has a strange “end of term” feel about it. Strange because not even a month has passed since the King’s Speech marked the shiny new legislative ambitions of a new Parliamentary session and just 23 months in to… Read more: The Commons Weekly - The Week in UK Politics
This last week has provided several reminders that trust, once lost, is difficult to recover. While President Zelensky launched audacious drone attacks on St Petersburg, HMS Prince of Wales returned to port in Norway for more repairs (Navy Lookout, 30th… Read more: The Week in UK Politics - The Commons Weekly
Having got British History 1930-’97 under the belt, TWOP can turn back to the House of Commons after it returned from its Whitsun break on Monday. PMQs was strangely undramatic in the first week back because of the structural effect… Read more: The Commons Weekly - The Week in UK Politics
A heatwave, a war in the Gulf driven by bluff and braggadocio and a war in Ukraine seeing the slip of the Russian mask. A local TWOP correspondent visiting Kew Gardens reported temperatures of 35C (95F.) The country was awash… Read more: The Week in UK Politics - The Week in UK Politics
There have been a number of developments that should have been positive for the Government this week: – immigration numbers fell sharply (thanks Rishi)– inflation fell faster than expected (but it will be back up next month)– the IMF upgraded… Read more: The Week in UK Politics - The Commons Weekly
Parliament returned to work with the ceremonial portrayal of calm and order of the State Opening and the King’s Speech floating, surreally, on top of the turbulent threat to Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership. An (over-)ambitious legislative programme then commenced the… Read more: The Commons Weekly - The Week in UK Politics
There has, technically, been some political news outside the accelerating collapse of Labour authority. Whether anyone noticed is another matter. Ebola, Ukraine, Iran and strategic distractions A fresh Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo briefly reintroduced the possibility… Read more: The Week in UK Politics - The Week in UK Politics
This week the political system finally stopped pretending that Sir Keir ’s difficulties are temporary. The local elections did not produce many surprises, just confirmation. The public mood that had been detectable in polling, by-elections and Westminster manoeuvring for months,… Read more: The Week in UK Politics - The Week in UK Politics
The central political fact of the week is that the Prime Minister now faces not simply criticism, but procedural damage (which is not without irony for the “Process PM”!) Authority that had been trickling away from the PM already is… Read more: The Week in UK Politics
