Tag: Iran
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Papers & Processes. The week began with the next episode of the already boring Mandelson affair. After the drama of the Humble Address, the release of the files related to his errant Lordship’s appointment proved simultaneously more mundane and yet more revealing than expected. Meanwhile, the Iran war/ “special military operation” dominates the international agenda,…
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PMQs really have become a farce. In other news, we have decided to present The Commons Weekly in reverse date order starting with the most recent news from that cockpit of brilliance. At PMQs the Speaker briefly awoke from his slumbers to rebuke the PM for trying to reconfigure the weekly event as Questions for…
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Puts to sea 16:10 Tuesday 10th March. Enough said. Check us out on insta @theworldofukpolitics
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Preparation, hesitation, correction, reposition. This past week has seen a (leaky) raft of claims about the Government’s preparations for the US-Israeli attack on Iran, hesitation and uncertainty in response, hardly disguised at all by post hoc (and very definitely therefore not ergo propter hoc) announcements claiming that everything is under control. On the home front…
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Special education: In trying to set out the Government’s proposed changes to SEND policy Bridget Phillipson (Houghton & Sunderland South, Labour) Secretary of State for Education, outlined how a “new” £4bn will be spent on Individual Support Plans over the rest of this Parliament. SEND certainly needs radical reform, but these changes seem unlikely to…
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Led, legalistically, from frying pan to fire! The scandal that died, a by-election that roared and a war that outwitted Starmer within 24 hours. The week began where the previous tailed off: Epstein adjacency, Mountbatten-Windsor noise and Mandelson hi-jinx.This filled some columns, produced heat and then was abruptly shoved aside by reality. In politics, nothing…
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Overseas: Movement Without Leverage The Prime Minister’s trip to China and Japan was notable less for what it achieved than for what it avoided. Keir Starmer returned with modest diplomatic housekeeping: limited visa facilitation and the reopening of channels with previously frozen parliamentarians. (Rowena Mason, Guardian, 29th January 2026, What agreements have been made during…
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AI scandals, Trump theatrics and social media bans Welcome back after a small essay-related delay this week. British politics served up a curious mix of local embarrassment, international showmanship, and domestic debate that looks suspiciously as though we are collectively losing our minds. Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. TWOP is suffering acute symptoms. Here’s the…
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REVOLUTIONS, INVASIONS AND POTHOLES It is a salutary experience to sit down to write a review of UK politics at the end of a week in which Donald Trump threatened to intervene in Iran’s brutal protest crackdown, the United States faced domestic outrage over a fatal shooting by an ICE agent and the former President…