Keir Starmer has completed stage one. “We have established ourselves as an effective opposition,” he said in an interview this morning. That is not as easy as it looks, as...
For a time, the spoonerism of Keir Starmer’s name, Steer Calmer, seemed to many Labour people a good slogan and a welcome change. But recently, having guided the party out...
It would be ironic if the candidate who led the chant of “Lock her up” about his opponent ended up in jail himself. One of the worst features of modern...
We all have to improvise in these unusual times. That applies to the Peter Mandelson Memorial Dim Sum Supper just as much as to any other venerable institution of the...
We have achieved “something that the people of this country instinctively knew was doable but which they were told was impossible”, claimed Boris Johnson when the EU trade deal was...
I see the reviews of 2020 have started already; they seem to come earlier each year. We are all Captain Hindsight now. We have been prompted to look...
Keir Starmer had a successful party conference season this year because there was no party conference. He has not given a speech to a live audience of more than a...
When a politician takes a stand against public opinion it is time to sit up and pay attention. Especially when it is Rishi Sunak, the most popular politician in Britain...
Jo Swinson almost got it right. She was bold, taking a risk for the chance of great gain, having decided that, otherwise, the cause was lost. That cause was keeping...
It seems much too early to be thinking about the policies of a Labour government. But three things happened this week that made me think about them all the same....
Chief Political Commentator, The Independent; visiting professor, King's College, London.