Columns
McSweeney was more than Starmer’s chief of staff; he was his chief strategist, ideologue, fixer and powerbroker
Maurice Glasman at Trump's inuguration: "Whenever I mentioned Peter Mandelson, Trumpists kept showing me pictures of him with Jeffrey Epstein"
Published January 2025; republished February 2026 after more Mandelson revelations emerged leading to the resignation of Morgan McSweeney
It was meant to be an Islamist coup but Tehran underestimated the ruthless ingenuity of its enemies
The rise of the cultural Christians
Defeat in sport reveals character. The humiliation of Bazball began with a failure to plan.
Angela Rayner's next move has the Labour Party on tenterhooks
With every reset and reversal, the prime minister sends his party deeper into confusion and anxiety
Since the so-called botched reset in early September, Starmer has been presiding over a state of perma-crisis, debilitating for the government and for the country
As the old order crumbles in Europe something new, dangerous and more volatile replaces it
Gaza, Trump and a former prime minister relishing his second act on the world stage
How the mayor of Manchester became Labour’s enemy within
Perhaps Angela Rayner’s fall - and the sweeping reshuffle it provoked – will, in retrospect, mark the moment Starmer finally changed direction and grasped the full scale of the problems facing the country in this new political era. Or perhaps not...
The zeitgesit, or spirit of the age, determines a nation’s politics. The zeitgeist is not with Starmer’s Labour
The protests in Epping about an “asylum hotel” reveal something fundamental about what Orwell called the social atmosphere of the country
Telling a story and long-term thinking
Tears are not enough
The row over net zero is a sign of how damaging to the party is the divide between urban progressives and its traditional voters
Denouncing Reform UK as a racist party will only mobilise the people’s army
For better or worse, Keir Starmer leads a security government
The triumph of the screen and disappearance of the serious reader