2019

Theresa May says Britain can turn a corner if everyone backs her Brexit deal. It is looking increasingly unlikely that anyone will follow here anywhere, least of all round her corner and over the Brexit cliffs. Independent 2/1/2019
The Queen has urged people to find "common ground" and to respect "different points of view". All the while, the country is obviously headed in the direction of division, anger and violence. It’s not looking good. Evening Standard 25/1/2019
Theresa May heads dejectedly back to Brussels with her “alternative arrangements” to the Brexit deal kicked out by UK parliament. Will Monsieur Juncker let her in? She threatens No Deal as a bargaining tool. Telegraph 31/1/2019
Foreign Secretary Hunt says the government may need more time for May to win over EU - Brexit may have to be delayed. Is he trying to kick Brexit into the long grass? Telegraph 1/2/2019
Freezing temperatures and snow. Theresa May’s Brexit plans and her whole future are also snowbound. She is going to need to persuade her extreme right wing – Rees Mogg’s ERG – to get her out of it, if that’s at all possible. Telegraph 3/2/2019
Absurdly pompous anachronistic ham thespian and Attorney General Geoffrey Cox referred in the house to Tory Brexiteers calling his codicil to the Brexit withdrawal agreement “Cox’s Codpiece". The stumbling block is the backstop agreement. May has to go back again to fight/plead/beg. She is now PM in name only. Telegraph 9/3/2019
Extinction Rebellion activists have blockaded the London Stock Exchange. May survives but senior Tories expect her to go asap. A coup led by Boris Johnson looks increasingly threatening but she hangs on, defiant to the end. Telegraph 26/4/2019
The farce of trying to understand what Labour policy is carries on. Corbyn, driven by his Marxist advisers Milne and McCluskey, seems to be still undecided on his Brexit stance despite talking up a "vote", whatever that means. Telegraph 30/5/2019
Trump visits the UK amid huge protests. He has grown weary of Theresa May, whose days are numbered, and says "I could help anybody if I endorsed them". He has spoken badly of Gove. He seems to love Boris. Wonder why. Telegraph 2/6/2019.
In the Tory leadership contest, Hunt has promised to increase spending by £15bn for Navy if he becomes PM. Johnson promised a more modest increase. Meanwhile Boris admits to making models of buses. Boat envy? Telegraph 13/7/2019.
Tory leadership contenders Johnson and Hunt both say that the Irish border backstop has to go. Johnson seems the more certain of the two. This is simply willy-waving. Who has the bigger chain saw? Telegraph 17/7/2019
A crisis has erupted in the Persian Gulf. A UK tanker has been boarded by Iranian troops in response to an Iranian tanker being grounded in Gibraltar. It all seems like a storm in a tea cup but Trump threatens to get involved. Telegraph 21/7/2019
Votes are all but in for the Tory leadership contest and it looks like Boris will win. Hammond plans to quit if Johnson becomes PM, jumping before he is pushed. Telegraph 22/7/2019
Boris, the Jester, becomes new leader of the Tory party and…PM. Will he have to now lose the Jester costume to don the robes of office he’s been coveting since childhood? He dubs himself “dude” in his acceptance speech. Telegraph 24/7/2019
New Chancellor Sajid Javid announces spending round amid election speculation, as Johnson gets ready to splash the cash. It looks like the old magic money tree is bearing untold fruit again. Evening Standard 9/8/2019.
Speaker Bercow will "fight with every breath in my body" to maintain primacy of parliament in a fight with Johnson who seems determined to ram Brexit through parliament at any constitutional cost. Telegraph 15/8/2019
Remainers of all stripes are fighting with each other about who should lead any putative interim government if Boris falls. The consensus seems to be anybody but Corbyn. This infighting must all be pleasing for Boris. Telegraph 18/8/2019
Boris seems to be in constant election campaigning mode. He promises everything to everybody – money for the police, the NHS, schools etc. Can poor little Sajid keep all this noted on his calculator? Unpublished 18/8/2019
Johnson makes his move to suspend parliament in order to force his Brexit plans through on time by October 31. He seems cock-a-hoop. I guess this sort of rule-breaking was what he envisage power to be. Telegraph 29/8/2019
Ken Clarke has said he “probably would” back Jeremy Corbyn to be caretaker prime minister in order to block a no-deal Brexit. Telegraph 31/8/2019
Johnson faces down rebel Tories. He appears to be getting ultra-serious, ditching the old fun Boris, replacing him with a militarised version. The main targets are “The “Gaukeward Squad”. Telegraph 2/9/2019
In the crucial vote in the Commons, Boris threatens ‘if you vote me down, I’m calling an election’ to his waverers. Well, they do vote him down but he can’t actually call one because he doesn’t have a majority in the house. Unpublished 3/9/2019.
Boris seems increasingly like a despot, mad on power and supported by a decreasing band of loyal supporters on the extreme right, having despatched all the old centrist Tories like Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames. Unpublished 5/9/2019
Scottish judges' ruling that Boris effectively misled the Queen in advising her to suspend Parliament does not seem to phase Johnson. He just becomes surly and unresponsive. Evening Standard 12/9/2019
Speaker John Bercow has said Boris Johnson would be acting like a "bank robber" if he refuses to delay Brexit to avoid no-deal. He promises to stop him breaking the law. Evening Standard 13/9/2019
Boris threatens to "reject any delay offered" in his meeting with Juncker and Barnier. He will simply run down the clock. Johnson compares himself to the Incredible Hulk – “the madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets”. Evening Standard 16/9/2019
In Luxembourg, Boris shuns a press call, leaving his podium empty. Today, the Supreme Court in the UK start deliberations on whether Boris’s proroguing is illegal. Asked whether he would abide by their decision, he is silent. Evening Standard 17/9/2019
Day two of the Supreme Court battle between Boris Johnson who thinks he is the law and Gina Miller and John Major, on the side of parliament. Warnings are given that Justice should not get drawn into politics. Evening Standard 18/9/2019.
It was announced that at the upcoming Labour conference - one of the most crucial in recent decades because of a lack of coherent policy on Brexit – Blair’s amendments to Clause 4 back in 1995 are to be revisited. Evening Standard 19/9/2019.
All around the world, people are demonstrating spontaneously against out destruction of the natural environment. A lot of this momentum has been gained by an extraordinary young woman of 16 years - Greta Thunberg. We should all be shamed. Evening Standard 20/9/2019.
Boris sends his emissary off to Brussels to meet Michel Barnier and show him Boris’s Big New Proposals to solve the Brexit stand-off. One suspects there are no proposals and never have been. The most that has been noted by the EU are some “non-papers” sent this week, whatever they are. The Emperor is happy just being Emperor. He doesn’t need to be encumbered by boring details like post-Brexit apocalypse. Unpublished.
The momentous decision of the UK Supreme Court to uphold the appeal against Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament by a margin of 11-0 astonished everyone. The emperor unclothed again. He’ll bounce back with his natural hubris and pretend it didn’t happen, but a day’s sunlight is welcome. [Unpublished 24/9/2019]
Boris floats his new Brexit deal, which looks suspiciously like the hated May deal, except it ditches Northern Ireland into an unspecified, border-ridden limbo. He has to sell his new deal to everybody, despite having annoyed most of those he has to persuade with his duplicity. Evening Standard 18/10/2019
The never-ending battle of wits between Boris Johnson as the new PM and a still resistant parliament over the Brexit deal drags on and on, neither side looking likely to “win”. Meanwhile England play the All Blacks in the rugby World Cup semi-final. Telegraph 27/10/2019
Corbyn says “yes” to Johnson’s demand for a General Election in December, despite winter being the worst time to get people to turn out and despite Corbyn tanking in the popularity polls. Truly, A turkey voting for Christmas. Telegraph 30/10/2019
Dominic Cummings shows increasing recklessness as he wields more and more power in Johnson’s campaign. There’s a real danger he could begin to anger everyone, not just the hated Remainers. It’s Firework Night. [unpublished]
Johnson's election campaign claims about the NHS look increasingly nonsensical – he promises 50,000 nurses, 40 new hospitals etc. However, on closer scrutiny, these appear to be fiction. Evening Standard 26/10/2019
With the election approaching rapidly, the polls seem stuck right where they are. Nothing either says seems to make any difference, especially in the leaders’ “boring” TV debate, which re-heated each combatant's stock attacks but without either making progress. Telegraph 8/12/2019
Tony Blair intervenes to rub salt in defeated Corbyn’s wounds. He says Labour is "marooned on fantasy island" with risk that the "only people speaking the language of reality are those who don’t aspire to lead it”. Meanwhile Corbyn claims that despite losing the election in the worst result for Labour since 1935, they “won the argument”. Hmmm. Telegraph 19/12/2019
Victorious Johnson promises a new “golden age” for Britain, free of the shackles of Europe. He doesn’t go into specifics, but then he never does. Let’s see. Apologies for desecrating Michaelina Wautier’s “The Triumph of Bacchus” ca 1643-59. Telegraph 21/12/2019
It’s panto season! [Warning: Panto season may extend for the full 5-year parliament]. Starring Boris Johnson as Aladdin. Mogg as Wishee Washee, Gove as a monkey and Cummings as the wish-granting genie. And of course, the evil Corbynaza (Abanaza is the original baddie). Telegraph 22/12/2019
Boris Johnson is planning a big shift of civil servants out of London in 2020. Will they cope out there in the wild? Telegraph 28/12/2019