PETER HETHERINGTON | Around 25 years ago, when trade union power was a force to be reckoned with, the redoubtable miners’ leader, Mick McGahey, rallied comrades at the Scottish TUC with a typically...
PHILIP JOHNSTON | Few beyond the narrow confines of Westminster politics will have heard of Sir Alfred Sherman, and even there mention of his name will probably be greeted with puzzlement.
VICTORIA MACDONALD | As the prime minister sunned himself in the Caribbean and the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, technically remained in charge of government, it was John Reid, the home...
MELISSA BENN | At first sight, the recent wrangling over the charities Bill, which returns to the Commons in the autumn, contradicts Tony Blair’s claims for a new era of political cross-dressing.
PHILIP JOHNSTON | Sir Gus O’Donnell might possess the knighthood that still goes with the job — but he is a very different animal from the previous occupants of his high office.
PETER WILBY | One of the missed opportunities of my life occurred late in 1974 when the then Conservative leader, Edward Heath, announced an election for the party leadership.
PETER HETHERINGTON | Last month, in an extensive Cabinet reshuffle that had even less regard for that elusive concept of joined-up government — does anything change? — the prime minister sent the...
DAVID LIPSEY | The vice-presidency of the United States is famously not worth a bucket of warm spit. So what is the deputy leadership of the Labour Party worth?
PHILIP JOHNSTON | Who would be home secretary? Who would want to be? Even though it is considered one of the great offices of state, alongside foreign secretary and the chancellor, it rarely...
PETER RIDDELL | Tony Blair is busy, busy. The more he is under pressure over his future as prime minister, the more determined he is to show that there is a lot more for him to do in Number 10.
ROBERT SHRIMSLEY | The news that the UK Independence party is a magnet for - in David Cameron’s phrase - ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’ should not come as much of a surprise.
PHILIP JOHNSTON | It is almost 20 years since Margaret Thatcher, on the morning of her third election victory in 1987, stood on the staircase of Central Office in London and said: ‘We must do...
