By BAGEHOT | BRIGHTON I VENTURED into Momentum’s “A World Transformed” jamboree—a sort of parallel conference running alongside the main Labour Party conference—with some nervousness. Momentum has a reputation for…

By Bagehot ABOUT half-way through “Jaws”, Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster, Sheriff Brody (Roy Schneider) finally catches sight of the giant shark that has been wreaking havoc in the high seas…

Aug 31st 2017 ASKED in Japan whether she intends to stand down as leader of the Conservative Party in 2019 Theresa May replied that, on the contrary, she plans to…

By Bagehot WE USE the phrase “death-trap” all too lightly. But a death-trap is exactly what the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in West London became when it caught fire in the…

Jun 9th 2017 By BAGEHOT POLITICAL scientists are often sniffy about campaigns. They think that campaigns have at best a minimal impact on election results and sometimes have none whatsoever.…

May 11th 2017 By BAGEHOT BRITISH election campaigns are usually carefully choreographed affairs. They are short and sharp: just a few weeks of formal campaigning compared with America’s year or…

May 9th 2017 By BAGEHOT I HEREBY predict that one of the great themes of British politics in the next few years will be “one-nation conservatism”. The Conservatives are currently…

By BAGEHOT TO BIRMINGHAM to look at the state of the race to become mayor of the West Midlands (to be decided on May 4th)—and to take the temperature of…

By BAGEHOT THE deformation professionnelle of the British establishment is its habit of rewarding failure: mess things up, get a promotion. The Brexit referendum provided a particularly dispiriting case study…

Apr 21st 2017 By BAGEHOT DAMN her eyes! I took over as Bagehot only the other day, on April Fools’ Day, having not focused on British politics since 1993. I…