By Bagehot THE tortured and tortuous question of Britain’s membership of the European Union took a new turn this afternoon, with a decision by the House of Commons Backbench Business…

By Bagehot THOUGH Bagehot is a hand-wringing liberal on many subjects, when it comes to dodgy public art (taxpayer funded or no) he is a raving conservative. One of the…

Oct 14th 2011 By Bagehot LIAM Fox is gone. The resignation of the British defence secretary became inevitable once newspapers started unearthing financial trails that appeared to show a group…

By Bagehot IT IS Friday, so by way of light relief, I bring news of the newest Conservative member of the European Parliament, Rupert Matthews. In my five years in…

Oct 13th 2011 By Bagehot THE Independent columnist John Rentoul has earned a cult following for a regular feature on his blog: a rolling log of press headlines that fall…

Oct 13th 2011 By Bagehot IN THIS week’s print column, I look at big changes underway in the most sensitive area of immigration policy: the rules covering the right to…

Oct 10th 2011 By Bagehot WHEN a doctor starts talking like a lawyer, it is rarely good news. Today, it was the turn of doctor-turned-politician Liam Fox, Britain’s defence secretary,…

Oct 6th 2011 By Bagehot MY PRINT column this week looks at the unusual spectacle of British Conservative leaders urging euro-zone neighbours on to much closer integration, and warns euro-area…

Oct 6th 2011 By Bagehot ONE last posting about the Conservative Party conference. Little-noticed amid all the hullaballoo about European human rights law (and whether a pet cat had really…

By Bagehot A WEEK ago the Labour leader Ed Miliband used his annual conference speech to place a big bet on the anger of the British public, telling voters that…