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By BAGEHOTAFTER TWO days of voting Tory MPs have chosen two of their colleagues to go through to the next stage of the leadership election: a run-off when the party’s 160,000 members will choose the winner. They are Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary. Mr Johnson got more than half the votes with
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By BAGEHOTTHE House of Commons has just voted in favour (by 312 MPs to 270) of English votes for English laws (EVEL). Superficially a piece of legislative housekeeping—it became law by standing order—this measure fundamentally changes the way the United Kingdom functions. The country should be an unwieldy, unstable beast: few multi-part polities in which
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By BAGEHOTTHE political implications of the attacks in Paris are only just starting to unfurl. But there are early indications that one might be the accelerated growth of (ultimately inevitable) splits in the Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the ensuing debates has cemented the impression—as if any cement were needed—that Labour’s newish leader is
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By BAGEHOTIT TELLS you a lot about David Cameron’s dinner in London last night with Donald Tusk that the press could not subsequently decide whether it was a coup or a disaster for the prime minister and his plan to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership. On the one hand the European Council president bluntly commented “no
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NB: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.BAGEHOT: What would Brexit look like for Britain? What does it mean if we vote to leave?IAN BREMMER: Well first of all it probably means a couple of years to unwind. The level of distraction, technically, to figure out how to do it with the Europeans is
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By BAGEHOTTHE American president touched down in London last night for a three-day visit. Officially his trip has to do with wishing the queen a happy 90th birthday. In practice it is a carefully worded bid to nudge British voters towards a Remain vote in the EU referendum on June 23rd. His lobbying began this
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By BAGEHOTTHE official declaration has not yet taken place, but already it is arithmetically certain that Sadiq Khan has won London’s election and will be the capital’s new mayor. With over 90% of ballots counted he leads Zac Goldsmith, his Tory rival, by 44% to 35%. The decisiveness of his victory is easy enough to
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By BAGEHOTTHE EU referendum race is getting too close for comfort. In The Economist’s poll-of-polls, Leave is ahead by two points. A survey published by ORB on Friday gave it a ten-point lead, sending the pound to a two-month low against the dollar; one by TNS today puts its advantage at seven points. Betting odds
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By BAGEHOTBARELY more than a week has gone by since 37% of eligible British voters backed Brexit—52% of those who participated—but already the political landscape is transformed. With Boris Johnson out of the Conservative leadership contest, the choice of the next prime minister is one between various shades of isolationist Euroscepticism.As Michael Gove made clear
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By BAGEHOTTHE title of this post is the question that—more than ever before—I find myself asking following the Liberal Democrats’ just-finished gathering in Brighton. It was my fourth Lib Dem conference. My first, also in Brighton, was in 2012. Back then, too, the talk was of the party’s identity crisis. Two years into its coalition
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