Blog
A Tale of Two Interviews - Streeting v Burnham
- 7 Jun 2026
Last night at around midnight I was flicking through Youtube and came across the latest Newsagents podcast, in which Lewis Goodall interviews Wes Streeting for 90 minutes. Wow. What an interview. Wes Streeting was in 100 per cent honest mode and gave Lewis so many newsline...
What is a General?
- 6 Jun 2026
On Thursday, my new book, THE GENERALS was published. It seeks to give the reader an introduction to 69 of the most significan Generals in world history, through the eyes of 69 different authors. As a taster, I thought I would reproduce my introduction to the book here. If ...
A Tribute to Derek Conway
- 31 May 2026
On Friday, the funeral of former Conservative MP Derek Conway was held in his beloved Northumberland. In the end, I was unable to go, which was such a shame as Derek was one of those people who was a one-off, one of life’s most positive and generous people. He was great compan...
The Great West Ham Fire Sale Begins - Stick or Twist
- 25 May 2026
Note: I appreciate this won’t be of interesy to everyone, but it’s of great interest to me, which is why I’ve spent the bulk of Bank Holiday Monday writing it. It’s happened. There’s no point in dwelling on what might have been. We got the third worst points total of an...
Next Time You hear a Politician Claim They Care About the Cost of Living, Tell them About This New Stealth Tax
- 24 May 2026
I could spend the next 500 words bemoaning the fact that West Ham have been relegated, and wallowing in a cesspit of self-pity. The fact is that we deserved to be. We got the third lowest number of points, and statistics don’t lie. There are all sorts of reasons for that, but ...
Why Angela Rayner Is Well Placed to Become our Next Prime Minister
- 17 May 2026
What a week of political intrigue! One of the things that has really irritated me is the number of my fellow political commentators, who refuse to give an opinion on what is likely to happen. Ok, sometimes we get things wrong, but at least we’ve nailed our colours to a particu...
The Speech That Cooked Starmer's Political Goose - But Maybe Not Just Yet
- 11 May 2026
Even though they were held last Thursday, the local, Scottish and Welsh elections seem an age ago. Their reverberations are shaking the very foundations of British politics, and also undermining the future of the prime minister. Mid term elections are always difficult f...
The Consequences of Thursday's Elections
- 3 May 2026
Local elections are always an expectations game and revolve around each party trying to convince us pundits and voters in advance that they’re going to do far worse than we all think, and therefore when they don’t, they can claim it as a victory. To that extent they are very p...
A Weekend in the Big Apple
- 26 Apr 2026
Today’s newsletter comes to you live from New York City, where I’ve spent a couple of days before heading down to Washington DC on an Amtrak train a little later to cover the King’s State visit for LBC. My shows on Monday and Tuesday will be coming from Simon Marks’s FSN studi...
Oh Mandy - The Sequel... The Scandal That Exposed Starmer
- 19 Apr 2026
Reap and ye shall sow. Remember all the occasions Keir Starmer urged Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak to resign and take responsibilities for the failures or misdeeds of their governments? If you play holier than thou, the don’t be surprised when people hold you to the same s...
What are the Prospects for the LibDems
- 12 Apr 2026
The elections on 7th May could turn out to be seismic in their political consequences. They’re a mix of parliamentary elections in both Scotland and Wales, as well as in local councils and mayoralties all over England. In Scotland the conventional wisdom is that the SNP will w...
The Utter Hypocrisy of the British Medical Association
- 5 Apr 2026
On Tuesday the resident doctors start a six day long strike. It’s the 16th strike since this pay and conditions dispute started. At the beginning, there was a lot of public sympathy for the doctors, but I think that sympathy is waning. They saw Wes Streeting award a 29.4 per c...
Press Announcement: Iain Dale All Talk at the Edinburgh Fringe 2026 - Badenoch, Polanski & Zaghari-Ratcliffe Among Stellar Line-up
- 31 Mar 2026
Buy tickets HERE! This year’s lineup of guests for my ALL TALK Fringe show is the most high profile so far. I have four current or past political party leaders including Kemi Badenoch and Zack Polanski. I want the Edinburgh public to discover the people behind the pol...
TV Review: Power - The Downfall of Huw Edwards (Channel 5)
- 29 Mar 2026
Last night, John and I sat down to watch the Huw Edwards drama which Channel 5 showed last week. It was that or Virgin River or the Hotel Inspector. Watching a drama about someone you vaguely know was bound to be a strange experience. What I wasn’t expecting, but should hav...
An Evening with Lord Ashcroft (And Elton John. Oh, and Nicole Scherzinger)
- 15 Mar 2026
Dear all, So there I was, catching snippets of the West Ham v Manchester City match on my phone, while also watching Kemi Badenoch and Theresa May strutting their funky stuff to a live performance by Nicole Scherzinger, followed by Rory Bremner playing Bruce Forsyth in...
WATCH: My Hour Long Interview with West Ham Legend Clyde Best
- 10 Mar 2026
I have a treat for you. Clyde Best is a true West Ham legend. He can legitimately be described as Britain’s first star black footballer, and a real role model for the black players that followed him into the professional game in the 1970s and 1980s. He came to this co...
Iran and the Consequences of International Law
- 1 Mar 2026
It’s astonishing how many experts on international law there seem to be. They all seem to know it, chapter and verse assume that any action taken by the USA or Israel must, by definition, breach international law. And that tells you all you need to know about their motivations...
Why the Gorton * Denton By-Election Result Matters
- 27 Feb 2026
Some by-elections are remembered for decades – think Oxford 1938 - Orpington 1962, Glasgow Hillhead 1981 – and others fade into obscurity almost as soon as the result is declared. Watching Labour representatives on the media this morning try to dismiss this as a normal resu...
Press Announcement: Biteback to Publish Iain Dale's Unfiltered Autobiography 'HAVE I SAID TOO MUCH?'
- 23 Feb 2026
BITEBACK TO PUBLISH IAIN DALE’S UNFILTERED AUTOBIOGRAPHY Biteback Publishing has acquired Iain Dale’s searingly honest autobiography, offering a rare, honest look at failure, imposter syndrome and the art of broadcasting. Award-winning broadcaster Iain Dale has led a...