Blog
Fortunes Always Hiding
- 30 Aug 2026
Now if Ann Widdecombe were still with us, I could expect an email missive from her later on tonight, which would go along the lines of… “I enjoy your Sunday Newsletter but I do NOT want to read about football. Honestly. Spare us!”. Anyway, here goes. Now admittedly, I was o...
Another Edinburgh Fringe Run Comes to an End
- 27 Aug 2026
I’m writing this on the train back to London from Edinburgh. I always feel rather melancholy at the end of a Fringe run in the city I have grown to love. Appearing at the Fringe is something I never though I would ever do, but when I look back on my 64 years I think it’s one o...
Long Read: The Cost of Climate Change – The Rush to Net Zero by 2050, the Renewables Dilemma & Adapting to the New Normal
- 18 Aug 2026
Long Read: The Cost of Climate Change – The Rush to Net Zero by 2050, the Renewables Dilemma & Adapting to the New Normal The choices facing politicians are stark... If we can't, on our own as a country, stop global warming, then politicians have to realise we have ...
My Memories of Ann Widdecombe
- 12 Aug 2026
Today I will be attending Ann Widdecombe’s funeral in south Devon. My last event in Edinburgh finished at 9.30pm last night so the only way to get to Totnes in time was to be driven, given I don’t get my driving licence back until the weekend. My best friend Dan Bryce drove...
Dear Ann,,,
- 12 Jul 2026
Dear Ann I have no idea where to start. What I do know is I will miss the email you send me every Sunday evening protesting about something I have written in this newsletter. You hate it when I swear. You accuse me of being woke. You complain about the typos. I aways read i...
Is Andy Burnham the Emperor with no Policies?
- 21 Jun 2026
Tomorrow, the King of the North will grace southerners with his exulted present and travel to London to claim the throne that he considers his by right. It’s as if he has hypnotised his party to lay down their collective shawls in order that the chosen one can walk on wate...
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...