Top 100 People on the Right 2007
- 1 Oct 2007
When we sat down to compile this list with a group of ten journalists, MPs and commentators we had no idea of the difficulty of the task ahead. To qualify for the list you have to live and work in the UK and be on the right of centre of British politics. We've deliberately ...
Top 100 People on the Left 2007
- 29 Sep 2007
1 Gordon Brown Prime Minister 2 Tony Blair Former Prime Minister 3 Alex Salmond First Minister of Scotland 4 David Miliband Foreign Secretary 5 Ed Balls Secretary of State for S...
Will Gordon Brown Call an Early Election?
- 27 Sep 2007
The YouGov poll this in this morning's Sunday Times is the latest which shows a widening lead for Gordon Brown. I detect the beginnings of a bandwagon in the media for an October election. The Sunday Times leader column is headlined GO FOR IT GORDON. It concludes... The bounc...
EDP Diary: From Lake Como
- 27 Sep 2007
Moltrasio, Lake Como Foreign languages are a funny thing. I used to be fluent in German, having lived there for two years and studied it for my degree. But for twenty years I have had scant little opportunity to practice it. So when I got an invitation to speak to the Konra...
Telegraph Column: How Politicians Use the Internet
- 18 Sep 2007
Politicians of all colours ought to be embracing the internet with gusto, but British political parties appear to be falling behind other countries when it comes to using the web to market themselves and their policies. Visit any of the three main party websites and you’ll com...
Telegraph Column: Same old Gordon
- 13 Sep 2007
Gordon Brown’s political strategy has finally been exposed. Tories have spent the last ten weeks wondering if they had misjudged Gordon Brown. But now he has unwittingly revealed that far from adopting a ‘new kind of politics’, he’s using classic old politics to...
Suits You, Sir
- 9 Sep 2007
Six weeks ago I got a call asking if I would like to do a fashion shoot for Esquire Magazine. Naturally I thought someone was having a laugh at my expense, but no, it turned out to be true. Esquire wanted to shoot a session with seven male Tories which they have calle...
Fabian Review: Brown May Have Had a Good Start, But...
- 9 Sep 2007
What a ten weeks it has been for Gordon Brown. He appears to be master of all he surveys. He reckons he has proved he can do the job. He’s supposedly split with the Blair legacy in a number of important ways. He’s reputedly signalled an intention to withdraw from Iraq. He’s in...
Top Ten Ways David Cameron Would Benefit From National Service
- 8 Sep 2007
Today's Top Ten on Vox Politix will be TOP TEN JOBS GORDON BROWN DIDN'T OFFER JOHN BERCOW, PATRICK MERCER & MATTHEW TAYLOR. Your suggestions please. And yesterday's final list lined up like this... TOP TEN WAYS DAVID CAMERON WOULD BENEFIT FROM NATIONAL SERVICE Num...
How to Speak Your Mind Aussie Style
- 7 Sep 2007
Kiwiblog reports an interview with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. He was asked what he thought about the handful of protesters outside the Gnat’s conference. Well they are from the Socialist Alliance. These people are losers, you know. They lost the Soviet Un...
Top Ten Reasons the LibDems Should Ditch Ming Campbell
- 7 Sep 2007
Number 10: He really has no idea about anything apart from what is the best 'Werther's Original ' flavour Number 9: He's older than the average Conservative Party member. Number 8: Because if he mention Jo Grimond one more time... Number 7: H e hasn't got any skeletons in ...
Top Ten Reasons Michael Ancram Should be Taken Outside & Shot
- 6 Sep 2007
Yesterday afternoon I asked for suggestions for a Top Ten List of Reasons Why Michael Ancram Should Be Taken Outside And Shot. Here is the final list... Number 10: So he knows how the grouse feel. Number 9: Because we need to discourage the aristocracy from overbreeding. ...
Why Can't These Dinosaurs Depart the Stage
- 4 Sep 2007
Before the last election Lynton Crosby told us all that we should ask ourselves every morning: "What am I going to do today to help the Conservative Party win the next election?" These sentiments would of course be entirely lost on the Fourteenth Marquis of Lothian, who has le...
Winning from a Crouching Start in Chatham
- 1 Sep 2007
Yesterday I was offered a ticket to go and see West Ham play Reading this afternoon. I turned it down, partly on the basis that if I went, we would lose, but more due to the fact that I had already promised my friend Tracey Crouch, Tory candidate for Chatham & Aylesford th...
EDP Diary: When I Took My Mum to Zurich
- 31 Aug 2007
Being a politician sometimes involves taking big decisions, many of which will be unpopular. David Cameron is soon going to have to decide which of the menu of policies provided by his various policy commissions he will adopt and include in his manifesto. Over the last year, f...
Indicating to the Right? Return to a Core Vote Strategy? Er, No...
- 30 Aug 2007
At ten to seven this morning I woke to the sound of my mobile ringing. It was the Today programme. Oh God, I thought, who's died. Luckily no one had. They wanted to know if I could appear on their programme in the the following hour to talk about David Cameron's Newsnightinter...
EDP Column: My Five Minute Interview
- 30 Aug 2007
What is your idea of perfect happiness in Norfolk? Walking along Mundesley beach. When I was at university in Norwich in the early 1980s I used to drive out there at midnight from time to time and just wander along the beach listening to the waves crashing against the sand....
Charlotte Robinson RIP
- 29 Aug 2007
Sometimes you hear a piece of news which knocks you for six. During the last election campaign I had some fantastic help from some teenagers from the village of Worsted in North Norfolk, one of them being a young lady called Charlotte Robinson. Charlotte emailed me out of t...
Did John Gummer Eat a Dodgy Burger?
- 28 Aug 2007
John Gummer should have been pensioned off years ago. Indeed, I thought he had been. Remember the picture of feeding his daughter Cordelia a burger to prove that they were safe from Mad Cow Disease? Hers may have been CJD free, but if press reports are correct, his policy prop...
EDP Diary: An October Election?
- 16 Aug 2007
Further proof of Tony Blair’s obsession with all things American has come with the news that he has hired a top US lawyer to broker a book deal for him. Pundits reckon that a publisher may well fork out $12 million for his memoirs. If so, they’re mad. Not a single publisher ha...