Gillian Reynolds Reviews the 'For the Many' podcast
- 12 Aug 2018
Gillian Reynolds is the doyen of radio reviewers. She was recently headhunted from the Telegraph by the Sunday Times. That’s quite something given she’s in her early eighties. It’s every radio host’s ambition to get a glowing review from Gillian. Some years ago she said on Ra...
The Trouble With Boris
- 8 Aug 2018
I yield to no one in my admiration for Boris Johnson as a writer. His newspaper columns are words of prose that most of us jobbing hacks could never even hope to emulate. His use of the English language can be exquisite. So can his use of Greek or Latin for that matter. Like h...
ConHome Diary: The Shame of Jeremy Corbyn & Why Tommy Robinson Is No Alt-Right Hero
- 3 Aug 2018
When you’re in a political hole, it’s generally best to stop digging. Yet Jeremy Corbyn keeps buying new shovels. Nothing can get him out of the hole he has dug for himself on anti-semitism. Every day, it seems, there is a new revelation which demonstrates his attitude to the ...
WATCH: Interview With Triggernometry
- 29 Jul 2018
This is an interview I did recently for the triggernometry podcast and Youtube channel. It’s 70 minutes long and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The interviewers are two comedians, Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster. We talk about my career, the power of radio, the NHS, immigratio...
ConHome Diary: I Don't Think Spicey Spicer Liked Me
- 27 Jul 2018
Back at the start of the year I bought the UK Commonwealth rights for Sean Spicer’s book on his time working for Donald Trump. It was quite a coup for Biteback at the time. My boss at LBC was very keen I should get him to do an interview on the station – and if possible exclus...
WATCH: My #Awks Interview With Sean Spicer (Watch to the End - He Terminates the Interview)
- 25 Jul 2018
Well that was a bit weird. Earlier in the year I signed up Sean Spicer’s book for Biteback. Given I’m not longer at Biteback I felt free to interview him about the book with no conflict of interest, and secured the only UK radio interview. He did interviews with Newsnight an...
Keith Simpson's Summer Reading List Recommendations
- 16 Jul 2018
By Keith Simpson MP What a contrast between the Commons and Lords. MPs have been grumbling about the paucity of legislation and votes and the Lords the very opposite. We endure a Parliament that is totally and utterly dominated by Brexit and the divisions and rivalries that e...
ConHome Diary: Quite a Week...
- 13 Jul 2018
I am still trying to work out why the Prime Minister appointed Dominic Raab to succeed David Davis as Brexit Secretary. He’s a protégé of DD and succeeded me as his chief of staff back in 2006. If anything, he’s more hardline than David on Brexit matters – some call him an int...
Telegraph Column: What David Davis's Resignation Means
- 9 Jul 2018
Whenever a minister resigns from the government on a point of principle he or she knows that the full might of the government spin machine will be deployed to depict them as either mad, bad or sad. David Davis knows that better than most. Although he wasn’t in governme...
Evening Standard Column: The Fall-out From the David Davis Resignation
- 9 Jul 2018
We’ve been here before. When I heard, late last night, that David Davis had resigned, my mind didn’t go back to 2008 when he suddenly resigned as shadow Home Secretary, it went back nearly 30 years to the resignation of the then chancellor of the exchequer, Nigel Lawson from M...
ConHome Diary: A 'Betrayal of Cabinet Ministers Or a 'Schism'?
- 29 Jun 2018
So 100,000 people attended the anti Brexit march at the weekend, on the second anniversary of the momentous vote. Andrew Adonis tweeted a question: “Is this the day Brexit died?” You’ve got to laugh. The utter delusion of it all. Alison Pearson in the Telegraph this week: “The...
Northbank Talent Management Signs Up A New Client - Me
- 26 Jun 2018
One of the things you never notice when you’re doing a job is what it takes out of you. When I left Biteback at the end of May I didn’t realise not only how much time it would free up, but also how much of a burden had been lifted from my shoulders. I took very seriously the ...
Extra NHS Spending: Where's the Money Coming From?
- 24 Jun 2018
I’m not a great fan of unfunded spending promises. I am, after all a fiscal conservative. So, I had thought, were leading members of the government. The chancellor likes to remind us of his fiscal rectitude so Christ alone knows what Jeremy Hunt has on him. Somehow, he was per...
Book Review: No Nonsense by Joey Barton
- 23 Jun 2018
I read a lot of football biographies and autobiographies. And I mean, a lot. Many of them I don’t finish because they’re totally fake. They’re usually ghosted by someone who clearly hasn’t taken the trouble to get inside the head of his subject. On rare occasions as a reader ...
ConHome Diary: The Shame of the DCMS Select Committee & Why Brexiteer Ministers Need to Evangelise
- 15 Jun 2018
Philip Lee’s resignation came as a bolt out of the blue, according to many learned commentators this week. Well, on this issue maybe, but several people have told me of his unhappiness at being overlooked for promotion to the Cabinet. I think most politicians are only ever a c...
WATCH: CNN Talk - Is Brexit Doomed?
- 13 Jun 2018
This is today’s 30 minute CNN Talk in which Liam Halligan, Ayesha Hazarika and I discuss the latest state of Brexit, following yesterday’s votes in the House of Commons.
ConHome Diary: One Year On...
- 8 Jun 2018
Today marks the first anniversary of the 2017 general election result. I think we all remember the sense of astonishment we all felt as it became clear that Theresa May’s majority was disappearing down the swannee. Looking back on the last twelve months, it is difficult to do ...
The Top 25 Books I Published at Politico's & Biteback
- 2 Jun 2018
Last week I announced I was leaving Biteback Publishing, the company I founded back in 2009. It marked an end to twenty years in publishing. Back in 1998 I started Politico’s Publishing, having spotted that there was a real gap in the political publishing market. My colleagues...
Book Review: 'It's All About Clout' by Max Foster
- 2 Jun 2018
Clout is a strange word. It’s almost slang for a combination of ‘power’ and ‘influence’. If someone has to tell you they have clout, they probably don’t. It’s like charisma. You know it when you see it. You’ve either got it, or you haven’t. It’s difficult to learn how to acqu...
ConHome Diary: Desert Island Dicks, How God Injured Mo Salah & Bad Parenting
- 1 Jun 2018
One of the moments of the week was Good Morning Britain stand-in host Richard Madeley terminating an interview with Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, after he had avoided giving an answer three times as to whether he regretted telling the Russians to “shut up and go away”. W...