Suella Braverman’s resignation and prompt reappointment as Home Secretary is a bit of a conundrum. On 19 October (after only 6 weeks in the job) she stood down for what she described as the “mistake” of sending an official document from her personal email. Although, in her words, only a “technical infringement of the rules”, this apparently did not meet the “highest standards” to which Braverman holds herself and meant that resigning was the “right thing to do”. Indeed, she said, “the business of government relies upon people accepting responsibility for their mistakes" and "carrying on" would not be "serious politics”. Those words may of course have been a swipe at Liz Truss, the prime minister, but they were nonetheless ...

Last week I attended the final recording of the satirical BBC panel show Mock the Week. There was a 100-person queue when I arrived but, despite the affection people clearly still have for it, the BBC had announced in August that it would be cancelled. When the programme was first broadcast in 2005, the landscapes of politics and television were unrecognisable compared with today. There were no streaming services; YouTube had only just been launched; terrestrial TV was populated with panel shows such as Have I Got News for You, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and 8 Out of 10 Cats. Now only Have I Got News for You has survived in the same format as it was first broadcast in ...

I remember when Barack Obama was first elected president in 2008. Aged 14, I’d barely listened to the news before, but that weekend I sat at our kitchen table poring over a Sunday newspaper my parents had bought. The fact Obama had remotely comparable skin colouring (albeit due to Kenyan ancestry rather than my own Sri Lankan heritage) made me feel part of a world I’d until then assumed unreachable. His optimistic slogan, “yes we can”, and willingness to reach across the political divide lifted my heart; I wonder if I’d ever have become interested in politics otherwise, or be in the job I’m in now. To hear people describe Rishi Sunak becoming Prime Minister as “Britain’s Obama moment” feels, therefore, ...

"Extra funding for the NHS, with 50,000 more nurses… millions more invested every week in science, schools, apprenticeships and infrastructure." Those were the headline promises in the 2019 Tory manifesto. Today they read like a sick joke. Having trashed the public finances, the Conservatives look set to impose another round of austerity. If, as reported, there is a £40bn "black hole" in government accounts, then big public spending cuts are on the way. That's why we need a general election now. The mismatch between the promises of 2019 and the reality of today – post-Covid, and amid an energy war with Russia – mean there is just no mandate for austerity. Nobody voted for this. Nor did they vote for Liz Truss's small-state, ...

Rishi Sunak has pulled off a silent coup. The former chancellor has become prime minister without a single speech, interview or debate. His comically short address following his coronation as Conservative leader (a mere 86 seconds) offered little enlightenment. In his technocratic aloofness, Sunak resembles an IMF official poised to impose a “structural adjustment programme” on a stricken developing world economy. Yet for some this opaque, post-democratic exercise has come as a blessed relief. After Liz Truss’s kamikaze economics, the UK once again has a “grown-up” at the wheel. The narrative has been set: Sunak is an unbiased, competent leader who will administer harsh but necessary medicine. This narrative should be resisted. Though a less outwardly ideological figure than Liz Truss, Sunak ...

At 105 carat, the Koh-i-Noor is nowhere near being the largest diamond in the world. Nor, by many accounts since it was first displayed in 1851, is it the prettiest. But it is arguably the world's most controversial. It is part of the Crown Jewels and is on display at the Tower of London. The Queen Mother wore it in her crown at her coronation in 1937. Traditionally, it is part of the Queen consort’s crown. Days after the death of Elizabeth II, social media was incandescent with pleas that the diamond be returned to India. Most recently, a spokesperson for the Indian prime minister's Bharatiya Janata Party said that if the new consort, Camilla, were to wear the Koh-i-Noor at ...

As the British government self-immolates, an oddly specific consensus has emerged in one corner of the political world. It has been described as a "globalist coup" in certain circles, which I won't name so as not to give them more publicity. This was criticised, with good reason: “globalist” has for years been used in far-right circles as a euphemism for “Jewish”. Per the American Jewish Committee, it’s “a coded word for Jews who are seen as international elites conspiring to weaken or dismantle 'Western' society”.  Of course the term is not meant by those who use it in an anti-Semitic way, and obviously, not every use of the word “globalist” is necessarily anti-Semitic: that’s how code words work. But the fact that ...

If Boris Johnson leads the Conservative Party into the next election, I will lose several quite painful bets. This is nothing compared to what the nation might lose, of course, but it’s important to declare one’s interests. Mere days ago, the prospect of such a restoration seemed ridiculous – the pet project of a band of quite demented loyalists. The threshold of 100 MP nominations to qualify for the ballot seemed sure to exclude a man who, only a few months ago, was forced out after so many people resigned from his government that he could barely staff it. And yet, those endorsements are ticking up. Ben Wallace, who has turned into the Prester John of Tory moderates, has declared for Boris, ...