Time to look ahead to 2022 No incumbent French president has won re-election since the terms were reduced from seven years to five. Granted, there are not many examples – two – on which to base what might appear to be if not a rule of thumb then certainly a trend. But nor is the Élysée exactly a secure base from which to a presidential campaign (compare here with the American presidency). So why is Emmanuel Macron such short odds…
No permutation looks a natural fit Elections: remember them? For most of the country, they’ve become a distant memory. Aside from a handful of council by-elections in Scotland in the autumn, there’s been nothing for ten months. They are, however, due to return with a vengeance in May with elections for some or all of 149 English councils, plus 13 mayors (including London and all the large combined-authorities), 40 Police & Crime Commissioners, the London Assembly, Scottish Parliament and Welsh…
An old normalcy will do nothing to shake Europe from its complacency Chicago has produced more than its fair share of colourful politicians. Rod Blagojevich – recently pardoned by Donald Trump – was impeached in 2009 as Governor of Illinois for attempting to sell (among other executive actions) Barack Obama’s former senate seat after the latter was elected president. A half-century earlier, Mayor Richard J Daley ran the city like a fiefdom, making and breaking presidential campaigns along the way….
A lifetime of cod-dictatorship left him unprepared for the real thing Where did it go wrong for Donald Trump? Wednesday’s events will prove a watershed moment for his political career. Beforehand, he was absolutely dominant in the Republican Party, with the expectations of many that he would remain so even out of office. Now, that aura of raw power shines far more dimly – not merely because he finally crossed a line unacceptable to many in the GOP but because…
So that was Brexit. The defining political issue in the UK of the last half-decade is now done. Not that the story entirely ends there. Brexit was just one more chapter in the long story of Britain’s relationship with the continent, and as that geographic fact remains, so must the further development of that story. But not with the same intensity for the time being. 2021 will be the first year in several where domestic politics will not be dominated…
If it’s not, we should REALLY worry The gods have clearly decided that they’ve not done enough to us yet this year? Christmas? Pah. You develop a vaccine? Here’s a boosted version of the virus – which mutated in the same country that was the first to deploy a vaccine. Coincidence? Well, maybe. But the facts are clear. This new variant of Covid, which first became well-established in the Thames estuary areas and their bordering districts – Cockney Covid for…
Yet the government remains surprisingly popular – for now This is the end. Not the real end, of course. There is no real end; just the start of another chapter. But as far as Brexit goes, that’s it: no more can-kicking, no more transition periods, no more rule-taking. Out. There is a slim chance that the UK and EU might, even at this late stage, strike a trade deal. The two sides are still talking, genuine and quick movement clearly…
The government’s just introduced another constitutional time-bomb Rather quietly, the government announced this week the death sentence for the unfairly unloved Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. In truth, it was not that bad a piece of legislation; one which took a power away from the executive and handed it to parliament, at least in small measure. However, two snap elections in a row – one of which came about by circumventing the Act’s provisions – undermined any sense of a new state…