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Author: David Herdson

A Customs Union deal needs to be on the table if No Deal is to be avoided

A Customs Union deal needs to be on the table if No Deal is to be avoided

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The only way to get Brexit Deal votes is to go softer It’s lonely at the top. It’s probably lonelier if you cut yourself off and isolate yourself from your colleagues, even if they are after their own interests and your own job. This last week has proven just how politically lonely Theresa May is, yet still she carries on. There’s something admirable in that and perhaps it’s no small part of the explanation for the rise in rise in…

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Trump is clearing the road to his own impeachment

Trump is clearing the road to his own impeachment

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‘La Famiglia’by Marf His shutdown has backfired and he’s vulnerable For all the attention on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s campaign and associated activities, the thing that will ultimately do for Trump – or save him – is politics. The latest reports, that Trump directed his lawyer to lie to Congress, are certainly not good news for the embattled president but nor are they catastrophic. For one thing, as he is fond of noting, Michael Cohen is not necessarily a…

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It’s time for the Tories to pick a candidate for Buckingham

It’s time for the Tories to pick a candidate for Buckingham

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Bercow needs to be eased out, one way or another Goodwill is the oil which lubricates the British constitution. The rules of parliament have been inherited from a time when governing was a gentlemen’s business and was expected to be carried out by gentlemen acting as gentlemen. Self-restraint and the awareness of when it becomes inappropriate to keep pushing a case are an essential aspect to enabling the system to work. Parliament is frequently criticised for being overly adversarial –…

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Trump’s Shutdown: Who blinks, who loses?

Trump’s Shutdown: Who blinks, who loses?

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How long can neither side budge with 400,000 federal employees furloughed? Thirteen months to the first elections in the primary campaigns for next year’s US presidential vote might seem a long way off when so much can and will happen in the UK over the next thirteen weeks, never mind months. That, however, is because Brexit is exceptional. Lifting our eyes a little, the partial federal shutdown resulting from the stalemate between Trump and Congress over funding for his Wall…

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After Thursday’s Alastair Meeks 2019 predictions David Herdson takes a very different view of what the New Year will bring

After Thursday’s Alastair Meeks 2019 predictions David Herdson takes a very different view of what the New Year will bring

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Get ready for the most dramatic year in UK politics for decades 2018 was boring, wasn’t it? No leadership change among the three main parties for the first time in four years, only the third year this decade without a general election or a major referendum, and not even the distraction of a big foreign election (the best on offer was the Italian election, which also produced the only change among the G7 leaders). Except of course it wasn’t. True,…

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Why Corbyn could be the one to extend Article 50 in the New Year

Why Corbyn could be the one to extend Article 50 in the New Year

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The Brexit vote could give him a few days of government – what would he do with it? FTPA doesn’t just stand for Fixed Term Parliaments Act; it can equally be Freedom to Piss About, which seems appropriate given the casually reckless approach taken to the Brexit ratification process by just about all sides. The government willingly risks no deal as a bargaining tactic to better the chances of its own deal being agreed; Labour willingly risks it to increase…

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No Deal or No government: the pincers close on May

No Deal or No government: the pincers close on May

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She can’t please all the (necessary) people all the time Not only is Theresa May a bloody difficult woman, she’s also a bloody difficult woman to shift. The ERG, with all their customary Keystone Cops planning, proved once again this week that when it comes to continuing her mission, the PM has a Terminator-like resilience to her and that it takes rather more than saying nasty things in posh voices to blow her off course. Their failure, however, was not…

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Is France the next to fall to populism?

Is France the next to fall to populism?

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How far do the Yellow Vest protests go? Emmanuel Macron was always an unlikely revolutionary. Graduate of the ENA, high-flying civil servant, investment banker with Rothschilds, and later Minister of Finance and the Economy: his was the model of an insider’s path to power. And yet En Marche was a revolution of sorts. Despite Macron’s own background, his election was in its own way a rejection of the status quo. His style, however, was never fitted to that role –…

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