Search

The next time Downing Street lets it be known that Tony Blair is sanguine about a second term for George W Bush, do not believe a word of it. The […]

Old Europe is dead. Long live ... what exactly? The response from Tony Blair to the composition of the new European Commission was jubilant. The Prime Minister, having swatted away […]

Like ageing rock stars who have seen better days, the Third Way family gathered on 12 July in the grandeur of London's Guildhall for an evening of nostalgia. Bill Clinton [...]

The phone call was quintessential Whitehall. Would I, Lord Butler's man inquired, care to clarify one or two points raised in my book? A few days later, as I presented [...]

Tony Blair began the case for his defence a week early. His belated but still incomplete admission that weapons of mass destruction will not be found will be superseded by [...]

Tony Blair has pencilled in the third week of June next year for the general election. According to those in the know, Labour calculates that it has a good chance […]

With the local and European elections out of the way, the coming weeks will see a new focus in Downing Street and the Treasury on ideas for the next five [...]

As one man was talking about the people's 'legitimate' fears of immigration, another was visiting a hotbed of the British National Party. While Tony Blair was addressing a meeting in […]

At his cabinet meeting on 22 April, Tony Blair apologised briefly for his handling of the U-turn on the European constitution. Then he paused, and added that he would prefer [...]

Over the past few days, the two pillars of Tony Blair's foreign policy have collapsed. His pro-Americanism failed to prevent George W Bush carving a deal of utmost danger with […]

Over the past few days the British have been told that they are about to be bombed, about to be swamped and about to lose the country they love. Rarely […]

As I was preparing material for pieces on the Hutton inquiry, I found that my home computer kept seizing up with infuriating frequency. I switched it on and off, checked [...]

Tony Blair welcomes Libya's foreign minister to Downing Street. Prince Charles goes to Tehran for talks with Iran's president. Two huge bombs go off in and around Baghdad, killing up [...]

Hutton inquiry equals blame equals scalps. Who will fall on his sword? Which is more culpable, the government or the BBC? Was Tony Blair responsible for the naming of Dr [...]

As the Prime Minister and his people seek to pick off the Labour rebels, one group remains firmly beyond their reach. These are the MPs who feel, as one of [...]

Cast your mind back to the mid-1990s. With John Major s government in disarray, the centre left was learning to embrace Europe, to put the national case for closer integration. [...]

Vladimir Putin is beginning to mould the new Russia in is own image. Just as Mikhail Gorbachev sought to reform a communist system that was beyond reform, and Boris Yeltsin [...]

Is grown-up politics about to commence? After all the colour brochures, the initiatives, the dossiers, the spin and the hype, the government has embarked on its first serious attempt to [...]

The days of IDS are numbered. The rivalry between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown is out of control. This year's party conference season has combined the febrile and the familiar. [...]

The final act in the drama has been performed. We now await the verdict. As Lord Hutton prepares to draw his conclusions, it is time to proffer some pre-emptive advice. [...]

Gordon Brown has looked into a future he has craved for so long and seen that it provides little reassurance. His appearance before the TUC conference on 9 September will [...]

The guest list is impressive. Headed by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, it will bear the standard of the Third Way. Not that anyone uses the term any more. So [...]

In the best spirit of British amateurism, expect a fudge, a rushed job, a botched attempt to resolve one of the most important issues of our time. When the foreign [...]

As I wandered along the first floor of the Pentagon, past the portraits of secretaries of defence of yore and the framed newspaper front pages proclaiming America's great military victories, [...]

A one-liner, only half in jest, is doing the rounds in Whitehall: 'the road to the euro lies through Baghdad'. Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street agree on one thing: […]

Tony Blair's European dream is unravelling. His position on Iraq and his proximity to George Dubbya have seen to that. Strangely, it is not the principle that is the problem […]

A boat trip from the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront to Robben Island followed by a carol concert at St George's Cathedral in Cape Town -- it was not our family's [...]

Britain feels betrayed by America over Israel. When Sharon wrecked the proposed conference in London, he did so with a nod and a wink from the US defence department The [...]

Chat Show Charlie ended 2002 doing what he likes doing most--appearing on telly to tell jokes. With the Labour government stumbling from crisis to crisis and the Conservatives failing to [...]

This is what Tony Blair told the Daily Mail during the 1997 general election campaign: 'Britain will remain with the most restrictive trade union laws anywhere in the western world.' [...]

Ken Clarke's swagger and Cheshire Cat smile are more pronounced than they have been for a long time. The former chancellor, beaten for the leadership twice in the past five [...]

Close to two years ago, I went to see Charles Clarke in his lair in the Home Office. We had a garrulous early evening chat, alternating between his views on [...]

When trade union leaders met to lend their support to the firefighters, the venue for their gathering was unhappily symbolic. The TUC get-together was held at a stately home just [...]

It was a Tory party official who said it 'We've got to get this stuff past all these bloody people.' He was talking to me after a debate on 'helping [...]

The policies they espouse are the same. But the philosophies underpinning them are as different as they've ever been. The past week's events in Blackpool have exposed how far apart [...]

The press were categorical. Tony Blair had 'faced down cabinet opposition'; he had 'issued his starkest warning yet that war with Iraq is on the way'; and Glare Short had [...]

Triangulation is one of Tony Blair's favoured tactics. Identify the two opposing viewpoints, incorporate parts of them and determine policy in your image somewhere in between. On Iraq, however, he [...]

Office leaving parties show the British at their insincere best. So as Tony Blair hosted a farewell party for Sir Richard Wilson at the QEII Centre, Westminster, on 24 July, [...]

Gordon Brown is a social engineer. He is not content with just the nation's purse strings: he wants to change our behaviour and he wants to change our institutions. He [...]

The Danes took over the presidency of the EU on 1 July, promising that enlargement to bring in the countries of southern and eastern Europe will be top of their [...]

Forget the spat with the RMT. That's small fry. There's a much bigger battle going on between the Labour government and the trade unions. In Downing Street, they're furious. They're [...]

Good Business Steve Hilton and Giles Gibbons Texere, 264pp, £17.99 Discounts at www.newstatesman.co.uk Steve Hilton runs a company dedicated to helping businesses find their true inner souls. Naomi Klein got [...]

The week of Black Rod, they are saying in Downing Street, was unlike anything they had been through before. Now they are convinced that the media will always damn them [...]

Avocados, as assiduous readers of health sections and nutritional charts will know, are among the healthiest foods on the market. They are richer in phytochemicals than any other fruit. They [...]

The article informs on the Brave Ukraine fundraising event held on 6 May at Tate Modern, and organised by Christie's and the Ukrainian Embassy in London.

Back in August, as the holiday season was at its peak, I wrote in the NS: 'We don't want style politics, we want to get angry again...people like me who [...]

John Kampfner recalls 25 December 1991 in Moscow - the day Gorbachev resigned I had a question for the British ambassador. What country were we in, I wondered? He stopped, [...]

The process is slow and insidious, but the Tories now believe they have a masterplan to destroy Tony Blair the person. Until recently he was considered off-limits and attacks deemed [...]