Keir Starmer’s premiership is certainly struggling to sustain any forward momentum. One of the many accusations thrown at the Prime Minister relates to the multiple policy U-turns that he and his government have performed since coming to power in … [Read more...] about Government U-Turns: Feeble Politics or Valuable Pragmatism?
The UK now has seven living former Prime Ministers, a first in modern history. All of these individuals receive certain benefits, like publicly funded allowances and security protection. Given some of this current cohort are still in their forties … [Read more...] about On the hook: should we fund former Prime Ministers?
The unexpected resurrection of David Cameron’s political career in the closing weeks of 2023 reopened a long-standing constitutional controversy. There is a convention that all government ministers must sit in either the Commons or the Lords, … [Read more...] about Bring on the Goats: ‘Outsider’ ministers are a good idea: their peerages are otiose
In November of 2023 I was delighted to be appointed as a Research Fellow for the Constitution Society. My work for the Society will compare the operation of constitutions in the UK and Sri Lanka. In this blog, I explore the interactions between … [Read more...] about Balancing accountability and stability: A comparison of 2022 Executive Resignations in the United Kingdom and Sri Lanka
Introduction This is a blog about the constitutional issues at stake when it comes to the self-selecting memberships of political parties choosing party leaders and thus Prime Ministers.[1] As this blog is being drafted, there is some … [Read more...] about Choosing party leaders
Our recent book, The Bonfire of the Decencies: Repairing and Restoring the British Constitution, analysed the turbulent 2019-2022 Boris Johnson administration from a constitutional perspective. It noted a worrying tendency. Johnson himself, and … [Read more...] about Post-Johnson, constitutional combustion continues. But the fire can be extinguished
