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Clegg will pray Disraeli was wrong about loving coalitions | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
The omens are unhappy for the Lib Dem leader. But blends in British politics are less novel than some imagine'England does not love coalitions," or so Disraeli said, and so the more elevated kind of...
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Edward Heath: The Authorised Biography by Philip Ziegler | Book review
The biggest puzzle about Ted Heath is how such an unattractive man ever became prime ministerOf all the men, and one woman, who have been prime minister since Sir Robert Walpole, we can debate who was...
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What Bradley Wiggins could have taught Raoul Moat | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Throughout history, people have been afflicted by the self-pity that breeds violence. But there is another wayOver the past week or so a phrase kept running through my mind: "The self-pity that breeds...
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Tony Judt obituary
Outstanding historian of the modern world with a trenchantly clear-sighted take on international politicsIn the 1960s, Cambridge produced a remarkable generation of historians – David Cannadine, Linda...
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David Lloyd George: The Great Outsider by Roy Hattersley | Book review
A new biography reveals some startling parallels with Tony BlairAn outcry greeted the memoirs, or at least the money paid for them. Was it right that a prime minister who had led his country in a...
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My generation squandered our golden opportunity | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Those of us who grew up in the 60s had the world at our feet but, despite the 'victory of the west', we've achieved nothingAs a year ends, we look back and take stock, all the more when a decade ends....
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American Radical: The Life and Times of IF Stone by DD Guttenplan – review
IF Stone's contrarian instincts landed him in trouble, but made him a giant of American journalismIn 1956, IF Stone recovered the American passport which had been taken away five years earlier when he...
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The Cruddas affair is nothing new | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Politics has always been awash with money, and about property and the interests of tradeJust over a hundred years ago, the Conservative leader was a rich, languid, superficially intelligent Etonian –...
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Give John Major the credit he's due | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
As we celebrate Team GB's Olympic success, spare a thought for the 'unknown prime minister' who made it possibleWe saw David Cameron all too often, at one point playing uneasy host to Vladimir Putin....
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From Jessica Ennis to Joey Barton. Could a contrast be more ghastly? |...
The Olympic spirit we've just rejoiced in makes the return of football's greed, cheating and racism all the more depressingWell, I was wrong, not for the first time and doubtless not for the last....
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Why George Orwell is as relevant today as ever | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
If George Orwell was guilty of anything, it was not of being too leftwing but too intellectually honestWhy Orwell Matters is the title of a book published some years ago by my much-lamented if...
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May Andrew Mitchell survive the baying mob | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
The chief whip behaved boorishly, but should not be vilified. This story is really about the deterioration of the policeIt would be hard to imagine a more thankless task at the present moment than...
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The Tories just aren't patrician enough | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Self-conscious and lacking in confidence, the Conservative party has forgotten the redeeming virtues of the old aristocracy'What is that man for?" a little girl asked, pointing at the egregious figure...
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US politics today is as absurd as Britain's under George III | Geoffrey...
The US system, designed 230 years ago, was supposed to work for all ages. Instead it is dysfunctional, as Obama knows wellIt could have been much worse. Most Europeans, even conservatives, were...
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Meet the real William Beveridge | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
The man who inspired the welfare state and is idolised by Labour was in fact an anti-statist LiberalAlthough no punishment is legally ordained, few crimes are more cruel than intellectual...
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MPs: get back to the day job | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Our politicians should spend less time in select committees, and more in the chamber of the houseIn the first years of the Thatcher government the leader of the House of Commons was that clever man and...
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Nationalists whose operas proclaimed their patriotism | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Verdi and Wagner were intense rivals. Both wrote masterpieces that reflected the rise of their lands into nation statesAfter Dickens's 200th birthday in 2012, next year sees the bicentenaries of the...
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'Plebgate' was never a story about Tory toffs | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
The Andrew Mitchell affair revealed our prejudices, and showed the police to be untrustworthyFirst it was men from the West Midlands police wearing "PC Pleb" T-shirts. Then Tom Newton Dunn, the...
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Desperate to be loved, David Cameron can only flounder | Geoffrey Wheatcroft
The Tories aren't meant to be the nice party, they are meant to be the competent partyHow many shambles add up to omni, how many balls-ups do we need before calling it a disaster, how many U-turns does...
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Saying sorry for the past is humbug: the right time for apologies is at the...
Cameron's 'regret' for the Amritsar atrocity reminds us that we never hear politicians recanting their own transgressions'We cannot admit this doctrine in any form," the secretary of state for the army...
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