Politics Archives - Boscobel & Partners

Category: Politics

We all fall down, then get up again

Helpful lessons from the plague of 1665. Sometimes history can take us out of ourselves and put the present in perspective. It is hard not to be very worried about where Britain is headed as a country after arguably 20 years of catastrophic mistakes by a succession of administrations, including this one led by Boris […]

Maple syrup: a 10 point guide to Boris Johnson’s Canada-style EU free trade proposal

I popped along yesterday morning to the splendid Painted Hall in Greenwich (above) – itself a painterly encomium to institutional innovation and commerce – to hear the Prime Minister’s bombastic and entertaining enthusiasm for free trade and a Canada-style free trade deal with the EU. The Cabinet in attendance rose as one to give a […]

The Establishment is having an optimism reshuffle

All change at the BBC, the FT and the Sunday Times For me, there have been two notable cultural trends of the last three years in the West. First, a howling negativity emanating from what one might describe as the bourgeois intelligentsia; and second, the traditional Establishment being stuck like rabbits in the headlights, panicking […]

Cobham shows UK M&A is open for business. Mostly.

How open or protectionist is the new Government going to be towards foreign takeovers of UK companies? We received a hint before Christmas when, at 10pm on 20th December, the Secretary of State for business, Andrea Leadsom, cleared the takeover of the aerospace group Cobham by US private equity house Advent, subject to certain conditions. […]

Could Jeremy Corbyn be Prime Minister by the year end?

There is a reason the bookies now put Jeremy Corbyn as favourite to be next Prime Minister (7:2 from Ladbroke’s). It is certainly starting to feel we are now on tramlines heading towards a General Election. Don’t be fooled by the fact that under Conservative Party internal rules she has 12 month’s grace from the […]

Theresa May is a genius – discuss?

There, that has caught your eye. We are accustomed to thinking that Brexit has degenerated into a shambles and Mrs May’s strategy of “kicking the can down the road” has been a disastrous humiliation. That is certainly a valid point of view. But from her own narrow self-interested perspective she remains in Downing Street and […]

The EEA is a Brexit life boat for the City and the economy

The revelation [in the Telegraph on Saturday 9th March 2019] from George Eustice, the ex-fisheries minister, that Britain’s ambassador to Norway, was primed to hand in a letter giving notice that Britain was leaving the European Economic Area (EEA) single market treaty last March, but was mysteriously ordered by the Foreign Office not to do […]

Busting the latest Brexit myths

Theresa May has told the House of Commons that she will now bring forward three votes: March 12th vote on her new revised deal March 13th if that doesn’t pass a vote for No Deal March 14th if that doesn’t pass a vote to extend Article 50 The pound has risen to its highest levels […]

Time for a National Government? Lessons from 1931

It is an interesting question as to whether the formation of a National Government would help solve the current Brexit impasse. It has certainly worked in the past. In 1931 a National Government was formed to get us out of the Depression and overall it did a pretty good job. Britain recovered faster than any […]

Introducing Section 20 of the EU Withdrawal Act

Extending Article 50 is easier and more likely than some people let on. The Conservative party conference is going about as expected, with the Prime Minister reportedly booed at the Association chairman’s dinner; Boris Johnson giving a witty, tub-thumping speech which ended, incongruously, with a call for everyone to back Theresa May; and every Cabinet […]