Matthew Parris

(Getty) You can hear it already. Rising from the tents of the dejected Democrat camp comes the whimper of self-reproach. It's all our fault.

Gap is growing wider between what our political leaders must promise to get elected and what they are able to deliver

With the weather recently, I’ve felt as if I were living under an enormous grey plastic bin-lid. The urge to get out has been strong, so it’s been a week of excursions and exhibitions — first, last

Booting the boss out for his subordinates’ misjudgments is unfair

‘Et remarquant que cette vérité, je pense, donc je suis, était si ferme et si assurée, que toutes les plus extravagantes suppositions des Sceptiques n’étaient pas capables de l’ébranler, je jugeai que je pouvais la recevoir sans scrupule pour le premier principe de la Philosophie que je cherchais.’ Pardon my French – and I translate

The justice secretary was criticised for mentioning her Muslim beliefs in opposing the assisted dying bill. But she was right to do so

It’s very sweet, that Christmas video from the Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey. Easy to sneer at a politician cavorting with young carers wearing reindeer horns, but I don’t sneer. Davey is a transparently

Here comes a new law in political science: Joe’s Law. As I write, the Republic of Ireland is still working out, after its general election, what sort of a coalition government will be entailed by its system of proportional representation. And the Germans are fretting already about whether and how a new coalition might be

Late Monday night, walking home from Westminster to my London flat by the Thames, I heard fireworks: the crack, bang and echo reverberating around City streets. I saw the glow in the sky above the

Ophiostoma novo-ulmi is not an expression that sits easily at the head of a Christmas Spectator column, so I’ll return later to the unpleasant fungus and disobliging beetle that over my lifetime have…