With an unprecedented Electoral Commission investigation into the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat, Boris Johnson could have avoided a lot of trouble if only he had followed the example set by one of his illustrious and thrifty predecessors.
As chatelaine of No 10, Margaret Thatcher applied the same rigour to spending on decor as she did to the nation’s finances. On one occasion, the Iron Lady vetoed plans for a new carpet in her study.
‘There was a small threadbare square in front of her favourite armchair,’ one of her former advisers told me this week. ‘Her officials wanted a new carpet but she was having none of it.’
Do you think 16-year-olds should be able to vote in elections?
- Credit: Archant
In 2001, there was something as a 15-year-old that I was really keen to do but wasn’t yet allowed to by law.
No, I wasn’t particularly champing at the bit to get my driving licence, nor was I ready to make a bid for freedom and leave home.
And as many people who know me will realise, I certainly wasn’t looking to have an alcoholic drink.
No, as the freedom to get married, apply for a home and get a full-time job beckoned, the thing I really wanted to do was…vote in that year’s general election.
Why the Hartlepool by-election matters for Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer
Ahead of the crucial by-election in the northern town, we explore what is at stake for the Conservative and Labour leaders
1 May 2021 • 11:00am
The Hartlepool by-election pits Boris Johnson’s Conservatives against a Labour Party led by Keir Starmer for the first time at the ballot box of a parliamentary election. The contest on May 6 will also be the first by-election of the 2019 parliament.
Hartlepool’s status as a ‘Red Wall’ seat, which has been held by Labour at every election since 1964 and voted heavily for Brexit in the 2016 EU Referendum, means the by-election has also been framed as the first test of Starmer’s ability to repair the damage inflicted on the party in the 2019 general election.
Self-satisfied hosts and a total lack of spontaneity have made everything from the Oscars to the Brits some of the dullest events in the cultural calendar, writes Fiona Sturges
Quite apart from some serious implications for modern British politics, this also has to be one of the most bizarre contests of modern times. When it comes to by-elections, next Thursday’s battle for Hartlepool really is a collector’s item.
Here we have no fewer than 16 candidates, including three former Labour MPs, a convicted sex offender, a kinsman of the man who built the town and an ex-soldier driving round in a tank under the banner of the Social Democrats. All of a sudden, the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate (whose manifesto includes hiring the Hartlepool Arms’ darts team to speed up vaccinations) doesn’t look quite so loony after all.