Giles Dilnot

1 week ago | conservativehome.com | Giles Dilnot

Kemi Badenoch has an enemy she cannot control and it’s potentially working against her. Time as a concept is defined as ‘the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future’. It is as, we all know, measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years. Political time has varied speeds and units. Things happen fast, or action is too slow.

1 week ago | conservativehome.com | Giles Dilnot

‘Listening’ and ‘learning lessons’. In over a quarter of a century of reporting on, or being part of, UK politics, this response-to-bad-results #101 is rather unimaginative if safe. It’s staled by whether they mean it. They often don’t but that’s part of the dance. Odd then that Keir Starmer in a tweet where he said, “I get it” and then demonstrated how much he really didn’t ‘get it’ thinks the lesson is ‘further and faster’.

1 week ago | conservativehome.com | Giles Dilnot

Well, it was bad, really bad and we’re not done yet. But then it was always going to be bad. The Conservatives doing badly at these local elections was probably baked into party thinking before Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister. The Boris vaccine bounce delivered, in 2021, a unexpectedly high water mark result, and that was never going to be repeated, or even close, this time round. So these results being bad for the Tories is not the news today. It’s what it tells us that is the focus.

2 weeks ago | conservativehome.com | Giles Dilnot

Runcorn is a gateway to perception and enlightenment. Alright that’s a bit purple, but in all the ‘hot-takes’ and projections about the local elections, before the result, and the speculations that will inevitably follow, it seems the Runcorn by-election has been missing. I go back to my start – overlooking might be a mistake. There are lessons, in this campaign that has passed most people by, and they may not be as obvious as some might think.

2 weeks ago | conservativehome.com | Giles Dilnot

This morning belongs to the ‘children of Pheidippides’ – or at least it does in my neck of the woods. The London marathon is a huge national sporting event, for some. For others it’s something they are aware of but don’t really think about that much. For me it’s become something of an annual ritual, one that I chose by accident. I live along the route. Every runner bar the elites will have run past my house this morning. We always go out and watch.