Matt Withers

3 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Matt Withers

David Cameron’s post-prime ministerial career, it is fair to say, probably hasn’t lived up to his expectations. First he tried to make a few quid in the banking world, to keep up with his Chipping Norton neighbours who went straight into hedge fund management from university. That ended in ignominy as it emerged Cameron been texting the then chancellor to secure his new employer access to a financing facility scheme during the Covid crisis.

1 month ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Matt Withers

There comes a point for every prime minister when the most dangerous questions come not from the side opposite but from behind. When the awkward questioning comes from the PM’s own benches, it’s a sign the honeymoon is over. While Keir Starmer has not really had much of a honeymoon – his relationship with the British public being less of a betrothal and more a one-night stand which got weirdly out of hand – it’s very much back home now.

1 month ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Matt Withers

Once upon a time, not that long ago, Labour prime ministers opened pretty much every session of PMQs with a list of those British soldiers who had lost their lives in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the preceding seven days. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen any more, but there was a reminder of it today when Keir Starmer opened an understandably subdued prime minister’s questions with a sombre tone.

1 month ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Matt Withers

Neil Kinnock, Labour leader from 1983 to 1992 and now honorary president of the party’s Movement for Europe group, is unequivocal about where he stands on Britain’s future relationship with the EU. “Oh, I think the rational argument is to seek to rejoin,” he says, as we sit in his bijou – or broom cupboard-like – office in the House of Lords. “Unfortunately, it would be absurd to try to put a date on it.” He stops.

2 months ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Matt Withers

Until the start of 2023, the BBC ran a nightly paper review on its news channel, in which a pair of journalists went through the next day’s newspapers and the stories on their front pages. Now it’s been brought back, in a way, except that it’s on a Wednesday lunchtime, the guest is Kemi Badenoch, the papers are a day or two old and they are exclusively the Daily Mail and Telegraph.