Journalist · Commentator · Political Editor, The Spectator
The Long View — fifty years watching Britain govern itself
Andy Burnham has now been Prime Minister for longer than Liz Truss managed, and on Tuesday he told the Commons what he believes in. It came to lower bus fares and the evils of Margaret Thatcher. Bruce Anderson on hope without realism, an unquiet ghost, and a golden goose that is a migratory bird.
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Nicola Sturgeon knew everything else. A guest piece by George Scott on strategic incuriosity — and the motorhome.
Jason Arday is dead, and the race relations industry has found its villain. He was a victim of discrimination — but not the kind they mean.
From electoral comedy in Clacton to academic farce in Cambridge. A CV that should not have survived five minutes' scrutiny.
Clacton could have been much worse for Nigel Farage. But the standards inquiry proceeds — and Kemi Badenoch is only just starting.
Bridget Phillipson was a spiteful class warrior. Andy Burnham has found someone worse — and Michael Gove's reforms are the target.
There has never been a more unquiet political grave. Bruce Anderson remembers writing speeches for Margaret Thatcher — exhausting and frustrating in equal measure.
Bruce Anderson was born in Orkney in 1949 and read History at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was political editor of The Spectator, wrote for the Daily Mail and The Independent, and continues to write the Spectator's Drink column.
This site is his attempt to do what the news cycle cannot: explain why things happened, and what they mean for where we are now.
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