Blog Posts by Alex Stevenson

Europe minister David Lidington was in a cheery mood as he picked up his Bloomberg pass on the morning of January 23rd this year. An ambassador greeted him here. A business leader greeted him there. They had all gathered to watch the prime minister entirely change the ground rules of Lidington's job.

I was also at Bloomberg watching Cameron's big speech. And, shortly before the assembled diplomats gathered in a private space to lambast the Europe minister, one of the European ambassadors told me he believed deep uncertainty would be created by the possibility of a British exit from the EU in 2017. Four months have passed since then, and Lidington is getting very used to dealing with uncertainty. As he explains, that was the point.

"The question-mark over Britain's future is there in the public debate already," he says. "What the prime minister did with his referendum pledge was to accept that reality and make clear he was going to lead the debate and shape the debate, to try and get

A weird, thoroughly unpleasant image keeps popping up in my brain when I think about this year's Queen's Speech. It's of David Cameron and Nick Clegg, squashed together in a slowly shrinking red telephone booth, but trying their hardest to look attractive to a gaggle of onlooking backbenchers and voters.

The troubled daydreams of a poor lobby journalist should, perhaps, be referred to psychiatric help. But colleagues have helped me interpret them. A ticking clock and the pressing need to implement rather than legislate makes this Queen's Speech a tricky proposition for the coalition's leaders. But with the limited wriggle room available to them, the coalition's leaders are trying their damndest to posture every way they can to please just about everyone.

Think back 12 months. The coalition's first midterm Queen's Speech was dominated by the doomed Lords reform bill, setting up months of misery, sending government unity into freefall and laying the groundwork for the acrimony of

"Us politicians don't feel truly elected," Gbola, a Tory councillor, tells me sadly. "Deep down you wished you were there by the complete wishes of the people."

Gbola has been a councillor for nearly 13 years and has built up a decent majority, by "persuasion rather than imposing". He admits there is a problem with the way Britain does its politics, however, and it bothers him. "People in the third world want the vote," he adds, despite the fact they face wars and famine and corruption. "Not here!" Here, where the roads and street lighting are OK, no one seems to care.

There is something flaccid about local politics in this country. Something so thoroughly limp that the real veterans can see the biggest cliché of all coming a mile off. John, who's been doing this sort of thing for more decades than he cares to remember, spots it impeccably. Here is a scruffy looking house, with a white van parked outside. "He'll say it," John says, confidently predicting this was the sort of person who

Photo: Doc SearlsThe sun is shining on Conservative canvassers in Hemel Hempstead. They are well-organised and can afford to be cheerful – but frustrations about the coalition are threatening to dent their whopping majority.

The Conservatives know how to win elections in this part of the world. At the last local elections they increased their grip on Hertfordshire county council to hold 55 of its 77 seats. That was in 2009, when David Cameron was hoping to win an overall majority in the looming general election. We're in a very different political climate now, and the local Tories are on the defensive. There is a strong chance Labour could take back the area of Hemel Hempstead being canvassed on Monday night, just three days before polling day.

A small group of well-organised Conservatives have been dispatched to the area to try and work out who is planning on voting which way. The technique is simple: knock on doors, enquire about political sympathies, and either retreat quickly or, if the voter is

We've spent a lot of time talking about the possibility of a Johnson getting into Downing Street - and now it's finally happened. Few expected it would be Jo Johnson, the unassuming younger brother of Boris, who got into No 10 first.

The mayor of London will have spent his breakfast musing over the headlines about the appointment of Jo Johnson, the MP for Orpington, being elevated to the government. He is David Cameron's new head of policy in No 10 and a full Cabinet Office minister.

Squint your eyes and view them from afar, and you might just mistake Jo for his elder brother. They both have the same blonde mop, although Jo's is tidier and more measured. Both went to Eton College. Both belonged to the Bullingdon Club while at university at Oxford. Boris and Jo are undoubtedly cut from the same cloth - even if Jo's waistline is not quite as expansive.

In one critical way, though, Jo differs from his elder brother. He is not ostentatious. He does not get himself stuck in zipwires.

Ever since Harold Macmillan told Britain "we've never had it so good", politicians have rightly been wary of good news.

Back then, it was the slow pace of recovery from the Second World War which brought howls of outrage against a prime minister trying his hardest to be upbeat.

The economic situation now is not especially rosy, either. So the Institute for Economics and Peace's surprising findings present a challenge for the ruling classes they would do well to ignore.

Its UK Peace Index concludes both crime and homicide have fallen significantly in the last ten years. Even the global financial crisis has not stopped the decline in violence. The evidence is clear enough: On this metric, if no others, Britain is turning into a nice place to live.

The problem is the British psyche is virtually incapable of accepting this to be the case. itself a side-effect of our not being very good talkers. Social anthropologists who have studied the English have cottoned on to this. We use grumbling

Shrouded in solemnity, but not necessarily grief, Margaret Thatcher's funeral in St Paul's Cathedral saw the Establishment lay to rest one of its champions with all the sombreness it could muster.

The remains of Britain's first female prime minister stood in a coffin draped with the Union Jack in front of the altar. It was impossible to gaze on without remembering the fallen soldiers who returned to this country with their coffins covered by the same flag, some from a conflict which this 87-year-old led.

Even that mildly critical thought seemed out of place. This was not an occasion for bitterness or recrimination; it was an attempt to provide a historic figure with a funeral which presented her as a humble human being.

But none of Britain's soldiers had a send-off quite like this. Two thousands three hundred people gazed on a simply magnificent scene. Christopher Wren's creation is a superb space for this sort of occasion. From the glimmering gold of the ornate ceiling decorations to

Margaret Thatcher's enemies were always going to be fed up by the respect afforded to the former prime minister in her funeral. But following the release of the order of service, the true extent to which right-wing politics pervades the words and music which will feature is now becoming clear. Here's a pick of the five most egregious examples which will have the Ding Dong parade screaming at their television on Wednesday.

I Vow To Thee My Country: 'Echoing Nazism'

Inbetween the anthem and the commendation comes one of the Anglican Church's most nationalistic hymns. I Vow To Thee My Country is so jingoistic one bishop called for it to be banned outright because of its "heretical" approach to the country.

I vow to thee my country all earthly things above / Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love: / The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test, / That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best; / The love that never falters, the love that pays the price, /