@albanianstokie @BorisJohnson I want to write something about that. I think the spectrum of British politics has shifted. Brexit is the cause. The spectrum no longer runs from left to right across the page but from the bottom-left corner to the top right, so to speak. But the parties are still operating … /1 @albanianstokie @BorisJohnson … on the old left-right model and it is tearing apart the coalitions that form them. (Both main parties have always been internal coalitions to a degree.) @UKLabour was first to be hit by this: a body blow out of the blue (as far as they were concerned) in December 2019. /2

Short thread on the dysfunctional diarchism that replaced Cabinet government in 1997 and has become embedded as the norm in UK government ever since. The Blair/Brown carve-up of power left two men (who could rarely agree) running the country with little look-in for the Cabinet./1 This hugely increased the role of the Chancellor and his main technique for exercising his power over other Cabinet Ministers was a detailed control of departmental expenditure. Every penny spent had to be in pursuit of something @hmtreasury wanted. The PM didn’t get much say. /2