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Matthew Holehouse Profile picture
Matthew Holehouse
@mattholehouse
British politics correspondent at The Economist
3 subscribers
May 25, 2024 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Conservative announcement on the "return" of National Service. At first glance this is a lot smaller, but also a lot more significant, than it first appears. Short thread... Image The insignificance: it's billed as a choice of military service or volunteering. Yet the forces element is capped at 30,000 places (5% of all 18yos) in trades such as cyber, procurement and logistics. Perhaps worthy - but not the 50s-style mandatory infantry that voters may hope
Mar 8, 2023 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Thatcher and the supermarket. A short thread.
This week I visited a branch of Sainsbury’s in Finchley. It was typically depressing of the store these days: pretty scruffy, large gaps in the vegetable aisle and banners for discounts and low prices everywhere. What makes it slightly historically notable is it was opened by Margaret Thatcher in 1987, as part of a new generation of supermarkets that flourished in her tenure: bigger, more opulent, with banks and restaurants, better quality and bigger ranges.
Jan 24, 2023 • 7 tweets • 5 min read
Looking forward to this. It's a fascinating book and a crystal clear distillation of the Team Barnier view for anyone reconstructing those years. A few highlights... De Rynck is pretty open that the Frost deal was a rolling for the U.K. negotiators on several fronts and landed broadly where the EU side had wanted.

NB however - all bits underlined in red are areas Labour has promised to revisit and bag. Terms and conditions TBC.
Dec 30, 2021 • 9 tweets • 6 min read
In a big new set of releases from the National Archives covering 1997-98 out today, there’s a particularly interesting “strategy” file from the early New Labour era — mostly memos between Blair, Powell, Mandelson and D Miliband. What’s interesting for a young and outwardly optimistic govt, the overriding vibe is an itchiness and anxiety — about drift, decay, bad press, unpopularity. They feared falling down the gap of what Powell called the transition phase “post-euphoria, pre-delivery.”
Dec 16, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
As this week's acting-provisional Bagehot, I wrote about the new Foreign Secretary and the Chatham House speech. It has been written off as vapid, and her as an empty vessel. I think that misses its significance in UK policy, and her ideological sincerity.
economist.com/britain/2021/1… Few thoughts. The speech didn't get great reviews: too facile, too boosterish. Yet many in the room also were struck by FSec's decent grip on questions (Iran, Balkans, etc). Better than Johnson or Raab. On panel appearances she is cautious and precise. Which is the real Truss?
Dec 6, 2021 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
This testimony is jaw-dropping. Raphael Marshall, an FCO fast streamer with three years experience, describes disarray as a skeleton staff of him and other junior staff were tasked with picking out Afghans for evacuation from a flood of 100k+ requests. Whole thing requires reading but esp his criticism of Raab
Jul 8, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: @ipsosmori polling for The Economist shows some Brits support anti-covid restrictions *permanently*, regardless of covid risk. Inc:

- 19% for nighttime curfews
- 26% for closing casinos and clubs
- 35% for travel quarantine
- 40% for masks

economist.com/britain/2021/0… @IpsosMORI Such figures might sound incredible. This is the land of John Bull, bulldogs, beef and liberty.

Yet in March 2020, we know govt behavioural experts doubted Britons would tolerate a China-style lockdown. Sixteen months on, the public have stuck with it remarkably dutifully.
Mar 12, 2021 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
I wrote about Brexit, divergence and the single market this week, so I had a rummage in the archives this week for what Boris Johnson used to write as the Daily Telegraph Brussels correspondent. And it was slightly more interesting than I’d expected. A little thread... We all know Johnson as the King of the Euro-myth, a Europhobe and a liar. He made up stuff about bans on bendy bananas and prawn cocktail crisps, taught the Tory Party to love to hate Europe, and the rest is the long arc of history. Etc. See: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Nov 20, 2020 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
The Patel/Alex Allan affair is a small but exact example of the trend in this week’s cover story on executive power: the relaxing of post-1976 restraints on ministers, the widening of their discretion, and the "restoration" of the elected over unelected. In Lord Hailsham’s day, where the story starts, the code was an internal memo. First published in ’92 & Allan’s job created in 2006. It works in step with the civil service code (set in law in 2010) compelling ministers to uphold its impartiality and consider their advice.
Sep 19, 2019 • 41 tweets • 7 min read
Miller2/Cherry day 3. First up, Lord Advocate for Scotland (Scottish govt senior legal officer) James Wolffe QC Wolffe's case is that judicial review operates on a "sliding scale" with greater intensity when constitutional principles are at stake. The court must give it a "rigorous and searching review."

Judge Carnwath says he's a critic of concept of sliding scales.