A recent article in The Daily Telegraph quoted Aneurin Bevan’s famous attack on the Tories as “lower than vermin”. The attack appeared in what was supposed to be a non-partisan speech formally launching the NHS on 4 July 1948.

“ A Conservative government is an organised hypocrisy” 

“ Damn your principles ! Stick to your party”

“ I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole”

Unionists (as Tories were known at the time) have been heavily censured for the ferocity of their opposition to Irish Home Rule before the First World War. Their vigorous support for armed resistance in Ulster has been widely condemed.

On 17 September, the Supreme Court began its deliberations to determine whether or not Boris Johnson had acted unlawfully in proroguing Parliament for five weeks.

The traditional ceremony to prorogue Parliament took place in the House of Lords just after 1.30 am on September 10. It was preceded by unruly scenes in the Commons. A number of opposition MPs held up placards with the word ‘Silenced’ on them.

At the beginning of September each year, a new Chair takes office at the Independent Schools Association (ISA), an organisation which has grown rapidly in the last few years and now has nearly 530 members, most of them small, community-based schools, very different from the big, expensive institu

It is repeatedly said that the political parties never put up candidates against a Speaker standing for re-election. This has only been the case in recent years, as Alistair Lexden pointed out in a letter published in The Times on September 10.

Bruce Anderson, for many years a well-known political commentator, now writes a column about drink for The Spectator magazine. On 31 August he repeated the familiar criticisms of Neville Chamberlain.

It was under the heading above that an article by Alistair Lexden, commissioned by The Times after 21 MPs had lost the Tory whip, appeared in print on September 5. The piece was cut slightly for publication. The full text follows.

On 2 September, an editorial in the London Evening Standard urged Members of Parliament threatened with deselection over Brexit to make their case vigorously in their constituencies.