‘Banging on about Europe’: how the Eurosceptics got their referendum

Brexit would be a ‘self-inflicted wound’, David Cameron declared this week. He should know about those, writes Tim Bale. He traces the Conservative rebellions that extracted successive concessions from the PM, to no avail – until he finally tried to appease his party’s Eurosceptics by promising them a referendum

The Tories should stop their silly games about a secondcoalition

Tactically, strategically and constitutionally, it’s utter madness for the Prime Minister rule out another coalition, says Tim Bale in an article that first appeared in the Telegraph

Asphyxiation Nation? This is not a budget for ‘a Britain that wants to be prosperous, solvent and free’

Tim Bale found yesterday’s budget depressingly ideological, driven by an attempt to stick to a script written by Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe in the 1980s. However he argues that this script of ‘staying the course’ is inadequate for economic challenges of the scale facing the UK

The Prime Minister is prone to sounding the alarm on immigration when his political fortunes are waning

After David Cameron’s much covered immigration speech earlier this week, Tim Bale questions whether there was anything more to the Prime Minister’s announcements than a desire to head off the advance of UKIP and turn voter’s attention away from issues on which the Government are currently failing to meet public expectations

David Cameron will face challenges both at home and abroad after the votes are counted in the European Parliament elections

The UK’s Conservative Party does not sit with other mainstream centre-right parties in the European Parliament as a member of the European People’s Party, but instead sits in a smaller group, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). Tim Bale assesses some of the challenges the party might face after the European Parliament elections on 22-25 May. He notes that with opinion polls predicting a difficult result for the Conservatives and some of their ECR allies, the party will face a dilemma over how to strengthen its position within the parliament, while also balancing discontent in his own party in the run up to the UK general election in 2015

Poor economic performance may leave the UK with no choice but to join the euro if it wishes to remain in the EU.

In light of the Eurozone crisis, many commentators in the UK maintain that the Eurozone and the EU are doomed. Recalling the UK’s desire to remain apart from embryonic attempts towards European integration in the 1950s, Tim Bale argues that, should the euro survive, the UK may be unable to resist further integration. With a relatively poor outlook for growth in the coming decade, the UK may be soon faced with a choice: join the euro to remain in the EU, or face complete marginalisation

Margaret Thatcher has a fair claim to be called the most influential politician since the Second World War, but her legacy is still hotly disputed today because of her mistakes and weak points

Noting her extraordinary impact and disputed legacy, Tim Bale reflects on the positives and negatives of Margaret Thatcher’s career. On the one hand she confronted underlying structural problems in the UK economy, but on the other she presided over an enormous loss of jobs and some industrial areas of the country remain scarred to this day. Future political leaders have much to learn from her, both as an example and a warning

Friends with benefits? Nine things worth knowing about the links between centre-left parties and trade unions

Many European parties have a formal or informal relationship with trade unions. While such alliances can often prove beneficial for parties, they can also generate disagreement between unions and politicians, as events in the UK’s Labour Party have often illustrated. Based on a new study, Tim Bale outlines nine key points for understanding the relationship between centre-left parties and unions

Interview: Tim Bale on comparisons between Ed Miliband and David Cameron as Leader of the Opposition

Ed Miliband could be about the become the UK’s Prime Minister – equally he could be about to be consigned to history as a footnote, known only an another unsuccessful Leader of the Opposition. Sean Kippin interviewed Professor Tim Bale, author of a book on Ed Miliband’s period as Labour leader, and asked about comparisons between the two men, and what a defeated Miliband’s legacy to his party might be. This is part three of a three part interview. Part one can be found here, and part two can be found here

Interview part 2: Tim Bale on Ed Miliband’s approach to public services, constitutional reform, and whether he can win

Labour could be on the cusp of returning to power after five years in opposition. Their success would represent a triumph which looked unthinkable back in 2010. Tim Bale has recently released a book detailing the Labour leader Ed Miliband’s quest to win in 2015. Here, Democratic Audit UK’s Sean Kippin interviews the author, asking him about public services, political and constitutional reform, and the election campaign