Philip Collins
Prospect Magazine
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Past articles by Philip:
Who's to blame for Boris Johnson?
A plodding new biography paints the Prime Minister as a victim, and ducks any serious reckoning with his many flaws → Read More
We need more than homes to level up Britain
In the distant days when there were party conferences, I used to chair a regular Conservative fringe event, hosted by a think tank and sponsored by a telephone company, about the siting of mobile → Read More
Pro-China banks don’t deserve our custom
In Hong Kong, the locals sometime refer to HSBC as “the Lion Bank” after the pair of sculptures that adorn the corporate headquarters. After the craven capitulation of Peter Wong, HSBC’s chief → Read More
The hopes and fears of Boris Johnson’s speech, unspun
Boris Johnson: It is now almost two months since the people of this country began to put up with restrictions on their freedom — your freedom — of a kind that we have never seen before in peace or war → Read More
Reshuffle shows weakness at heart of No 10
Take back control. Get Javid Gone. In a petulant reshuffle empty of purpose, the school bullies showed the junior form who’s boss. Three months ago Boris Johnson gave the CBI a categorical guarantee → Read More
The Queen’s Speech unspun
My Lords and members of the House of Commons. My government’s priority has always been to secure the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union on October 31. My government intends to work... → Read More
Why Macron is the most important man in British politics
Amid the fantasies and delusions of a contest which shames the Conservative Party, the key figure may be emerging. While attention is fixed on the committee rooms of Westminster and supporters of Boris Johnson (take a bow, James Cleverly) write supportive articles in which the words “European”, “U → Read More
How Virat Kohli became one of the most powerful men in India
India's cricket captain is the very model of a modern, newly-assertive and economically successful power → Read More
Zealots on both sides are playing a high-stakes game, with the options reduced to a no-deal exit or a second referendum
The toxic exaggeration of Europe is set to claim another prime minister. All power has drained from Mrs May. Her mangled withdrawal agreement is dead. Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the House of Commons, resigned rather than bring it back to parliament. In the European elections the Tories will be pu → Read More
Labour MPs may yet hold the key to Brexit
Yvette Cooper always struck me as one of those politicians who, when they saw the light at the end of the tunnel, would call for more tunnel. However, she may, by accident, have helped the prime minister limp towards the finishing line for the battered withdrawal agreement. Whether Theresa May has t → Read More
Jihadi bride Shamima Begum deserves to come home
Seen from one angle, the short life of Shamima Begum is, in the original title of Ford Madox Ford’s novel The Good Soldier, “the saddest story”. At 19 years of age, Ms Begum has already lost her... → Read More
Brexit: A vote on every option is way out of this mess
After the disaster of the meaningful vote, the puzzle of Brexit may be solved by another five. The prime minister confronts a set of unpalatable options, none of which come without cost. If only she knew how to cut loose. By forcing a series of votes in the House of Commons she could secure Brexit a → Read More
Theresa May has a chance if she makes Labour choose
Late in the day Theresa May has done what she should have done at dawn and announced her resignation. Now she needs to rout the unruly and ungovernable elements in her own party by commanding the one available majority in the House of Commons. The most important scene in the drama of Wednesday eveni → Read More
Facing down the whitelash
How we vote increasingly depends not on class but ethnicity. To stop us going down this dangerous path liberals should listen, understand and argue back → Read More
There’s never been a better time for a British Macron
British politics would have been much more fun if the first Gang of Four had broken the mould. In 1967 the erratic Labour MP Tom Driberg asked the American beat poet Allen Ginsberg to introduce him to Mick Jagger who Driberg thought could bring in the youth vote. In a series of meetings about formin → Read More
Tories’ refusal to censure Orban is a disgrace
Daniel Dalton, Amjad Bashir, Emma McClarkin, Geoffrey Van Orden and Ashley Fox are not exactly major figures in British politics. Daniel Hannan’s lofty Whiggish pronouncements on democracy and... → Read More
Macron needs to sort out our Brexit mess
In a sweet tweet this week, after he got her nationality wrong in conversations with the Chinese, Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, was pictured in Paris buying flowers for his wife. He was in Paris on Tuesday to meet his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian. Yesterday, Dominic Raab, the Brexi → Read More
Make Bury great again
England's towns were once as mighty as its cities. Now, they've fallen on hard times. Can Bury lead the revival? → Read More
Make Bury great again
England's towns were once as mighty as its cities. Now, they've fallen on hard times. Can Bury lead the revival? → Read More
Trump the great rulebreaker is on a roll
In her memoir What Happened, Hillary Clinton recalls that, in the televised presidential debate in St Louis, Donald Trump lurked right behind in her, in shot, intimidatingly odd. “He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled”, she writes of their 2016 encounter. She then wonders whether, → Read More