Andrew Gimson
@AndrewGimson
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Author of Gimson's Presidents; Gimson's PMs; Gimson's Kings & Queens; Boris - The Making of the Prime Minister. Contributing editor to ConHome.
Joined March 2012
When @Anna_Soubry says another referendum is the only way forward, doesn't she really mean it's the only way back?.
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There is only so much of this moralising one can take: my piece on COP26 for this morning's @ConHome
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Ed Stourton has just said Trump is the first president in history not to attend his successor's inauguration. At 4 a.m. on 4 March 1801, John Adams, the second president, left Washington by the public stagecoach rather than attend Thomas Jefferson's inauguration.
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It’s MPs’ fault: not a good way to get them to vote for her deal.
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Well the lobby thought something was up and the lobby was right.
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The EU as an imperial power brilliantly manipulated by Dublin (would that T.E.Utley were living at this hour): my belated review for @ConHome of @tconnellyRTE's authoritative work on Irish diplomacy and Brexit
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@VivGroskop @LettersOfNote I got the permission of Martin Hammond, who wrote the letter, Stanley Johnson, who received it, and Boris Johnson, whose character is so brilliantly delineated. Hammond, who supplied me with copies of all his reports on Boris, naturally insisted I obtain the Johnsons' agreement.
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Gordon Brown wrong about 19th century PMs being in for 20 years. None since Walpole has managed that. Average length of PMs' tenure over last three centuries 5.5 years.
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@TomMcTague Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light.Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!.It is the business of the wealthy man.To give employment to the artisan.
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Oxfam clothes, indifference to money and baked beans eaten straight from the tin are more attractive than the commentariat realises: my review of Bower's Corbyn book
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Brilliant counterblast by @giles_fraser to the new philistines who in the name of inclusion, strive to eradicate the Christian roots of our culture
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No more referendums. We live in a parliamentary democracy. If the present Commons reaches deadlock, the answer is a general election.
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No stampede so far to join my #goveforpm campaign. Could I point out that he is the greatest departmental minister of recent years; it's too soon for a return by @BorisJohnson; and unlike most of the other candidates, @michaelgove can think on his feet.
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@RestoreTrustNT "Uppark House even more marvellously reinstated than I imagined from the photographs. it would be difficult to imagine it had been burnt to a shell and rebuilt. Gesso, carving, most beautifully reinstated" James Lees-Milne, Diary, 19 Oct 1995. If Uppark, why not Clandon?.
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Were I a Tory MP, I would want my next leader to be a brilliant parliamentarian, able to ridicule @Keir_Starmer and go down all guns blazing. Time to unite behind @michaelgove #goveforpm.
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Don't let the Puritans bounce @BorisJohnson out of office: my piece for this morning's @ConHome
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"The current negotiations with the EU have become intolerable. Britain should walk away immediately." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in today's Telegraph
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At Christmas 2012 Boris Johnson coined the term "Britzerland", to indicate two sturdily independent nations enjoying free trade with the EU
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"inappropriate" - an evasive, mealy-mouthed, willing-to-wound-and-yet-afraid-to-strike word.
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@Andrew_Adonis Sir Alec Douglas-Home - one of @BorisJohnson's toughest predecessors as Foreign Sec - expelled 105 KGB agents in 1971.
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The polling station feels efficient, informal, frugal (use of old signs, temporary booths, a hired hall); conveys a dignified sense of fairness, freedom and togetherness; like the vaccination centre, with which it shares these qualities, raises one's spirits.
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Journalists obsessed by opinion polls forget the case for Sunak: my piece for this morning's @ConHome
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Worried you can't tell Teddy from FDR? Help is at hand, with wonderful drawings of all 44 presidents by @MartinRowson
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Brilliant piece by Charles Moore - Boris remains a remarkable politician, but he should sit this one out
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The unpredictability of politics! - "this time last year most people - myself included - expected Boris Johnson to win the 2024 contest, possibly with an increased majority" - @DavidGauke on this morning's @ConHome
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It's not good for the PM to be a reluctant parliamentarian: my piece for this morning's @ConHome
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Very kind black cab driver, suffering from MS, late last night brought back briefcase left by @SallyGimson in the back of his cab #gooddeed.
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I've clambered off the fence on the Remain side: to preserve the UK, while rubbing along with our neighbours.
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Boris Johnson has learned from the mistakes he made in his first six months as Mayor of London - my piece for this morning's @ConHome
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Are Conservative MPs about to lumber the country with a lame-duck PM?.
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Nigel Lawson's brio when he was in his pomp! His unwavering trust in his intellect, and in the tradition he renewed. A Roman grandeur, amplitude, arrogance, disdain and wit. A sense of being equal to any occasion.
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Wherever one opens @aroberts_andrew 's Churchill, one finds fascinating things which (unlike Churchill's ignorant and malevolent critics) he has taken the trouble to verify. Not that Churchill was ever beyond criticism.
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Delighted to receive a copy of the new version of my Kings & Queens, containing brief lives of every monarch from William the Conqueror to Charles III and beautiful drawings of the same by @MartinRowson, published by @SquarePegBooks
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"The word 'Thatcherite' carries connotations of narrowness, rigidity and exclusivity, but the Thatcherites in their great days were none of those things" - my piece for the November issue of @TheCriticMag .
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Black Friday promotion for Gimson's Kings & Queens!!! Forty monarchs for four shillings each!!! With brilliant drawings by @MartinRowson!!!
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The dismal science ceases to be dismal in the hands of @williamkeegan - my review of his memoir
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The bravery of Peter Tatchell
My Moscow protest was in solidarity with heroic Russian & Chechen LGBT people. I salute & support their struggle. The human rights abusing Putin regime must not be allowed to score a PR coup with the World Cup. There can be no normal sporting relations with an abnormal regime.
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How the Puritans yearn to overthrow the duly elected Merry England PM. The methods by which they seek to do so are not very edifying.
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@RobertMackey @LettersOfNote @Colmogorman Yes, it’s in the book. Martin Hammond’s reports on Boris are a brilliantly fair, penetrating, appreciative but annoyed biography in miniature.
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@MartinRowson @StephenPatt1 The drawings in this book by @MartinRowson are the best set of presidents in print
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For those of us who find the imagination freezes on being asked to think of a last-minute Christmas present, @MartinRowson and I stand ready to help
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Could someone as audacious, cavalier and irreverent as Johnson still enter politics, or have we decided we wish it to become the exclusive preserve of the dull, the prudent and the reputable? My piece for this morning's @ConHome
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"We do not burn down a mosque when a Muslim commits a crime, a synagogue when a Jew breaks the law, a church when a Christian is at fault. We do not have mob justice, or allow ourselves to be led astray by rumours on social media." My piece for @ConHome
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This idea of a referendum with three options - where 34 per cent could win over two votes of 33 - takes populism into the realms of self-parody. We live in a representative democracy, where MPs have to manage difficult and detailed problems.
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Yes, and fighting industrial seats in Scotland in the 1930s. James Maxton once told Home in the Commons tea room: "Alec, I had been thinking that, come the revolution, I'll have you strung up on a lamp post, but I think instead I'll offer you a cup of tea."
He learned the hard way how to be tough - as Neville Chamberlain’s PPS at Munich!
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A minister on David Lidington: “He is not a plotter. He would go to hell and explain to Satan that dominion over all creation is not on offer, and in the absence of that, could we please come to a satisfactory arrangement on the future of Dr Faustus.”
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@NickBoles Normal people don't much care where someone went to school. They just want to know if he or she is any good at being prime minister.
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The threat from Farage with his "perfect ability to voice the discontents of the man in the pub, the exasperation felt by millions of quiet, law-abiding citizens who do not want to be modernised against their will" - my piece for today's @ConHome
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UKIP candidates waking up to the nightmare of victory. Council work v. hard to do well. Many won't be up to it.
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Scene: late Sunday morning breakfast.Me: "Did you see Lord Frost has resigned?".First young person: "I don't even know who he is.".Second young person: "The name's sort of familiar.".First young person: "Did you see Jamie Laing got engaged?".Me: "I don't even know who he is.".
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@zewditweets @CeliaRichards0n @LegatumInst @nationaltrust Sumption observed at the AGM that the Quick Vote procedure “reeks of defensiveness” and “really shouldn’t be necessary for an organisation as important as this one”. Gebreyohanes has now provided chapter and verse on how indefensible Quick Vote is.
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Asked in 1834 to be PM, Lord Melbourne said he thought it “a damned bore”. His private secretary retorted: “Why, damn it all, such a position was never held by any Greek or Roman; and if it lasts only three months it will be worth while…” Lord M: “By God that’s true. I’ll go!”.
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Delighted to appear on @MattChorley’s show on @TimesRadio to talk about Pitt the Younger - I then commiserated with the shade of Charles James Fox in Bloomsbury Square
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Bernard Levin, Frank Johnson, Daniel Finkelstein: my review of @Dannythefink's collected journalism, placing him in the illustrious Times tradition
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Prime Ministers should be precarious: that's part of our understanding of ourselves as a free nation: they serve at our pleasure.
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@Tris_Stock Thank you so much for your help, Tris - for guiding my footsteps through the pubs of Penzance, and illuminating the perplexities which face voters in West Cornwall. My account will be out tomorrow morning on @ConHome.
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It is becoming hard to suppress the fear that Barack Obama may have insulted David Cameron by not bugging his phone.
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A pleasure to discuss just now on @MattChorley's #TimesRadio show "Has the lobby lost it?" with @Pwebstertimes @hoffman_noa @CraigOliver100 - here's a link to my piece on @ConHome
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Pro bono! Please convey my thanks to your uncle.
My barrister uncle has been going through the rules with a fine-tooth comb
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@stephenkb "At the 'top of the tree' in every profession we find a sort of congested arboreal slum of Balliol men" - Cyril Asquith.
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Boris Johnson sees with his usual clarity that there is no role for him in politics just now, and seeks to disconcert his critics by departing before they have finished their homilies.
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Very much looking forward to seeing the wonderful Great North Art Show tonight in Ripon Cathedral
This is the first opportunity to see the show, and a chance to meet many of the exhibiting artists and enjoy a glass of wine with delicious canapes! .#GNAS #greatnorthartshow #NorthOfEngland #art #sculpture
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Johnson now has the serious task of restoring pride to the working class, failed and despised by Labour - my review for @ConHome of @DJSkelton's new book.
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One has seldom heard a more bogus collection of loyalty pledges. Cf Edward Heath in 1975.
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Lord Hennessy is a great man, but on this morning's @ConHome I venture to disagree with him about the Ministerial Code
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@SebastianEPayne If your friend happens to be in a bit of a rush, FDR comes in at about 4,000 words in a recent book about all the Presidents
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The canting, self-righteous liberals who did Trump a favour by shouting "liar" at him - my piece for @ConHome
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Let us hail the professionalism with which the British press, ably assisted by YouGov, has turned a procession into a neck and neck finish.
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Looking forward to talking to @MattChorley on @TimesRadio at 11.50 today about Canning, of all 55 PMs the one with the fiercest wit. Here he is on the kind of person who supported the French Revolution:. A steady patriot of the world alone,.The friend of every country but his own.
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Pedants will frown, but @_F_B_G_ has produced a delightful antidote to the "idol of earnestness" before which so many Anglicans bow down
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"Kim Leadbeater will win the Batley and Spen by-election for Labour." So said drinkers in The Union Rooms pub in Hick Lane, Batley, on 18th May, and they were right
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Excellent point from my colleague @PaulGoodman on @ConHome: "I promise you that, if Johnson is ousted, the cult of St Boris will flourish within a year"
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@RevdPye @ThisDayInWWI @pirateirwin @GilesMacDonogh @MargyMayell @LucyLondon7 @MandeepBajwa @militaryhistori @AndrewJMullen @BeaverWestminst @bcerha1914 Eden left a most wonderful account of service on the western front, and life in County Durham before the war: Another World 1897-1917, published in 1976.
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Day 3 of the 7-Day Book Challenge (I kept on getting distracted by Brexit, so rather late) @KingsBruton @PerrottHill
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Labour MPs coming round to the view that it is right to bomb Corbyn. But who then will fill the vacuum on the ground?.
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@LordAshcroft @ConHome Reinforces the idea that May and Corbyn support each other: if one were replaced by a more convincing figure, the other's position would become unsustainable.
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Vaccinated this afternoon at the Rec Club in Fleet Road, Hampstead: an engaging mixture of efficiency and informality: many thanks to everyone involved. The jab itself was so quick and painless I didn't realise it had happened.
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@reporterboy "And I tell you, John McDonnell, yes John, I will join you, I will lie down with you in front of those bulldozers and stop the building, stop the construction of that third runway." Is McDonnell willing to perish with Boris? I think we should be told.
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When looking for foreign leaders with whom to compare Boris Johnson unfavourably, Angela Merkel will no longer do - my piece for this morning's @ConHome
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@redhistorian @MichaelPDeacon @davidallengreen A bad man narrative is almost invariably an excuse not to think why what the bad man is saying finds such a favourable response.
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@MartinRowson @holland_tom Lord North took the blame on behalf of the monarch. Nowadays the PM takes the blame on behalf of the people.
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