At least the old colonial missionaries to the Third World actually had a mission – one which involved trying to ‘improve’ dark-skinned people by giving them the Bible and teaching them English and manners. In contrast, today’s mission-less...

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore and Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson will also attend, along with International Development Minister Alan Duncan, Energy Minister Greg Barker and Foreign Office...

I’d forgotten about the need to deliver the party line, which is why I ended up having a go at MP Alan Duncan when he wanted to start defending the recent decision to downgrade a lot of so-called vocational courses, stripping them of their GCSE status.

Now Lord Owen, the former foreign secretary and SDP leader who sits as a cross bench peer, said the government had no mandate for the changes, but was promising the "mother and father of top-down reorganisations" which raised profound constitutional...

Over 90 percent of people in Britain support LGBT rights. No amount of champagne receptions will escape the fact that significant sections of the Tory party have always resisted reformand bigotry continues to flow from their ranks. Lesbian Tory MP...

It was, in other words, designed to make people "feel good" about voting Conservative, part of the strategy described as "decontamination of the Tory brand". Alan Duncan, a formidably intelligent politician, is a dazzling example of this...