The Latest Breaking News from Jim Callaghan

On reflection, David Owen was probably too “leading man handsome” to help the SDP break the mould of British politics. That’s right, I’ve been re-watching old BBC election night broadcasts again. This time, it’s back to the Seventies and Eighties for Ted Heath’s miscalculation, Jim Callaghan’s sunny (albeit misplaced) optimism…

6ft high piles of rubbish in echoes of the winter of discontent

There’s an incredibly strong pattern of failure among prime ministers coming to office when their party has been dominant for a long period

Two-thirds of voters say “it is time for a change” at the next election, writes Keiran Pedley

Ted Heath and Jim Callaghan paid a big price for taking on the trade unions, and once again voters are blaming the politicians

For windows on the corridors of power that were actually written contemporaneously, read this selection of books by MPs from left and right

The cabinet is taking a dangerous gamble when it calculates that the public will blame the unions, not the government, for an advent calendar of strikes

The UK government is battening down the hatches for a wave of strikes in December and January. Railway workers, nurses, ambulance workers, civil servants and postal staff are all set to take industrial action in the coming weeks in protest at wages not keeping up with inflation, with teachers’ and…

Liz Truss managed just 44 days in office before announcing her resignation

Treating routine votes as confidence matters is a rare and high-stakes tactic that was last used in 1994.

The monarch got on well with most of her premiers so why did she clash with her longest-serving prime minister, asked the Observer’s political editor in 1988