Last year was extraordinary for its political turbulence. One prime minister resigned after failing to convince parliament to back her Brexit deal, only for the next to make her look successful by losing his first seven parliamentary votes - more than Tony Blair’s entire decade in Downing Street - before going on to win the first winter election since 1923 with the party’s largest majority since 1987. By then, Boris Johnson had expelled 21 rebel MPs, removing the whip in one ruthless purge from more Tories than the previous forty years put together. Brussels agreed to roll forward the Brexit deadline three times, from March to April to October to January, pitching the nation from one crisis to the next. But one record stood above…

Source: The Times January 10, 2020 17:15 UTC