Wise reporters recognise the truth: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." I've been reminded of this saying (which comes from the 1962 western "The man who shot Liberty Valance") quite a lot over the last few weeks. Myth-making, and myth-preservation, have been all around us. The...

The first step, they say, is admitting that you've got a problem. The Conservatives have got a Maggie addiction. It's worse than a habit. They are hooked.

The signals have been there for years. But in a sequence of events that feels almost like a Biblical parable, the party has...

Hats off to Philip Hammond. He has done that unfashionable thing and admitted he has changed his mind. And happily, this being August, he has not been set upon by a seething mob shouting "U-turn, u-turn!"

In an interview with The Independent yesterday, Mr Hammond conceded he had been forced...

I know why George Osborne has called for a "relentless focus" on the UK economy. It's because it keeps getting smaller. If you don't look hard soon you might not be able to see anything at all. But a flat-lining (and worse) economy is not really a joking matter. The...

Stephen Covey died this week.

You may not have heard of him, or even of his multi-million best-seller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which was published in 1989. But you will have worked for managers who, whether they knew it or not, were influenced by...

Presumably Bob Diamond, the former Barclays boss, was touched to see his daughter speak up for him on Twitter the other day. But it's not clear that her more profane comments (look them up) were entirely helpful. Indeed, had she been applying for a job at the bank it's possible...