How the Conservatives became an opposition in government
The Tories have been in power so long that they are undoing their own policies
Editor’s note (June 6th 2022): Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee of Conservative MPs, has announced that the threshold for a vote of confidence in the prime minister has been met. In accordance with the rules, the ballot is to be held later the same day, on the evening of June 6th.
Bell labs, the former research arm of at&t, an American telecoms giant, invented large chunks of the modern world. Transistors, the silicon solar cell and the laser all started life at its laboratory in New Jersey. Engineers there also invented something utterly pointless. Nicknamed the Ultimate Machine, it was a small wooden box with a lid and a switch. The switch did one thing only: if turned on, an arm popped out of the lid and flicked it off again.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “The useless machine”
Britain May 28th 2022
- Sue Gray produces a patchy account of the Downing Street parties
- Rishi Sunak unveils a new plan to ease Britain’s cost-of-living squeeze
- Britain’s Online Safety Bill could change the face of the internet
- Gene-edited food is coming to Britain
- What John Lewis’s turnaround says about the British high street
- A new history curriculum will not cool the culture wars
- Britain celebrates a jubilee, again
- How the Conservatives became an opposition in government
From the May 28th 2022 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Britain
Britain’s brokers are diversifying and becoming less British
London’s depleted stockmarket is forcing them to change
What a buzzy startup reveals about Britain’s biotech sector
Lots of clever scientists, not enough business nous
Britain’s government lacks a clear Europe policy
It should be more ambitious over getting closer to the EU
The Rachel Reeves theory of growth
The chancellor says it’s her number-one priority. We ask her what that means for Britain