From Doctor Botox to Facebook’s top lobbyist, meet the folks who left politics to cash in – POLITICO

Doctor Botox Olivier Véran, a former French government spokesperson and ex-minister of health, recently announced his next career venture at the Clinique des Champs-Élysées in Paris. For Véran, who was a neurologist before turning to politics, going back to medicine is not all that surprising. What was shocking — and caused some uproar in the … Read more

Back off Kate Middleton, says UK Labour’s Keir Starmer – POLITICO

Fevered social media speculation about her health and whereabouts was heightened after Middleton posted an edited photo with her children on Mother’s Day earlier this month, leading news agencies including Reuters and the Associated Press to issue kill notifications. Despite criticism of the palace’s communications around the furore, Starmer said he wouldn’t recommend Kensington Palace … Read more

The center must hold – POLITICO

Look back on the party’s history. The leaders who put the nation’s interests first and governed from the center did so with distinction: Disraeli, Stanley Baldwin, Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan and, yes, Margaret Thatcher too.  When they went populist, it didn’t work. Who remembers the first Tory populist Andrew Bonar Law, who went full protectionist, upending … Read more

Blairites take on Brussels – POLITICO

BRUSSELS — The Brits are making a comeback in the EU capital. Exhibit A: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s international policy shop is wrapping up a hiring spree in Brussels. In just a year, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) went from virtually non-existent in the Brussels bubble to recruiting some half-dozen … Read more