Thoughts From the Hill - January Edition

The January edition of Outlooks, now available on stands and online, contains my monthly Thoughts From the Hill panel. Given that January is usually a slow month in terms of Parliamentary business, we went with the issue's theme of holistic living. I was, after all, genuinely curious to see how my MP panellists deal with the stress of their jobs. So I did the interviews - in person this time as opposed to over the phone like we normally do.

And then, the Parliamentary prorogation crisis happened, and my editor and I contemplated setting aside the interviews I had done for a later date, and perhaps doing a new quick round of interviews on the crisis itself - what happens next?

But things were changing rapidly. A week is a lifetime in politics, and in the days following prorogation, things didn't stop. If we had done that round of interviews after that happened, the playing field would still have been unrecognisable by today. After all, the Liberal leadership changed - which is a big game changer - and then Harper made a tonne of appointments that he swore he never would previously. So we decided to just leave this panel as is, and we'll deal with prorogation and whatnot for the February issue.

You can read this month's panel in Outlooks' print edition, or in the online edition, which you can download in .pdf format here. (The panel can be found on page 23).