"Everyone’s got a plan until you punch them in the mouth!"
"So many Brexit plans have gone up in smoke since 2016 that Mike Tyson’s adage immediately comes to mind when I think about Brexit," says Tim Shipman, political editor of The Sunday Times. "And I really look forward to telling the audience at the ISBA Annual Lunch exactly why a heavyweight boxing metaphor works to explain the current mess the UK is in, when I talk to them on July 2."
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“To say it’s a momentous, fascinating and volatile time in British politics would be an understatement so I’m going to enjoy sharing my insights into what is really happening at Westminster – and beyond. I hope to give the audience the insider’s view of Brexit. I can’t quite deliver Brexit but I will be able to illuminate the path we are on and how we got into this mess and offer some thoughts on how our leaders plan to get out of it - if they can come up with such a plan in the weeks ahead.
"To understand what’s happening in the UK at the moment, you need to understand how two prime ministers sought to renegotiate with Brussels to strengthen their hand and ended up weakening it - and how a third might soon be along to learn from their failures. I'll be offering analysis and insights from a life reporting from the coalface of Brexit, leavened with a little dark humour."
Tim Shipman is the Political Editor of The Sunday Times. He has been a national newspaper journalist since 1997 and in nineteen years writing about politics he has also reported from Westminster for the Daily Mail and the Sunday Express.
He was Washington Correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph during Barack Obama’s historic first election campaign, and has covered five general elections, three presidential elections, two wars and more leadership contests than he can count.
His first book, All Out War: The Full Story of Brexit chronicles the greatest upheaval in British politics for a generation. Andrew Marr described the book as ‘essential’ and Nick Robinson ‘a must-read’ and it was shortlisted for the prestigious Orwell Prize.
Tim’s second book Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem, covering the 2017 General Election and its aftermath was published in 2017 and he is currently working on the third installment of the Brexit trilogy – a body of work which has seen him described as the “biographer of Brexit” and “Britain’s Bob Woodward”.
Tim has been shortlisted six times for his journalism at the British Press Awards and in 2019 was named both political reporter and political commentator of the year – a unique double win. He was the London Press Club’s print journalist of the year for 2017.
Tim’s insights mean he is a regular on the Today Programme and in demand by Newsnight, Sky News and This Week. His humorous approach to politics also led to him appearing on Have I Got News for You, Radio 4’s The News Quiz and The Now Show.
Tim has written for The Spectator, The New Statesman and Total Politics and has a large following as a witty and irascible observer of the political scene on Twitter, @ShippersUnbound.