CHINESE SCHOOL IS A FIRST IN EUROPE Europe’s first bilingual English-Chinese school is due to open in London this September. Professor Hugo de Burgh, a leading authority on China, will be the chairman of Kensington Wade School and has been instrumental in its founding. He says the benefits for pupils will be numerous. Yes,
One of the huge benefits of the British education system is the sheer number of alternatives on offer. But when it comes to choosing a school for your child, the choice can be overwhelming. In our cover piece on page 8, Ysenda Maxtone Graham looks at Britain’s faith primary schools, which could be a sensible
There aren’t many pleasures left in flying these days, but one of them occurs even before you’re on the plane. What’s more it’s free. It’s the smug sense of satisfaction you get from watching everyone else at the departure gate stand up and form a queue as soon as the flight is called. Bags are
This isn’t a redemption story. I’m not trying to prove my dad’s just a man who made some bad choices, or that he was, ironically, vilified by the press. Chances are you’ve already made up your own mind about what kind of person Greg Miskiw is, or more than likely you’ve never heard of him
As the government’s omNICshambles unravelled further today with a u-turn from the Chancellor, many have been left wondering why no-one spotted the problem sooner — with the manifesto breach managing to get past brains at both No 10 and No 11. Today in the chamber, Philip Hammond credited none other than Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC’s political
Corbyn flunked it. Yet again. And his failure to skewer the government left the field open to the SNP. Speaker Bercow seemed to collude with this arrangement and he gave the Nats six opportunities to quiz the prime minister. Angus Robertson appeared to relish the battle. His great grey face was already brimming with fury
It’s not turning out to be a great day for the government. After announcing a u-turn on the NICs rise in last week’s Budget, Philip Hammond has spent the afternoon having to face down angry MPs in the Chamber. Now it turns out that a ‘clerical error’ has meant Michael Heseltine has been temporarily ‘unsacked’
This time last week, Philip Hammond stood in the Chamber and made a joke about how the last Chancellor to proclaim they would deliver the last Spring Budget had been sacked 10 weeks later. Little did he then know that just seven days later he would have to face down angry MPs questioning his future — as he
The government’s decision to announce a U-turn on the planned rise in Class 4 National Insurance contributions minutes before PMQs meant that Jeremy Corbyn was left with the wrong homework for the session. Still, presented with an embarrassing government climbdown on a key Budget pledge, surely Corbyn could still come out on top? It wasn’t to be. Instead
After Philip Hammond delivered his Budget last week, he went to speak to a meeting of Conservative backbench MPs. Several were deeply alarmed about his tearing up of their manifesto pledge not to raise National Insurance. One asked him how sure he was about all this. Might they find themselves going out to defend this
Philip Hammond’s credibility as Chancellor has just taken a big blow. Under pressure from his own backbenchers, he has abandoned the proposed National Insurance increase for the self-employed. This means that he has U-turned on one of the central measures of his first Budget. What makes this change particularly humiliating for Hammond is that he
Just in time to throw Jeremy Corbyn off the scent at PMQs, Philip Hammond has written to Tory MPs to say he has cancelled the rise in Class 4 National Insurance contributions announced in last week’s Budget. His U-turn comes after he faced opposition from many MPs in his own party — as well as a briefing
The key to a happy life, it’s been discovered, is living near to Georgian architecture and a Waitrose. Bath, York, Chichester, Stamford, Skipton, Harrogate, Oxford and Cambridge are among the towns listed in the Sunday Times 20 nicest places to live in Britain survey. Almost all these areas have one thing in common: they all
Rotterdam What started as a minor disagreement between Turkey and the Netherlands has now expanded into an unprecedented diplomatic spat. Turkish attempts to hold rallies in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands have been blocked – and President Erdogan is now using this to his advantage. In April, Erdogan will hold a referendum on changes to constitutional powers in
Theresa May’s statement today on the EU withdrawal bill should have been a victory lap – after the government succeeded in getting a clean bill through both Houses. Instead Scottish independence proved a party pooper, as the Prime Minister faced numerous questions in the chamber over Nicola Sturgeon’s plans for ‘indy ref 2’. Not letting
It’s the Press Awards tonight and a first for The Spectator – we’re nominated for the first time. James Forsyth is up for political journalist of the year, and he and I are heading to out to the awards now (after taking out a small mortgage for the £250-a-piece tickets) to hope for the best.
It’s too late now, but I didn’t feel Charlotte Hogg made enough of her defence that until recently she didn’t even know what her brother did at Barclays. His own colleagues probably didn’t know either: operating somewhere below the board and executive committee where strategic decisions are really made, a ‘director of corporate strategy’ in
Omar Saif Ghobash, who is the United Arab Emirates ambassador to Russia, has written a good Muslim-reformist tract called Letters to a Young Muslim. There is plenty of passionate rhetoric denouncing rigidity, praising open-mindedness. There are plenty of insights that give the outsider a glimpse of his difficult inheritance (as a half-Arab, half-Russian boy educated
A new week, a new drama for Ukip. Although Nigel Farage last month called for Douglas Carswell to be kicked out of the party for disloyalty over a knighthood, it’s Farage’s righthand man Arron Banks who has today been left out in the cold. The Ukip donor says he has been pushed out of the party after
Last night Jeremy Corbyn gathered with thousands of supporters on Parliament Square to protest against the government’s failure to guarantee the rights of EU migrants in the UK. Upon hearing the chants of ‘Say it loud, say it clear – all EU migrants welcome here!’ Theresa May performed a sensational U-turn. Britain now has an