The Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire is playing for time. In a statement made after the 4pm deadline for forming an executive in Northern Ireland was missed, Brokenshire said that he was giving the parties a few more weeks to try and reach a deal. He justified this on the basis that there is no
Given that Owen Jones, Glenda Jackson and Derek Hatton are just a handful of the figures to recently turn on Jeremy Corbyn, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Labour leader is turning people off Labour. So, Mr S was surprised to learn of Labour’s latest recruit, in today’s issue of the Times. Step forward
Once again, the pollsters got it wrong. Yesterday’s election in Saarland was supposed to be the beginning of the end for Angela Merkel, and the start of the SPD revival under their new leader Martin Schulz. And yet, against the odds, Merkel’s conservative CDU has beaten the left-leaning SPD by more than ten per cent,
Today Theresa May travelled to Scotland to give a speech in which she claimed that Brexit will make the UK more united. In an attempt to counter calls from the SNP for ‘IndyRef2’, May said Britain’s exit from the EU creates an opportunity to strengthen the ties between the nations of the United Kingdom. All very well. Only
It is very good to be with you here with you today, and particularly to be able to thank you all for the work you do on behalf of the Government and on behalf of the British people. Vital work that helps millions around the world and speaks strongly to the values that we share
One of the 12 ‘principles’ of the government’s National Planning Policy Framework is that planning should be ‘genuinely plan-led, empowering local people to shape their surroundings.’ This is how that empowerment works in reality. Stephanie and Adam Sutton live on the Montagu Estate in Newcastle upon Tyne. Stephanie grew up on the estate, is 37 years old and works
There’s an extraordinary moment in this week’s Holy Smoke podcast when the aid official supervising the resettlement of 12,000 Iraqi Christians says that the latter supported Donald Trump ‘100 per cent’ in the US elections because they felt betrayed by the Obama administration. Stephen Rasche, legal counsel and head of resettlement programmes for the Chaldean Catholics of
Once, after a few too many sherbets, I tipped the pizza delivery man with my supermarket trolley token instead of a pound coin. It was a genuine mistake but I still feel guilty. Tomorrow sees the introduction of the new 12-sided pound coin, forcing a root-and-branch overhaul of supermarket trolleys, vending machines, parking meters and anything
When my sister had a little girl, my aunt told her: ‘You’re vulnerable for the rest of your life.’ She meant, of course, that my sister’s overwhelming love for her daughter would mean a lifetime of worry – as well as all the incredible new experiences that motherhood would bring. She should have added financial vulnerability
Stay safe, London. Stay safe, everyone. It’s nice, isn’t it, as a sentiment, which is just as well because it is the motto du jour of every celebrity who has added his or her mite to what passes as debate on the terrorist attack last Wednesday. And, my goodness, they all piled in: JK Rowling,
Amber Rudd has vowed to ‘call time’ on tech companies who are giving terrorists ‘a place to hide’. The Home Secretary’s comments come after it emerged that Westminster attacker Khalid Masood was sending encrypted message on WhatsApp in the lead-up to the attack; Rudd is ‘right to read them the Riot Act’, says the Sun, which ups the
The argument over the recently-abandoned Dubs scheme for refugees encapsulates what is wrong with the debate about what is, perhaps, the worst humanitarian crisis of recent years. The actor David Morrissey was on the Peston show this morning saying he was “devastated” when Theresa May decided to stop plans to take a limited number child refugees from Europe and instead focus
Douglas Carswell: Why I won’t call a by-election On the Sunday Politics, the Clacton MP said: ‘I’m not submitting myself to the authority, to the whip of a new party. If I was doing so then quite rightly, as I did previously, I would feel obliged to trigger a by-election.’ And anyway, he said, he’d
With Theresa May on track to trigger Article 50 on Wednesday and thereby begin Britain’s formal exit from the European Union, Remainers took to the streets of London on Saturday for one final hurrah. Tens of thousands of people joined the Unite for Europe march — calling on Britain to remain in the EU. Leading the protests
So poisonous were the relations between Nigel Farage and Douglas Carswell that no-one will have been surprised at the latter’s resignation from Ukip, nor the pleasure it generated among Farage and his supporters. It takes something to cheer the departure of your only MP; along with the funding that goes with it. Yet the irony
If Health and Safety is (are?) your thing, you must always be dreaming, like Alexander the Great, of new worlds to conquer. The next one, I predict, will be cooking at home. Recently I have noticed talk about the bad effect of ‘particles’ produced by hot food cooked in or on ovens. The sequence will
As I’ve said before, the bellwether of post-Brexit prosperity will be the health of the UK car industry, rather than that of the far larger financial sector. The City is nimble enough to look after itself come what may; it requires little more than plug sockets and clever lawyers to outmanoeuvre barriers to its trade.
Washington, DC I hate to admit it, but I think I’m falling in love with Sean Spicer. No doubt Donald Trump’s stocky, gum-chewing, sartorially challenged press secretary will strike many readers as an unlikely object of passion. But it’s hard not to get red-hot for a man capable of inspiring so much outrage among the
It’s important to keep an ear out for the rhetoric of Britain’s remaining Remain parties, because they are changing, too. Having announced plans for a second Scottish referendum entirely because of Brexit, Nicola Sturgeon is now incredibly cagey about whether her independent nation would even be part of the EU, or perhaps more like Norway. The
Theresa May doesn’t do drama. She regards order as both a political and personal virtue. And this goes a long way towards explaining why she is Prime Minister. After the Brexit vote last June and David Cameron’s resignation, the Tories had had enough excitement. They turned to the leadership contender who was best able to