President Macron’s speech on Monday to the combined houses of parliament in the Palace of Versailles proved how stunningly different are the French from the British. Imagine our head of state promising to cut the size of parliament by a third. Imagine her, or even her prime minister, promising to renew the nation with ‘the
Much excitement from Labour this morning over the new IFS report on tuition fees. With research finding that students from disadvantaged backgrounds will graduate with debts in excess of £57,000, Labour’s shadow education minister has said it’s time to ‘deliver a debt-free education system run for the many not the few’. Conveniently, the party has not
What a forty eight hours it has been for Emmanuel Macron. On Monday, he gave his regal address to the National Assembly at the Palace of Versailles, a grandiose occasion during which the French president rivalled Tony Blair and Barack Obama for swaggering self-confidence. As Jonathan Miller said in the Spectator, it’s hard not to be
Antony Gormley is not amused. The artist who has installed hundreds of life-sized, cast-iron sculptures of his naked body in cities all over the world is affronted with the way a mysterious member of the British public has responded to one of the artworks. The piece in question, which could be known as ‘Narcissism’ but
After days of ministers calling on Theresa May to scrap the public sector pay cap, the fightback has begun. But it’s not coming from the Prime Minister. Instead, it’s been left to May’s predecessor to make the case for fiscal discipline. After the Chancellor put his foot down in a speech to the CBI last
I suppose it says something about me, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything funnier than this video – this brief video – of a man travelling to his target on a hoverboard.
While the Cabinet bicker among themselves – in meetings, media briefings and the FT letters’ page – about policy, behind the scenes chatter remains over who will be the next Tory leader. Handily, Conservative Home has today released its Cabinet League Table which shows where the various ministers lie when it comes to the party membership.
It is a mark of Britain’s estrangement from the European Union – and, at least for now, the country’s diminished standing on the international stage – that although Theresa May attended a memorial service to Helmut Kohl at the weekend, she was not invited to speak. Of course there are hierarchies of closeness on such
Although attributed to Milton Friedman, the assertion that ‘there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch’ had been around long before he took it for the title of an economics book in 1975. It has been used since by many who have never given monetarism a second’s thought. Physicists say the universe is a
Have the French belatedly realised the error of their regicide and decided to restore the monarchy? If so, will the regime of Emmanuel Macron, whose seizure of power must certainly be inspiring politicians around the globe with its brutal efficacy, end the same way? Macron’s glittering and symbolic appearance yesterday at the Palace of Versailles
Talks to form a new power sharing executive in Belfast have broken down again. Largely this is because James Brokenshire, the Northern Ireland Secretary, has been unable to impose a believable deadline after which he would enforce direct rule. This is a particular shame, because shaking the magic money tree in the direction of Northern
After Laura Kuenssberg was appointed political editor at the BBC and Robert Peston moved to ITV to head up the channels political coverage, James Landale – the former BBC deputy political editor – took to social media to praise those overlooked broadcast journalists who emit ‘quiet competence’ and ‘put the story first’. But is Landale’s
Last week the exhibition Painting India by the late Howard Hodgkin opened at the Hepworth Wakefield. Hodgkin started collecting Indian miniatures as a schoolboy at Eton and first visited the subcontinent in 1964, travelling with Robert Skelton, the then assistant keeper of the Indian collection at the V&A. Hodgkin would return there many times during
The deadline imposed on Qatar to agree to the demands made by the Saudi-led Sunni coalition has passed without Doha caving in. This was to be expected — the main stipulations, among the 13 made, had no chance of being accepted. The deadline has now been extended by 48 hours and the Kuwaitis are trying
Almost everything which is said officially about student finances is obfuscatory and contradictory, starting with Damian Green’s assertion at the weekend that we need ‘a national debate’ on tuition fees, only for former education secretary Michael Gove to say the opposite the following day. A week before the General Election was called, the Student Loan
Oh to be a fly-on-the-wall at today’s Cabinet meeting. After growing calls from ministers for Theresa May to ditch the public sector pay cap, last night the Chancellor put his foot down. In a speech to the CBI, Philip Hammond said that while the public are naturally ‘weary’ after seven years of austerity, now is not
‘Spare a thought for Philip Hammond,’ says the Times. The Chancellor once looked certain to lose his job – and yet while he might now be safe in his position, his role is only getting tougher. His Cabinet colleagues are queuing up to tell him that now is the time to lift the cap on public sector pay. In
It is 10 years since smoking in public places was banned in England. Ten years since officials decreed that we could no longer light up at work, in restaurants, in pubs and even at bus-stops. Ten years since you could follow your Tiramisu with the satisfying throat hit of a drag of nicotine. Ten years
Financial scams are big business in the UK. A report from Experian last year suggested that fraud could cost the UK economy as much as £193 billion a year – though these scams come in many shapes and sizes. Analysis from Which suggests there were around 264,000 reported cases of fraud last year. This, however,
Theresa May spent her first few months as Prime Minister reversing many of her predecessor’s policies. But there is one which she may well end up regretting that she failed to reverse: going ahead with the contract for French state electricity company EDF to build the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Yesterday, EDF announced