After an unflattering account of Theresa May’s dinner last week with Jean-Claude Jucker wound up in the German broadsheet FAZ, tensions between Brussels and Westminster have heightened. The briefing claimed that May ‘begged’ for help and appeared ‘tormented’ with ‘deep rings’ under her eyes. Keen to prove that he was not behind the leak, Juncker
Let us give thanks for the straight-talking Rory Stewart. After last week’s alarming comments from Max Hill, a QC who appears to believe British Isis fighters just need some TLC, Stewart, a Foreign Office minister, has given a more incisive assessment of the approach that should be taken towards the British jihadists still at large
On the Andrew Marr show yesterday, the Communities Secretary Sajid Javid suggested that the government should ‘sensibly borrow more money’ and take advantage of the ‘record low-levels’ of interest rates in order to tackle the UK’s housing crisis. He added that the lack of affordable housing was the ‘biggest barrier to social progress in our
How far is the government going to row back on Universal Credit? This afternoon an emergency debate has been granted on the matter in the Commons tomorrow. Two of the pilot councils in the roll-out of the new benefit have warned that the new system could be a catastrophe once implemented fully, predicting rent arrears
Theresa May has the perfect answer to all difficult questions: we don’t want to give away anything that will harm our position in the Brexit negotiations. No matter whether the information an MP is requesting has anything to do with Britain’s negotiating position: it’s a handy line to use when the answer is in fact
Oh dear. Although John Bercow has a penchant for winding up Conservative MPs in the Chamber, he also has a habit of taking the SNP to task for failing to grasp Westminster etiquette. However, today he adopted a rather different approach. During questions after Theresa May’s statement on the EU Council summit, the Speaker appeared
If someone had told you 10 years ago that it would soon become tantamount to a speechcrime to say ‘Men cannot get pregnant’, you would have thought them mad. That would be like punishing someone for saying, ‘Humans need oxygen to survive’. And yet here we are, in 2017, where PC has spun so violently
As an object lesson in how the process of regulation is hijacked by rich and powerful interests, today’s introduction of a £10 Toxic – or ‘T’ – Charge on cars over 11 years old entering Central London during peak hours could hardly be bettered. Almost everyone is in favour of clean air, but the effect
Too many Tories have a sense of inevitable defeat at the next general election. They can see what the problems are but are fatalistic about their ability to solve them before 2022. Sajid Javid isn’t one of these Tories. He quickly grasped that the election result changed the internal Tory debate about housing policy and
The T-charge – short for Toxicity Charge – comes into force in central London today. It’s part of the London mayor, Sadiq Khan’s, plan to improve air quality in the capital, and it mainly applies to vehicles registered before 2006. Rather than banning ‘high polluting vehicles’, he hopes that the charges will discourage people from
Last week, the SNP proved particularly vocal at PMQs after they went on the offensive over a Scottish Conservative MP missing Labour’s opposition say debate on universal credit to referee at a Barcelona match. Although the vote was non-binding – and the Conservatives abstained anyway – Douglas Ross has since promised to hang up his whistle –
On 12 September, The Spectator hosted a round-table dinner, sponsored by Bupa, to discuss the future of healthcare in Britain, involving MPs and practitioners. This is a summary of the evening’s discussion. We are forever being told that the health and social care system is in crisis thanks to government ‘cuts’. The trouble is that
Next month, as they have done for more than a century, the pupils of Colston’s Girls’ School will troop into Bristol cathedral for a special service in honour of the man who gave their school its name. There’s just a little snag: Edward Colston (1636-1721) will not be named, not even once, because of a
If Michel Barnier and David Davis, in their regular dialogue of the deaf, seem to be inhabiting different mental universes, that is because they are. The British and French have often found each other particularly difficult to negotiate with. Of course, Barnier represents not France but the EU, and he has a negotiating position, the
Well, that lasted long. Although Theresa May didn’t get the green light to talk trade on her EU council summit charm offensive last week, there was a general consensus that the mood music had at least improved. The EU27 struck a conciliatory and optimistic tone – agreeing to begin internal trade discussions in anticipation of
Emily Thornberry – Britain is heading for ‘no deal’ The Shadow Foreign Secretary has warned that the United Kingdom is on the path to receive a ‘no deal’ outcome if the government continues to pursue Brexit negotiations in the manner it has been so far. Speaking to Andrew Marr, Thornberry was keen to stress the
What has led to the rise of populism? The conventional answer involves inequality, flattening wages – and general economic malaise. In Europe, one year after the vote for Brexit, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times claimed that the global financial crisis had ‘opened the door to a populist surge’. In America, thousands rushed out to
Anyone subscribe to Private Eye? I do, and have done for almost forty years. But I am beginning to wonder why. The cackle quotient declines on an almost weekly basis and this week I couldn’t find a single thing to laugh at. One can usually depend upon Craig Brown’s piece and ‘From The Message Boards’,
In what proved to be a popular comp, you were invited to submit the formula for a successful marriage courtesy of a well-known husband or wife in literature. Some time ago, I challenged you to do the same on behalf of well-known poets, and if you like your advice brief and to the point, there’s
The routing of Isis in northern Iraq ought to be a time of international celebration, but as ever in the Middle East, there is no such thing as a straightforward victory. No sooner had Isis been driven away — though not quite vanquished — than the next great struggle commenced, this time between the Iraqi