Politics

Chancellor Sajid Javid’s approach to the spending review is in danger of stopping the Boris-inspired Tory revival in its tracks. The Chancellor needs to think more like an entrepreneur and less like he’s a newly-wed on a tight income. He intends to stick to the current spending rule that the annual deficit should not exceed 2 per cent of GDP in 2020-21 and plans to reduce total government debt as a proportion of national income. There is to be extra money for the police, health and education but other areas will continue to face strict controls. He likes to compare government spending with household expenditure. As every household knows, he

Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to use ‘all tactics available’ to block a no-deal Brexit. The Labour leader is meeting MPs today to try work out how to do just that. But with no deal back in the headlines, are we having the wrong discussion about what it would mean for Britain to leave the EU without an agreement? Most of the focus around a no-deal Brexit has been on the economic pain that will be suffered by various parties, but particularly the UK. Little thought has been given, however, to the political pain. To politicians seeking re-election (for either themselves or their party), small issues can become greatly magnified. Whenever

The latest stage in a series of arcane gambits and cunning plans designed to frustrate Britain’s exit from the EU came in the form of Jeremy Corbyn’s recent letter to leading opponents of a no-deal Brexit, inviting them to discuss the joint coordination efforts. In his letter, Corbyn rightly predicts that during the next few weeks the country will enter a ‘constitutional and political storm’. Up to now, however, the response of our political elite to this impending crisis has been confused. Radical Leavers claim Parliament can be prorogued to allow a no-deal Brexit to pass without further intervention from MPs. Lib Dems and Labour have argued over who should

I’ve learned only one thing at the G7 summit of big rich countries here in Biarritz: Boris Johnson absolutely loves being Prime Minister. There’s little of the conspicuous sense of duty that weighed on the shoulders of Theresa May, Gordon Brown and Sir John Major. Nor is there that unnerving claim to embody the spirit of a nation that Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher perhaps made too often and believed too much. There’s a touch of David Cameron’s Old Etonian entitlement, the idea that it would be odd if he weren’t PM. But mostly Johnson simply seems to be having fun – whether by pointing a joshing finger at the