Politics

To the American ambassador’s (early) independence day party. Despite the ambassador now possessing a shiny new embassy in south London – an off-location according to one @realDonaldTrump – guests were invited to Woody Johnson’s personal residence Winfield House, north west London. Gavin Williamson and Liz Truss were both in attendance though Mr S understands that the tricky topic of the government spending review did not come up as party chat. Other politicians there included Greg Clark, Tobias Elwood and Thérèse Coffey. In his speech to guests – who munched on hot dogs and Krispy Kreme doughnuts – Johnson said the special relationship was ‘alive and well’. Tory vice-chair Kemi Badenoch

Oh so you all love Danny Dyer now? The turnaround in Dyer’s fortunes over the past 12 hours has been extraordinary. He’s gone from being the butt of posh tweeters’ jokes to a celebrated political sage. From a ridiculous uber-lad whose cosying up to football’s hard men and promiscuous use of words like ‘slags’ and ‘twats’ provoked laughter and/ or horror among the chattering classes, to the Twitterati’s favourite working-class person. What changed? He dissed Brexit. And if you diss Brexit, they love you. The resurrection of Danny Dyer occurred on Good Evening Britain yesterday, a TV show for those gluttons for punishment who don’t quite get enough of Piers

Evening Standard editor, Kissinger Fellow, Honorary Economics Professor, Blackrock Advisor and Stanford Visiting fellow George Osborne is a skilled man at many things – namely job applications. However, as Chancellor Osborne struggled with deficit reduction, repeatedly missing his targets. He seems to now be experiencing economic turbulence in one of his new jobs, as editor of the London Evening Standard. BBC Media Editor Amol Rajan reports that in the space of a year the Standard has gone from a two million pound profit to a ten million pound loss. The paper will post a loss of £10m for the year ending in September 2017. Osborne started at the paper as editor

In conversation with Andrew Neil at a Spectator event this evening, Jeremy Hunt defended the principle of increasing taxes to pay for more spending on the NHS. He warned Tories unhappy with the idea that if in an election you offer voters a choice between a low taxes at all costs party and decent public services, they’ll vote for decent public services. He said that this extra money for the NHS was needed to deal with a ‘once in a generation change in demography’ and that it was important that the Tories show the public they are on the right side of this argument. In language reminiscent of David Cameron,

In a way, tonight’s England vs Belgium football match ought to be win-win. If England beats Belgium there will be mass celebrations – but even if they lose they’re still though and a bad performance could take them into an easier route to the final. Yet Mr S suspects that this isn’t the reason a number of non-Belgiums will be cheering on the other team. Jeremy Corbyn’s man in Brussels Richard Corbett and Leo Varadkar have said they will be cheering on Belgium. Now the Financial Times’s Peter Spiegel has been revealed to be cheering the other side – he even has the scarf to prove it: More evidence of

Congratulations to Radio 4’s Today programme for the amusing item on Brexit football chants. Very good. Radio 4 being Radio 4, however, there was a slight Remain bias to their chants. Also they lacked something of the sweet nihilism that all the best football chants have. So here, in the interests of balance and free speech, are a few we came up with in The Spectator office yesterday. We just about resisted the natural urge to rhyme with Jean-Claude Juncker, and now we dare to dream that one of them will be sung at the Kaliningrad stadium tonight for England’s match against Belgium. Please send your own chants (preferably with