Politics

A slowdown in the UK economy will affect tax receipts and leave Philip Hammond with scant opportunity for giveaways at next week’s autumn statement, according to The Guardian. Publishing new forecasts for GDP growth to slow next year as the Brexit vote takes effect, the consultancy firm PwC said the Chancellor could afford some spending on big projects such as housing and roads if he changed the Government’s fiscal rules. But he would not have the money for large net tax cuts and would most likely keep tight control on spending by central and local government. Bonds The worldwide bond sell-off gathered pace yesterday as expectations that Donald Trump will unleash a massive fiscal

Theresa May’s first big foreign policy speech as Prime Minister is a call to reform globalisation, to save it. As with her conference speech, she argues that there’ll have to be changes to the way it works if popular support for it is to be maintained. Her argument is that ‘when you refuse to accept that globalisation in its current form has left too many people behind, you’re not sowing the seeds for its growth but for its ruin.  When you fail to see that the liberal consensus that has held sway for decades has failed to maintain the consent of many people, you’re not the champion of liberalism but

This week reports emerged that Nigel Farage was being lined up to act as a go-between for the government and Donald Trump. However, Downing Street sources were quick to deny the claims, suggesting that Ukip’s interim leader was an ‘irrelevance’ to the UK’s relationship with the US. However, it appears that keeping Ukip’s interim leader on side might not be such a bad idea after all. On Saturday night, Farage — who shared a platform with Trump during his presidential campaign — visited Trump Tower to talk ‘freedom and winning’ with the president-elect. Farage used the opportunity to suggest a bust of Sir Winston Churchill should be put ‘back in [the] Oval Office’. While Farage is the first

Britain’s position heading into its Brexit talks is far stronger than it was a week ago, I argue in The Sun today. Why, because Donald Trump has changed the dynamics of global politics. Brexit’s critics used to claim that this country would be isolated after it left the EU. But it is hard to make that case when the president-elect of the most powerful country in the world is in favour of it. Indeed, the next US President is more enthusiastic about it than the British Prime Minister. He was for it before June 23rd. Theresa May now has a chance to create a strong relationship with Trump before other

One searches in vain on the Guardian website for the name Nissar Hussain. This is odd because the newspaper seems to have spent the past few months engaged in a campaign against hate. Virtually every day there is a column or leader grimly claiming that the vote for Brexit has unleashed a spate of hate. Its archives brim with news stories trying to infer a causal link between Brexit and a reported rise in hate crime – even to the point of absurdity. Last month, the paper carried a story claiming that there had been a 147 per cent rise in homophobic attacks since Brexit. Given that homosexuality didn’t feature

Labour’s election then re-election of Jeremy Corbyn was the equivalent of a suicidal man who, when the noose snaps and gives him a second chance, decides to throw himself off a cliff instead. The Liberal Democrats are too small to get a hearing. The Scottish nationalists will speak only for Scotland. The only arguments that matter in England now are the arguments within the right. But what is the right today? What does it mean to say you are right-wing? You only have to look at the triumph of Donald Trump to guess the answer. He not only beat Hillary Clinton but the old Republican party, which looks like it