If you’re on the hunt for a new credit card – and you’re planning on paying off your card every month – it might make sense to look for one which rewards you for using your card. Here are the best fee-free cashback cards on the market at the moment, according to data provided by moneyfacts.co.uk.
Clive Lewis is no stranger to controversy. The Labour MP was forced to apologise last year after he was caught on camera telling someone to ‘get on your knees b****’. Now, Lewis has surpassed himself, by appearing to pretend to shoot himself while sitting on the Labour frontbench in the House of Commons. The Corbynista MP vented his frustration after his party colleague Anneliese Dodds was interrupted by a Tory MP making an intervention during a debate. Mr S wonders whether another Clive Lewis apology might be on the cards…
It’s not like the green blob to keep quiet when there’s a threat to the environment in the offing. Even the smallest hint of a problem is usually enough to work a tree-hugger into a frenzy. So it’s worth taking a look at their decision to keep shtum over the recent appearance of what may be one of the greatest threats to the natural world we have seen. Over the last few weeks, scientists and campaigners alike have been turning their attention to the question of how land can be used to tackle global warming. Their interest was prompted by the appearance of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) special
Whatever form Brexit might take, the Government has been clear about its intentions to take the country global: the Prime Minister has promised that post-Brexit Britain will be an outward-looking country, trading and engaging with countries from across the world. But if Britain is to copy with the increase in trade and visitors (both of which are expected to double within the next thirty years), it will be necessary to revisit and revitalise the country’s border and customs infrastructure. The Home Office’s failure to meet its existing targets for clearing visitors (within 25 minutes for EEA passports, and 45 minutes for non-EEA visitors have been well-publicised) – how can the
One important piece of information missing during these dramatic Brexit manoeuvres is what the voters actually want. Rory Stewart, one of the only ministers doing a decent job of selling the Prime Minister’s plan, speculated that ‘80 per cent of the British public support this deal’ and was promptly forced to apologise. Meanwhile opponents of the deal point to polls taken since the details were revealed suggesting that as few as 19 per cent of the public support it. So what is the truth? I think Theresa May’s deal is fundamentally much more in line with public opinion than polls suggest and that it will become more evidently so over time. It
Amber Rudd left the Home Office over the Windrush scandal and has joined the Work and Pensions department just as its flagship benefits reform is under fire from all angles. The new Secretary of State spent most of her first session at the dispatch box this afternoon answering questions on Universal Credit – and she had arrived determined to strike a rather different tone from her predecessor. Esther McVey, who resigned from the role last week, had garnered a reputation for being rather hardline when dealing with criticisms of the benefit roll-out, while also managing to give far more away about some of its problems than Number 10 would have
Will Theresa May face a vote of no confidence? Graham Brady has been touring the studios over the weekend making it clear that the full 48 letters required to trigger such a vote are yet to be received. That’s not to say it won’t happen in the near future – there’s plenty that could happen in the next week to irk MPs further – though European Research Group members seem a little down-hearted by the slow pace to proceedings. The problem is Tory Brexiteers are not united when it comes to a response to May’s EU withdrawal agreement. There are a small number of Tory Leave MPs who actually support
It’s the question that’s on everyone’s lips in Westminster this week: how many letters of no confidence have been sent to the chairman of the 1922 committee, Graham Brady? Only Brady knows how many letters there are, and he’s committed to not revealing to anybody (including his wife) what the running total is. This morning Brady did confirm, however, that there are not currently 48 letters in: On Sunday Politics NW, Chair of the Cons 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady says he hasn't yet received 48 letters calling for a no-confidence vote in the PM and that @theresa_may has his personal backing. He also revealed he could send one himself
In between the small amount of other news this week there has been a certain amount of attention on the plight of the Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi and her family. Bibi has spent most of this decade on death-row in Pakistan. Her crime is that a bigoted Muslim neighbour of hers made up a crock accusation against her and said she had blasphemed against Islam. In the last week there has been some attention on the fact that various countries are looking into giving asylum to Bibi and her family – Britain among them. But it appeared earlier this week that the UK would not be offering this genuine asylum
‘Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism,’ French president Emmanuel Macron said at last weekend’s Armistice Day ceremonies. ‘Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. In saying ‘our interests first, whatever happens to the others,’ you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: its moral values.’ You’d have to be a philosopher to make sense of that. My guest this week on The Green Room, Spectator USA’s Life & Arts podcast, is one: I’m casting the pod with the Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony, an expert on the philosophies of both religion
The opening of McLaren’s new production facility in Rotherham may have been rich in pomp and ceremony – a 3,850 horsepower convoy of supercars racing to meet the more sedate Royal fleet of Bentleys, for example – but behind the showmanship there are vital lessons for UK manufacturing. There are also important lessons for a government that has staked the economy’s future on an Industrial Strategy targeting just four grand challenges: future mobility, clean growth, artificial intelligence and an ageing population. The first lesson is that the UK has a great future in high-value manufacturing. The second, especially in the case of automotive and aerospace, is that this requires industry
Hard bitten A British tourist died after contracting rabies from a cat bite in Morocco. Whatever happened to the prominent anti-rabies posters at British ports? — The last case of rabies contracted in the UK was in 1922 but rising cross-Channel traffic led to a fear that infected animals could unwittingly be brought in. — A 1974 regulation introduced long spells of quarantine and those once-familiar posters, then restrictions were eased in the 1990s thanks to pet passports. — The last case of human infection in France was in 1923, but the country was not declared rabies-free until 2001 – a status it lost for two years from 2008. —
Hearts as well as heads Sir: Simon Jenkins suggests we should stop remembering and start forgetting about the first world war (‘Don’t mention the war’, 10 November). His beef is with artists in particular, claiming that art ‘drenches history in emotion’. He prefers to read history books. No one would argue against history books, but surely it is not a question of either/or. Artists tell a story in a different way from historians, often to a different audience. They can move people to want to find out more: to look in the box of letters in the attic, to find out about their family connection to the war, to think
World champion Magnus Carlsen missed several chances to win with black in the first game of his title defence, currently continuing in London. A black win right at the start is by no means ultimately a match winner, but is rather like breaking serve in the first set of the Wimbledon final. Alexander Alekhine, in 1927 against José Capablanca and again Vassily Smyslov in 1957 against Mikhail Botvinnik, both went on to seize the supreme title after black wins in game one. In this case, Carlsen built up a dominating position after some highly original opening strategy and an inspired temporary pawn sacrifice and now came the time to
Black to play. This is a variation from Carlsen–Caruana (Game 2), London 2018. White has forked the black bishop and queen. How should Black react? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 20 November or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Qh5 Last week’s winner Ray Fisher, Buxton, Derbyshire
When I first read about plans for a new academic periodical called The Journal of Controversial Ideas, I got the wrong end of the stick. Fantastic news, I thought, particularly when I saw the distinguished group of intellectuals behind it. They include Jeff McMahan, professor of moral philosophy at Oxford; Peter Singer, the well-known Australian philosopher; and Francesca Minerva, a bio-ethicist at the University of Ghent. An authoritative magazine bearing the imprimatur of these distinguished free-thinkers is a great way to persuade other, less celebrated academics to stick their heads above the parapet and publish essays that dissent from groupthink. Then I spotted an important detail: all the material will
Q. A difficult couple of our acquaintance always object to other guests at dinner and can be very rude to them. In consequence, we have fallen into a pattern of dining at each other’s houses in London, just the four of us. They are sticklers for what they see as correct behaviour. Last week, however, we were told, the day before we were due to host, that they had a friend staying the night; could they bring him along? This was someone I vaguely knew, but had not seen for 20 years, and someone my wife has never met. Neither of us desired his company. I suggested perhaps we choose
Tish is a new grand café in Belsize Park, north London, but kosher. There are not really enough Jews to fill a kosher restaurant in London, and they tend to fall into dust, like the ten tribes, and the temple. 1701, the unwise and subtle restaurant by Bevis Marks synagogue, has gone; Bloom’s in Golders Green has gone, too. Most British Jews aren’t kosher because chicken without butter isn’t worth having, even if you do believe that bushes speak and people want to kill you. Mostly, the food will kill you. But not always. The north London restaurant most favoured by Jews is Oslo Court, which is actually a specialist in
In the annual dictionary wars to nominate words of the year, in the hope of attracting publicity, Collins has made single-use its first choice for 2018. But of more interest is its second choice: gammon. It is used by Twitter trolls and other supporters of Momentum to signify ‘a male, middle-aged and white, with reactionary views, especially one who supports Brexit’. His face resembles ham. Collins said that in Nicholas Nickleby (1838), ‘Dickens used the word gammon to describe a large, self-satisfied, middle-aged man who professes an extreme patriotism in large part to disguise his essential selfishness and corruption’. I’m afraid the people at the dictionary have completely misunderstood what
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, defended a 500-page technical draft of the agreement on withdrawal from the European Union. She met immediate opposition from the Democratic Unionists, from Jacob Rees-Mogg and from Boris Johnson. Mr Johnson’s brother Jo (a Remainer) had earlier resigned as a minister, calling Mrs May’s handling of Brexit a ‘failure of British statecraft on a scale unseen since the Suez crisis’. The BBC reported that several cabinet ministers had expressed doubts about her Chequers plan back in July. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, insisted that Brexit could not be stopped, but Keir Starmer, Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary, said the option of a new referendum was