All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Simon Stevens: the NHS is making ‘significant preparations’ for no deal Brexit This morning Andrew Marr sat down for an interview with the Chief Executive of NHS England. With the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the NHS approaching this week, Marr asked Simon Stevens about the implications of a no deal Brexit on the
The latest challenge was to compose double dactyls about double acts. I didn’t include the rules about double dactyls this time round as they are rather long-winded and I’ve done it before — and in any case they are easily Googled. Most of you seemed thoroughly at home with the form, and in a large,
We went to the perfect midsummer wedding of my wife’s god-daughter in Norfolk this weekend. The service was pure Book of Common Prayer, omitting only some of the longer prayers and the woman saying ‘obey’ and (I think) ‘serve’. The service states the theological nature of marriage (‘signifying unto us the mystical union that is
While I largely agree with Coleman Hughes that racial quotas are counterproductive (‘The diversity trap’), he misuses Martin Luther King Jr to buttress his argument. King said that he hoped his descendants would ‘be judged…by the content of their character’, not by their standardised test scores. The grim pursuit of purely quantifiable ratings for intelligence
Michael Gove has literally ripped up Theresa May’s plan for a new customs partnership with the EU. As I say in The Sun today, to the surprise of the officials present, Gove tore the document in two at a meeting on Wednesday night. After the Brexit inner Cabinet couldn’t reach a consensus on what customs
Let’s talk about VAR, why don’t we? We love the World Cup though the football is getting bonkers. The scoring of a goal or a penalty decision or just a foul is merely a starting point for negotiation, as players compete to be the quickest with the ‘check the TV’ hand signals after every tiny
Very few business plans survive their first interaction with the real world,’ says Luke Johnson, whose own ventures have ranged from Pizza Express to fresh fish distribution and the UK’s largest chain of dental surgeries. ‘Entrepreneurs have the advantage that they can adapt swiftly — “pivot”, as they say in Silicon Valley — to satisfy
To understand what has gone wrong in the American judicial appointments process, look no further than the apocalyptic hysteria which has greeted the retirement of Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy. Reagan appointee Kennedy has come to be seen as a ‘swing vote’ on the Court, though deciding to retire during the Trump administration has seen
With a twenty billion pound spending increase in the NHS, many ministers are quietly seething at the latest Treasury warning of ‘no more money left’ for other departments. Gavin Williamson wants an extra £20 billion for Defence, and is allegedly threatening to bring down the Prime Minister if he isn’t given it. Now another minister
Given the way her Cabinet ministers are behaving at the moment, Theresa May is really rather used to dealing with fragile egos. This will come in handy over the next month when the Prime Minister has to go from what promises to be an extremely tricky Nato summit straight into Donald Trump’s visit to the
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
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
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
As an admirer of David Cameron, I was appalled when he broke his word and resigned on the morning of the Brexit vote two years ago. Not for the first time, I was thrown because I had taken him at his word and believed him when he said that he’d stay no matter what the
Is the Nato summit going to precipitate the greatest crisis for the Western alliance since 1966? Senior figures in the British government fear it will, as I reveal in the magazine this week. Trans-Atlantic relations are already at their lowest ebb in decades, as the US and the EU fight over trade. This summit will,
Emmanuel Macron is becoming quite the curmudgeon in attacking those who don’t conform to his view of the migrant crisis. The French president has said the Italian government is “cynical and irresponsible”, likened populism to “leprosy” and demanded fines be levied against EU states that don’t take their share of migrants. The Italians, increasingly exasperated
The Defence Select Committee called for the defence budget to be raised by £17 billion a year, from just over 2 per cent of GDP to 3 per cent. Some £35.3 billion was spent on defence in 2016/17. How much was allocated to particular operations? Wider Gulf £51m Afghanistan £70m Deployed Military Activity Pool (for
England may have lost their World Cup match to Belgium but happily some Thursday night entertainment was found in ITV’s Good Evening Britain. Danny Dyer – the EastEnders actor – hit out at David Cameron, also known as ‘t––’, over Brexit: ‘This whole Brexit thing when you’re judging them. Who knows what Brexit is. You
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
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
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
A new body called the Charity Tax Commission has been asked to look into the £3.7 billion tax reliefs given to charities. The Financial Ombudsman, Sir Nicholas Montagu, chairs the commission. He asks, ‘Are the right charities benefiting and should we start asking some awkward questions about whether there might be more to show for the
My opinion of Justin Welby has been rising over the last few years. At first he seemed a text-book public school Evangelical, a sad contrast to the Welsh wizard Williams. But he proved himself good at the job, which is largely about seeming a good egg while evading awkward doctrinal questions. Having read his book Reimagining Britain,
As anti-migrant sentiment sweeps across Europe, is the continent turning against Angela Merkel for her open-door policy, and is this the end of Merkel? Meanwhile, Donald Trump announced his new mission – to establish a sixth branch of the US military, the Space Force. Is this such a bad idea? And last, while it may
Ahead of England’s crunch World Cup game against Belgium tonight, you might expect that support for the Three Lions is reaching fever pitch in the cabinet. Not so, Mr S is sad to report. Theresa May is more of a cricket fan, while Boris has been busy talking down England’s chances. It seems that culture
Many people I know woke up yesterday morning with a knot in their stomachs. ‘Another five years,’ I heard one person mutter. They were referring of course to the victory secured by President Erdogan in Turkey. He won nearly 53 per cent of the votes in an election that many had hoped would see him
My commute to work yesterday was just like any other, until I was interrupted from my thoughts by a fellow passenger: “I don’t like your bag,” he said. Looking down, I remembered that I was carrying a tote bag emblazoned with the words: “The EU is not my bag”. I thought for a moment it was the colour
Politicians in Wales sometimes complain, at least in private, about the lack of media and public attention they receive. But Andrew RT Davies’ resignation as leader of the Conservatives in the Welsh Assembly, means that Welsh politics is back in the spotlight. With the prospect of simultaneous leadership elections running over the summer for all
Recess is fast approaching and many MPs are looking for a hobby to occupy them over the long summer break. Happily, a group of Labour MPs have hit upon the perfect thing to keep them busy: Love Island. Mr S hears that Lucy Powell, Jess Phillips and Stella Creasy have even set up a WhatsApp group
Some of Britain’s top Berc-ologists met recently to discuss a letter sent by John Bercow to MPs nearly a decade ago. He was advertising his suitability as a successor to Speaker Martin and he promised to serve ‘no more than nine years in total,’ if he were to win the election on June 22 2009.
Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t short of material to work with at PMQs. But it ended up not being as bad for Theresa May as one would have predicted. In purely parliamentary terms, Corbyn’s mistake was to try and blend policy into his criticisms of the divisions in government. This enabled Theresa May to mock Corbyn’s attempt
Fifa is worried. It is freaking out over the possibility that England fans will take a Brexit-related swipe at Belgian fans in tomorrow’s game. Our boys face the Belgians at Kaliningrad tomorrow evening. And given that a great many England fans are a) fond of Brexit and b) known to have a few pints ahead
Greater love, as wags responded to Harold Macmillan’s “night of the long knives” reshuffle, hath no man than that he lay down his friends for his political life. Well, Nicola Sturgeon’s political life is not threatened just yet but, even so, there was a whiff of this as she reshuffled her cabinet this week. If
Oh dear. Although free-thinking Cabinet members are not hard to come by nowadays, Liz Truss still managed to cause a stir with her speech to the London School of Economics. Only it was notable not just for her defence of free markets and fiscal restraint but for what she didn’t say. In the pre-released speech on