All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Fake news has been around for decades. But it was normally the preserve of despotic regimes. Now it’s threatening to undermine democracies across the world. The rise of the internet means that, in the words of Mark Twain, ‘a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes’. You
On Monday, we held a dinner party in the Cavendish Room at Brooks’s, one of the most beautiful spaces in London. Our guest list started with Matthew Parris, whom my wife was panting to meet, observing that she agrees with him about absolutely everything except that she is reluctant to become gay. After that, it
Because there is a hue and cry against Damian Green, the media underreported the remarks of Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, on Monday. They were notable, though, for their jargon-free English and their clarity. This is what she said about the ex-policemen reviving allegations of having found (legal) pornography on Mr Green’s computer nine
At first sight, the evidence presented in David Anderson’s report into the four terror attacks committed between March and June sounds damning. The security service, MI5, had had three of the six attackers on its radar. The Manchester bomber Salman Abedi, who murdered 22 people, had come to the attention of MI5 in 2014. As
As Theresa May attempts to keep her party on side over the terms agreed in stage one of the government’s Brexit negotiations, leading Brexiteers have been sent out to praise the deal so far. Michael Gove began the day on the Today programme – praising the Prime Minister – and Steve Baker has been tweeting
Everyone interested in technology has their own bitcoin story. As is the way with these things, the earlier you were on the scene the better. I cashed out back in 2012 when a bitcoin was worth just £7, says one. Well, I bought a pizza in 2014 with bitcoin which, at today’s rate, cost me almost ten grand,
This is an excerpt from Martin Vander Weyer’s ‘Any Other Business’ column. I don’t know which is more worrying: that the bitcoin market becomes madder by the day, or that it becomes more mainstream. The market price of a unit of the cryptocurrency has spiked above $11,800, up from $750 a year ago, for no
There’s relief in No 10 today after Theresa May and Jean Claude Juncker finally reached deal on the Irish border, EU citizens’ rights and the so-called Brexit bill. The European Commission have subsequently recommended that ‘sufficient progress’ has been achieved in time for this month’s EU council meeting – and that the Brexit talks should
‘Sufficient progress’. Those words that Number 10 has been desperate to hear for months have now passed Jean-Claude Juncker’s lips. After Monday’s epic false start, the government will just be relieved to have got there. If they had failed to secure ‘sufficient progress’ by Christmas it would have been hugely destabilising, both economically and politically.
Britain and the European Union will progress to the next stage of Brexit talks following a breakthrough in negotiations overnight. The European Commission said that sufficient progress had been made in discussions on the Brexit divorce bill, the Irish border and citizens’ rights to allow trade talks to get underway. There is no doubt that
I don’t like having a go at a colleague. Especially not one as talented as the Sunday Times‘ Emma Barnett, one of the best interviewers around. But a certain detachment escaped Emma yesterday while interviewing a woman called Jackie Teale on her Radio 5 Live show (which is usually very good). Teale was there because
The UK has a big productivity problem. Our slowdown since the financial crisis has been more severe than in other developed nations. We rank third-last among the G7 — ahead of only Canada and Japan — and we’re falling further behind our competitors: France, Germany and the USA. This matters, because increased productivity is the
With Jeremy Corbyn too anti-establishment to speak to the Parliamentary Press Gallery over lunch, George Osborne was hauled before lobby hacks today as the alternative opposition. The former Chancellor didn’t disappoint with his address. The former Conservative politician – and now Evening Standard editor – accused the Tories of ignoring the 48pc Remain voters in
This has got to be the own goal of the year. Millennials want people to stop calling them ‘snowflakes’ because it is an unfair term of abuse that damages their mental health. Get your head round that if you can. In response to the accusation that they’re soft, oversensitive and too easily wounded by words
The Israelis are doing it again. That thing they do when someone, anyone, even a total nishtgutnick like Donald Trump, comes along and tosses them a few warm words. Their little hearts leap to be told that, on balance, all things being equal, they have a right to exist, perhaps even to defend themselves, and
Brexit is getting a far easier ride than it deserves. I accept that its promoters live in a world of paranoid irresponsibility. They lament their unjust suffering, and blame everyone but themselves for its many failings. But consider how Britain has bent over backwards to enable their project. We don’t have an opposition willing to oppose
On this week’s episode we’re looking at the Brexit situation as 2017 draws to a close. We’ll also be marvelling at all the wondrous, and infuriating, jargon to come from our EU withdrawal, and asking whether British aristocrats are being seduced by the new ‘glamocracy’. First up: the days might be getting shorter, but the
In this week’s Spectator Books Podcast, I’m talking to Russia’s most prominent dissident journalist, Masha Gessen, about her National Book Award-winning new book The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. In the book, which she calls a “non-fiction novel”, Masha attempts to give a properly rounded sense — from high politics to the everyday lives
It’s fair to say that (not for the first time in recent months) things are a little bit awkward around the Cabinet table at the moment. The latest bust-up is between Philip Hammond and Gavin Williamson, with the pair falling out after an ally of the Chancellor compared the new defence secretary to Private Pike
It’s safe to say this hasn’t been a good week for the government with Brexit talks unexpectedly stalling on Monday. But if there were to be one Cabinet minister said to be having the worst time, it would be David Davis. At a select committee appearance on Tuesday, the Brexit secretary came unstuck over the
‘Since you’re here…we have a small favour to ask’. These words may ring a bell for you – or just sound the spam alarm, coming as they do at the end of any Guardian online piece. For times are hard in Graunville: in recent years, the Guardian has lost tens of millions annually and, as a result, the
I love the Christmas season, so friendly and wholesome and filled with evocative memories – but don’t the machine guns and anti-terror bollards seem to go up earlier each year? Look at the touching festive scenes in Manchester, and Edinburgh, and we’ll see the police and barriers across the country from Liverpool to Lincoln. It’s not quite Bedford Falls
Another day, another Brexit warning: this time it comes from the head of Standard Chartered, who says that Britain’s imminent departure from the EU is already having a negative impact. Bill Winters said that his bank is already ‘preparing for the worst’. The Sun says that the ‘same old commentators’ are repeating themselves constantly with their
With the savings of the nation languishing around 1%, it’s no surprise that UK consumers are turning to increasingly creative ways to make their money work that little bit harder. Even with the arrival of a plethora of savings-focused banks such as RCI Bank, the savings horizon remains bleak for those yearning for the good
After the DUP took issue with government’s handling of the Irish border question on Monday, Theresa May had to return home from her lunch with Jean-Claude Juncker empty-handed. What’s more, there’s no indication that a solution is in sight anytime soon. The DUP worry that the wording in the draft text – promising regulatory alignment
Ah the joys of political marriages. Theresa May’s pact with the DUP bolstered her at PMQs today, and she delivered her most assured performance since the election. Having an ally who secretly hates you is the ultimate liberation, as David Cameron discovered with the LibDems. May is free to flourish the ultimate get-out clause any
Here we go again. Donald Trump decertified the Iran nuclear deal in October. Now, in another audacious foray into Middle East diplomacy, Trump is waving goodbye to the waiver about moving the American embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It appears that the former real estate mogul will embark upon one last construction project. If
The motorheads are at it again. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the UK auto manufacturers lobby group, lobbed another rusty torque wrench at the government this morning, announcing that UK new car registrations are down 11.2 per cent year-on-year. The decline is led by a collapse of nearly a third in sales
Remarkably, Theresa May made it through PMQs today pretty much unscathed. I cannot, though, report that this was because she launched a brilliant counter-attack or came with a way to break through the current Brexit impasse. Rather it was because Jeremy Corbyn’s questions lacked forensic precision. One suspects that if Robin Cook had been at
Let’s face it, Jerusalem is politically, diplomatically and religiously special. It is important to the faith traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And it is important to the political aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians. Generations of diplomats have kicked the issue of the status of Jerusalem into the long grass, deciding it to be so
Theresa May’s Brexit red lines were intended to keep her backbenchers happy, reassuring them that there would be no backsliding on Brexit. The approach worked. But at PMQs today there were signs that some Brexiteer Tory MPs are starting to worry. Jacob Rees-Mogg told the Prime Minister he was concerned her red lines were ‘beginning
In August 1988, after weeks of practice, I created the perfect Mr Whippy ice cream. I was 14 and I had a Saturday job in a cafe. When the sun shone I’d get to lean out of the serving hatch, chat to passers-by and sell ice creams. Rarely have strawberry sauce and sugar sprinkles been
Last month, the venture capitalist Roger McNamee drew parallels between the persuasive powers of Facebook and those of Joseph Goebbels. McNamee made a mint from early investment in the social media site but he believes Facebook has since adopted the techniques of Hitler’s spin doctor to create a climate of ‘fear and anger’. It’s not just
Oh dear. It turns out it’s not just the British government having a bad week. The latest issue of Cambridge News is out and the splash is… a ‘100-T SPLASH HEADING HERE’. It turns out the paper went to print before anyone had a chance to write a headline on the first page… Wow. It’s