All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
If you ran the marketing department of a progressive organisation, which wanted to advertise its inclusiveness, how would you do it? My guess is that you would run down the checklist of identity politics and first make sure your advertising had a perfect gender balance. Showing men and women equally would not be enough, however.
It would be interesting, wouldn’t it, to sit in on the meeting today between Oxfam executives and Penny Mordaunt, International Development Secretary, who has got off to a cracking start in her job by giving short shrift to the weaselly equivocations by Oxfam after the sex scandals involving its country director and other staff in
What do we talk about when we talk about Jordan? Not the country, or the river, or the cultural commentator Jordan Peterson but – as is my Philistine wont – the glamour model and businesswoman Katie ‘Jordan’ Price. Last week, Katie Price addressed Parliament on the subject of social media trolling – which her 15-year-son
Oh dear. This week Boris Johnson will give a speech intended to unite the country over Brexit – and, most importantly, reassure Remain voters that Brexit Britain is a country that can and will reflect liberal values. Offering a trailer for the speech on Westminster Hour was the Foreign Secretary’s PPS Conor Burns. Speaking to
I have learned a lot since writing about gender laws here last week. I’ve learned that if you ever want to flood your Twitter timeline with people arguing about something, writing an article about gender laws is a good way to do it. I’ve learned that some people do indeed get very angry about this
The Oxfam sex abuse scandal rumbles on, with the Times reporting that the charity knew about the questionable conduct of two men before they were posted to work in Haiti. The paper says it is time for a serious shake-up in the way in which international aid is meted out to avoid a repeat of
The opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea was a miraculous site. The lights. The fireworks. The dancing. The choreography. It was everything we have come to expect from a world-class Olympic Games, a coordinated and ritzy show on behalf the entire planet. The Games in Pyeongchang, however, do stand out
Penny Mordaunt – Oxfam has failed in moral leadership The International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt joined Andrew Marr this morning to discuss the allegations that aid workers employed by Oxfam had abused their position while assisting with the relief efforts in Haiti after the devastating earthquake in 2010. It has been claimed that up to
Oh dear. Andrew Marr has found himself in the firing line this morning after the presenter congratulated a Tory minister on her interview… live on air. Penny Mordaunt appeared on the programme to answer questions on the unfolding Oxfam scandal and her plans as the recently appointed DfID Secretary. After putting in a confident showing,
Who’d have thought it? Last week, it looked like Martin Schulz had landed the key role of Foreign Minister in Germany’s new coalition government, despite leading his Social Democrats to their worst election result since the war. But now Schulz has been forced to decline the post after an internal revolt by his own party.
The latest challenge asked for a poem written by a poet laureate present or past on the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The role of laureate is not for everyone. Craig Raine once said to Ted Hughes, during a discussion of the then-vacant post, ‘Of course, no one in their right mind would
Returning to the United States a short while ago I received a stern talking to from an immigration officer. Why had I been in Paris longer than usual? I’ve lived in the US for nearly 25 years. I originally moved to be closer to my son, who was being educated nearby, and to my American
One of the pleasures of being a Catholic convert from Anglicanism is that I feel much warmer towards the Church of England than when I was in it. Last week, I went to a truly endearing Anglican ceremony in Westminster Abbey. After evensong, there was a short service to unveil a plaque in memory of
There have been two meetings of the Brexit inner Cabinet this week. But as I say in The Sun this week, the government is still making its way towards a detailed, negotiating position. Indeed, in one of the meetings this week, Theresa May emphasised that the ministers didn’t need to come to a decision that
Hollywood is in an uproar. Some actresses have discovered that some actors and producers are nasty sexual predators. Oh really? Expressing an opinion about this is fraught with danger, so I shall refrain before it’s ‘off with her head’ to me. Nevertheless, if these accusations towards men continue much longer, I fear a major decline
‘It’s never easy going to Rome,’ observed Anthony Watson after the traditional mauling of a hard-working but outgunned Italian side at the weekend. Eh? Well Watson is a brilliant winger (two tries in ten minutes no less) and a thoughtful and well-spoken credit to English rugby. But a difficult trip, Anthony? Sure the A23 to
Theresa May announced on Wednesday that ‘We are proud to have record levels of employment this country but we must also ensure that rights are always upheld’. This is pure political point scoring, and should be taken with a very large dose of salt. For several years now the government has peddled the myth that
‘I can’t in all good honesty, in all good faith, just look the other way because my party is now complicit in the deficits,’ Senator Rand Paul announced last night. Never were truer words spoken. The Republican party, once the standard-bearer of fiscal probity, has now become signed onto massive deficit spending. It first began
Turkey’s top religious body has issued a new fatwa, saying that ‘every pious Muslim must only use their right hand to eat and drink’ – because, apparently, only demons are left-handed. While it may seem like that line has been lifted directly from a medieval text, when southpaws were routinely accused of consorting with the
David Davis’s decision to describe a leaked EU paper suggesting Brussels could impose sanctions on Britain in a transition period as ‘discourteous’ had repercussions in Brussels today. In a solo press conference on Britain’s transition period, Michel Barnier cut a prickly figure as he warned that a transition period immediately after Brexit in 2019 is ‘not
The Labour benches and the pages of the Guardian are not normally places one would go for a defence of Empire – until, that is, comes along an opportunity to further a popular liberal cause in a British overseas territory. Then, otherwise liberal-minded folk, who would normally be falling over themselves to apologise for the
Since leaving government, Lord Adonis has busied himself as a chief cheerleader for the campaign to stop Brexit. The Remain champion is on a mission to overturn the EU referendum result – criticising Brexit figures such as Nigel Farage for kickstarting a ‘deeply xenophobic and misogynistic’ movement. However, this doesn’t mean Adonis thinks everyone should
The Grauniad is on a mission this week to expose the shortcomings of the government’s crackdown on unpaid internships. The paper reported that Dominic Raab, the Conservative minister, had advertised an unpaid internship to support his constituency work just hours before the government published its plan to tackle unfair working practices. Only, Mr S can’t help
A Times investigation has uncovered the terrible fact that women and possibly young girls in Haiti have been exploited by the very people paid to keep them safe: the staff of Oxfam, which sucks up £300 million a year from us in public and private money. It’s a shock — and it’s not. Under the
Donald Trump’s election as US president has meant the whole notion of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ is now very much part of a wider conversation. But for decades before the Trump era, more honest or open-minded journalists were aware that some of their colleagues often didn’t tell the whole truth about all kinds of matters,
The first rule of politics is never resign. Yet hapless MPs have been forced to quit in scandals involving sex, theft, drugs, double-crossing call girls and even attempted murder. Others have staged kamikaze resignations to damage their own leaders. Then there are the canny operators who took principled stands, ending up on the right side
There is clearly a will in Westminster to change the culture of sexual harassment that was so horribly exposed in the autumn. Previously, there was little will and no clear way for victims to get help, despite widespread anecdotal evidence that there were quite a lot of victims out there. Today a cross-party working group
Regular passengers on the East Coast mainline are inured to change — and baffled as to why this transport artery cannot be run at a steady but modest profit by a private-sector operator. We recall with sadness the demise of GNER, the first post-privatisation franchisee from 1996 to 2007: part of the Sea Containers group
It is really worth bothering with Mark Carney’s upgrading of the Bank of England’s growth forecast for 2018 from 1.5 per cent to 1.7 per cent? Carney, you might just remember, warned before the EU referendum that the UK would most likely suffer a technical recession if Britain voted to leave. Even in August of
On this week’s episode, we ask whether there’s such thing as a good financial crash. We also look at the reality of the housing crisis and the ethics of dwarfs in the entertainment industry. First, with the Dow Jones taking a tumble at the end of last week, market watchers were on high alert for
My guest on this week’s books podcast is the author and critic Stuart Kelly. His new book, The Minister and the Murderer: A Book of Aftermaths, tells the story of the only convicted murderer ever to become a minister of the Church of Scotland. We talk about the Ten Commandments, faith and doubt, Stuart’s experiences of
Local government appears to be on its knees, and it’s not the usual suspects of authorities run by opposition parties who are complaining loudest. Today, Surrey County Council is revealed to have a £105 million funding gap, and this after Northamptonshire issued a Section 114 notice, which bans almost all new spending. Organisations such as
Here we go. This week the Freemasons have come under increased scrutiny after the Grauniad ran a front page reported that two Freemasons’ lodges are operating at Westminster – which it said were for MPs and political journalists. This had led to a series of hit-pieces and criticism of the secretive society. Now the Freemasons are fighting
I am proud of my great-aunt Kathleen Brown, who once hijacked a horse-drawn fire-engine in the suffragette cause and charged it down Tottenham Court Road clanging its bell. She did time in Holloway. She was also sent to prison in Newcastle for breaking a window in Pink Lane Post Office, and went on hunger strike.