All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Theresa May’s not having a good few weeks. With Tories scrambling to either criticise their leader or covertly campaign to be the next leader, May’s premiership appears to be on shaky ground once more. Add to this a backlash from Conservative Brexiteers and a government Brexit forecast leak and it’s safe to conclude things aren’t
Michel Barnier’s Brexit transition deal offer – under which Britain will continue to pay into the EU’s budget and have no say on rules – has not gone down well with some Brexiteers. The Daily Telegraph says that this suggestion means that the date of when Brexit will happen has effectively been pushed back until
Why aren’t spy stories sexy anymore? The revelations last year that Beijing destroyed America’s espionage ring inside China a few years ago, including executing a number of US informants, got a brief flurry of attention and then subsided beneath the waves. News reports of American bureaucrats arrested for passing information to the Chinese have also barely raised
Sir: Sir James Dyson is right (Letters, 20 January). We need big farming; that is where our food comes from. But the elephant in the room is tax — inheritance tax and roll-over relief — which of course he conveniently skirts. Farming at this level needs subsidy precisely because land is too expensive for food production
Can Theresa May really solve the latest crisis affecting her leadership? Previously, her survival owed a great deal to Conservative backbenchers, who vowed to protect her against a badly-behaved Cabinet, but everyone is restless now. So what can she do? The Prime Minister isn’t going to have a personality transplant, but this doesn’t mean that
Oh dear. After a weekend of on-the-record briefings against him, it’s safe to say that Philip Hammond has found himself on the wrong side of the Brexiteers. The Chancellor’s comments at Davos about close alignment and minimum change have led his colleagues to see red – with Nadine Dorries calling for him to be sacked.
So was it Corbyn’s appeal to younger voters what swung last year’s general election in his favour? Not according to the British Election Study (BES) which today publishes a paper questioning the received wisdom that Labour’s unexpectedly strong showing was down to a surge of support from younger voters who managed to cast off their apathy
There are many things to worry about with Brexit, but the terms of the transition should be pretty low down that list. The transition was always going to have to be off-the-shelf (if you could negotiate a bespoke transition, you might as well do the final deal) and as long as it is time-limited, it
If any further evidence was needed about the disingenuousness of Jeremy Corbyn and the dangers a government led by him might pose internationally – not just for Britain but also for Britain’s Nato allies – it is worth watching Corbyn’s interview on Iran with the BBC’s Andrew Marr yesterday. ‘You’ve been very reluctant to condemn
All progress is war on the past and millennials are particularly merciless combatants. The arrival of Friends on Netflix UK has had this neo-Victorian generation reaching for its fainting couch. Through woke eyes, the hit NBC sitcom isn’t a diverting entertainment but an artefact of racism, sexism and homophobia. If you were a twentysomething during
PM: Mr President, how are you? DT: I’m good thank you, Piers. PM: It’s been a while! DT: It has, since you became my Champion on the Apprentice. PM: Well that was 10 years ago. DT: Can you believe it? It’s a long time but I appreciate all the nice things you’ve said, and every
How much trouble is Theresa May in? Just three weeks ago, it looked as though the Prime Minister was at her strongest point since the disastrous snap election. Now, the BBC 10 o’clock news is leading on questions about her survival – with reports of irrepairable drift, Brexit rifts. The Sunday papers are filled with a
Since Georgia ‘Toff’ Toffolo won I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, the Conservatives have been left with a dilemma over whether to utilise their celebrity supporter. A proud Conservative, Toff kindly volunteered to utilise her million followers for the party only for brains at CCHQ to block any such move over concerns she’s
David Lidington – Conservative family ‘must come together’ The Cabinet Office Minister and Theresa May’s de facto deputy David Lidington has urged his colleagues to unite behind her after a week that has highlighted her precarious position. Fears have arisen among Conservative MPs that the party is facing annihilation in London and Birmingham in the
It’s happened. Jeremy Corbyn has finally broken his silence on Iran. To be fair, he was rather forced into doing so when Andrew Marr raised the topic live on air this morning. Marr put to the Labour leader – who says ‘to stay neutral in times of injustice is to side with the oppressor’ – that
Oh dear. It’s not turning out to be an easy Sunday morning for Theresa May. The front pages are emblazoned with headlines like ‘Tories in turmoil’ and the ones inside aren’t much better. There are reports of more letters calling for a confidence vote in the Prime Minister making their way to Graham Brady. Meanwhile,
The latest challenge was to provide a poem about passports. While the news that British passports issued after October of next year will be navy blue rather than burgundy was heartily cheered in some quarters, others — like Nicola Sturgeon, who denounced it as ‘insular nonsense’ — weren’t so delighted. And others still wondered what
It is quite unnecessary and truly sad that the Archbishop of Canterbury has painted himself into a corner over the case of George Bell, the heroic, long-dead Bishop of Chichester. Last week, several historians who have studied Bell wrote to him to say that the Carlile report (which the Archbishop had himself commissioned) had clearly
Who doesn’t love the Murray family? Andy, a unique sporting hero; Judy, a magnificent coach and the best tennis mum. And, er, Jamie? Fine doubles player of course. But he’s now gone way off piste calling for vastly more prize money for doubles players, adding: ‘There’s a lot of excitement around the doubles game.’ Are
This week, General Sir Nick Carter, Chief of the General Staff, made it quite clear how he would like to fight the Russians should they invade Eastern Europe or start a war with NATO: We should identify Russian weaknesses and then manoeuvre asymmetrically against them. First and foremost, perhaps we should be in the business
Theresa May likes to avoid awkward rows at all costs: that much we already know. Today’s papers carry two stories showing this: she is said to be abandoning plans to give a Brexit speech just in case it causes further divisions in her Cabinet, and is also racking up what The Times estimates is a
Boris Johnson and Philip Hammond are further apart on Brexit than anyone else in the inner Cabinet. But there is one thing they agree on, I say in The Sun this morning. In the last 10 days, both of them have expressed their frustration to close allies that Theresa May won’t make a decision; that
I am hugely enjoying editing a paper with a much longer history than the Washington Post or, indeed, most British papers. The Evening Standard is over 190 years old. Proof it has always been read in high places came this month when a cutting dated 7 November 1889 was found under the floorboards of the
As I walked across Horse Guards one day last week, everything seemed eerily quiet. No one was about, and the only object I could see was a sleek limousine parked where one is not allowed to park, facing Downing Street. As I approached, I could read its number-plate, which said ‘1 VEN’. Was this the
A row is underway in the Conservative party over the Brexit transition period. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the all-powerful European Research Group (the Brexit wing of the Tory party), has said he would rather extend Article 50 than have a transition period in which the UK is a rule-taker from the EU. Despite this,
In the old days, the Financial Times didn’t do scoops. Indeed, it was so unkeen on being sensationalist, if it did happen to get a story it passed it on to some other paper, and then followed it up. So what, you ask, has come over Lionel Barber, editor of the FT, sending girls out
Unemployment would soar. Trade would collapse. Factories would close, and house prices would be in freefall. Rewind to the spring and summer of 2016, when Project Fear was at its peak, and we were meant to be shivering in the streets by now, flicking through battered copies of ‘The Road’ for tips on surviving in
Amber Rudd is frequently touted as a frontrunner in any Tory leadership race, but the Home Secretary has kept schtum on whether or not she actually fancies her chances. So, is Rudd secretly readying herself for a shot at getting the top job when May steps down? Mr S. only asks because Rudd lists a
It’s no great secret that Davos isn’t Theresa May’s natural habitat. Whether it’s eschewing meetings with businessmen to have a private fondue or giving speeches warning the guests at the event, the Prime Minister isn’t a natural at the flashy meeting of the global elite. So, reports that May spoke to a half-empty crowd yesterday
Wow. As far as I know, Donald Trump has only apologised twice since he emerged as a presidential candidate in 2015 — never apologise, never explain seems to be his usual rule. Once he said sorry after the famous ‘locker room’ talk Access Hollywood tape was leaked in 2016. And today, with his pal Piers Morgan,
Although Chris Williamson recently exited the Labour frontbench – by mutual agreement – the loyal Corbynista has vowed to do what he can for Jeremy Corbyn from the back bench. And this he did on Question Time on Thursday when he joining David Dimbleby for the weekly current affairs show. Speaking on a panel comprised
This is an extract from Martin Vander Weyer’s ‘Any other business’ column, in this week’s Spectator. In a week that felt rather starved of exciting business stories — the fat cats were evidently too busy packing for Davos — an unknown called Stapleton Capital, previously described as a telecoms investor, notched up a brief 130
Theresa May has a very big failure to her name, but strangely few people seem to want to pick her up on it. The latest crime figures show a sharp increase in recorded offences in England and Wales, especially in knife crime, which rose 21 per cent to 37,443 incidents. This continues a trend which
There seem to be quite a few bogeymen doing the rounds at the moment, but plastic is one of them. As Ross Clark wrote in last week’s Spectator cover feature, it’s the fashionable issue among environmental types at the moment – which is why the government has chosen to focus on it. There are of
