All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Although John McDonnell is supposed to play a key part in Jeremy Corbyn’s drive for a kinder, gentler politics, remarks he made about ‘lynching’ Esther McVey, at a Remembrance Sunday event back in 2014, continue to distract from the message. McDonnell’s defence is that he was quoting someone else who (he claims) wanted to lynch
Donald Trump had hoped to mark his first anniversary as president basking in surprisingly positive media headlines and enjoying a lavish party at his Mar-a-Largo estate in Florida. Instead he must contend with a government shutdown and another major political crisis in Washington, the political swamp he promised to drain. Congress has remained in session
I gather that one way in which the persecution of the Rohingya people was first advanced was by a decision of the Burmese government in the 1950s to insist on ethnicity being registered on official identity documents. This helped identify minorities to persecute them. Something similar happened in Rwanda in the days of Belgian colonial
John Humphrys doesn’t do Twitter. Which, let’s face it, is wise. If it weren’t for Twitter I would have written an Important Novel. Instead, I find myself constructing rapier-sharp put-downs to online attacks. Which can take hours. And I never post them anyway because: BBC and all that. Anyway, I am quite fond of several
Next up on America, it’s the season two premiere of The Donald Trump Show. All your favorite characters are back—or are they? Will The Mooch be able to scheme and scream his way back into the White House? Will Steve Bannon, last seen indulging a quaff from his hip flask as a door embossed with
As a Yorkshire lass living in London I’m struck by the difference in transport provision between the north and south of the UK. Put simply, they feel like different countries. Taking a train from my home in west London into town, I ride on shiny, modern trains (if they aren’t cancelled that is, or on
Martin Vander Weyer says, unhelpfully and inaccurately, that subsidies ‘absurdly’ favour bigger farms. As we look towards life after Brexit, instead of debating the merits of small vs large, the government should incentivise good rather than bad. My family’s farming business, Beeswax Dyson Farming, farms 33,000 acres directly and has invested £75 million in technology,
The latest challenge was to provide a review by a restaurant critic that is tediously loaded with sexual language. I have had this comp up my sleeve since reading a piece by Steven Poole in the Observer in which he laid into the relentless sexualisation of food in our culture: ‘Everyone revels in the “filthiness”
Building a physical bridge between the UK and France is, apparently, ridiculous. I know that because, ever since Boris Johnson raised the prospect at the Anglo-French summit, my Twitter feed has been full of comments from various bien pensants ridiculing the idea. ‘If you like the Boris bridge idea, wait ‘til you hear about Liam’s
Something has gone horribly wrong in America, but it isn’t Donald Trump. The 45th president’s first year has in fact been a very good year for the country. By the time those 12 months were up, the unemployment rate was the lowest the country had seen in 18 years, and the number of new filings
On Tuesday, the Cabinet will discuss the NHS and how it is coping with the winter crisis. But, as I say in the Sun today, the Tories need more than update on what’s going on, they need a proper plan for the NHS. It is one of the issues that could cost them the next
For people who love the natural world, each new season brings new excitements. We are a nation of nature lovers. We feed the birds in our gardens and we revere David Attenborough. Which makes it surprising that – until now – governments have not cottoned on to how much of a vote-winner concerted action to
After one year in office, Donald Trump is winning bigly. The stock market is up. North Korea and South Korea are talking. Regulations are being swept away. Apple is bringing back hundreds of billions, thanks to corporate tax reform, and promising the creation of 20,000 new jobs. Conservative judges are being appointed to federal courts
For Jeremy Corbyn and his allies, there has been no far-left takeover of the Labour party or its governing National Executive Committee. It’s true that, this week, Corbyn supporters came to control the majority of the NEC, completing their command of the party apparatus. But they see this as getting rid of the last of
I don’t know where people get the idea the SNP is intolerant of criticism. Scotland’s most open-minded party has released a new video that appears to be an attack on one of its critics dressed up as a party political broadcast. The video depicts a group of thirtysomethings gathered for a house party. They are Scottish but
This post first appeared in the Spectator’s Evening Blend email, a free round-up and analysis of each day’s politics. Sign up for free here. Why is Boris Johnson quite so keen on improbable-sounding bridges? The Foreign Secretary became obsessed with the idea of a ‘garden bridge’ across the river Thames when he was Mayor, a
It’s the end of the week and it’s hard to say what the government has actually achieved. Whether it’s deciding not to launch a judicial inquiry in the John Worboys case or not to tackle the growing pressures on the NHS, the government appears to be in a state of drift. Unfortunately for Theresa May
This is an extract from Martin Vander Weyer’s ‘Any other business’ column in this week’s Spectator. Carillion is a disaster on all fronts, but my sympathies go first to the fallen contracting giant’s sub–contractors. Upwards of 30,000 smaller firms were already facing 120-day payment delays and may now have to fight court battles to get
Here we go again. For some time now Labour’s Brexit confusion can be described as ‘complicated’ at best. Matters aren’t helped by the fact that Labour shadow cabinet members often go on the airwaves and contradict each others – sometimes even themselves. This was evidenced last month took to the Andrew Marr show to claim
Some very clever people are rallying around the idea of a specific NHS tax partly because of what has been called a ‘winter crisis’ in hospitals. It’s an idea that has been around for yonks, but Nick Boles’s book, Square Deal, has kick-started the debate again. He argues for National Insurance to be repackaged as
Next week at Davos, world leaders – including President Trump and Emmanuel Macron – will gather at the elite meet-up to flex their diplomatic muscles and prove how big a player they are on the global stage. Happily, Vladimir Putin has offered them an early lesson in how to show you’re a hard man. The
Ever willing to exploit my children, I asked them yesterday just how many actual English children there were in their class at school – one’s at primary, the other, secondary. What, English-English, they said reasonably? You mean, both parents, plus born here? Yes, I said, which meant they couldn’t count themselves – they were born
Another week, another blow to the so-called Special Relationship. The latest sorry news is that Number 10 has been trying to orchestrate a meeting with President Donald Trump at Davos — but President Donald Trump reportedly isn’t interested. He’d rather hang out with President Macron of France instead. Oh dear. It looks as if the
Emmanuel Macron capped off his trip to Britain by taking a selfie with the Prime Minister last night. His charm offensive has paid off, says the Daily Telegraph, which suggests the visit shows what a post-Brexit relationship with Britain’s neighbours could look like. The progress in co-operation during the visit – on the migration problem
SPONSORED BY If you’re considering a winter break and long for something a bit more exciting than the usual options of snow or much-visited beaches, Abu Dhabi might just be your golden ticket. And with Etihad flying there direct, you can be basking in glorious sunshine in less than seven hours. The UAE’s capital city
London, along with other capital cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, Kyoto are thought to be one of the most expensive cities to live in the world. So is London Mayor Sadiq Khan, going too far by suggesting that every young Londoner should be entitled to a bank account? The simple logic should be: if you
Having spent the best part of 15 years looking at public procurement data, this is my take on collapse of Carillion. It has caused chaos for a simple reason: the organisation’s tentacles reached into all parts of government, with more than 200 public bodies signing some form of contract with Carillion in the last five
Almost 50 years before Brexit, there was a ‘Frexit’: France shocked her allies in March 1966 by giving notice of her withdrawal from an international community of largely European states (plus the USA and Canada), of which she had been a member for 17 years, on the grounds that she wished to regain her national
Access to an abundance of clean water has been pivotal for the public health miracle that has taken place in rich countries. The western world’s water supply infrastructures enables people to get the water they need to stay healthy, and has undoubtedly played a big role in life expectancy shooting up in the last century. But in the
Emmanuel Macron is revelling in his new status as the preeminent politician in Europe. In his joint press conference with Theresa May, he turned in a charming performance highlighting the ties between Britain and France and urging the two countries to ‘make a new tapestry together’. However, there was a sting in the tail. When
With auction houses in the news following record-breaking sales, I sat down with Ralph Taylor, Global Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art at Bonhams, to discuss how the contemporary art market is shaping up for 2018. Are auction houses getting too close to emerging artists and damaging their careers through speculative sales? How difficult is
On this week’s episode, we investigate the truth about plastic, the environmental enemy du jour in 2018. We also try to find a compromise on tuition fees (if there is one) and ask whether the Church of England are the most ruthless property tycoons in the country. First up: Whilst terrestrial TV was busy doing
One upshot of last week’s reshuffle is that Number 10 will get its review of higher education. But a lengthy look at tuition fees would be a mistake in both policy and political terms, I argue in the magazine this week. Tuition fees have all but killed the Liberal Democrats. The breach of their manifesto
With the new Tory vice-chairman for youth, Ben Bradley, currently making headlines for ill-judged blog posts from 2012, it’s safe to say that Theresa May’s plan to revamp CCHQ by appointing 13 MPs as vice-chairs, hasn’t gone entirely to plan. However, one vice chairman is determined to make a success of her brief – no