All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Australia is hardly the first country to back gay marriage but it certainly appears to be the most unlikely. A nation that once prided itself on backs-against-the-wall masculinity has just backed equal marriage in a government-run postal survey. Sixty-two per cent answered ‘Yes’ to the question: ‘Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples
Zimbabwe’s army has seized control of the country and reportedly placed president Robert Mugabe under house arrest. The Zimbabwe Defence Force insisted it had not carried out a coup, describing the apparent takeover as a targeting of ‘criminals’ surrounding the 93-year-old president. Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s president, said he has spoken to Mugabe ‘who indicated
Although it’s widely accepted that Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election was disastrous, one of the few upshots for the Tories was that it managed to stave off calls from the SNP for a second independence referendum. Alas, whoever is running the Prime Minister’s Twitter account doesn’t appear to be on the same
The EU withdrawal bill survived its first Parliamentary test last night. But it still has a long way to go, and a group of Tory MPs are likely to ensure that it is far from plain sailing for the government. For those on the Conservative back benches plotting to defy the Prime Minister on this
After a grim few weeks for Theresa May and her government – which has seen the Prime Minister lose two Cabinet ministers, another put under investigation and calls for Boris Johnson to resign – today’s ICM/Guardian poll certainly makes for interesting reading. Rather than the Conservatives falling behind, it shows that Labour and the Tories
When choosing a 0% credit card, what you’re ultimately looking for is the card that offers you the longest 0% deal without charging an annual fee. Here are this week’s Best Buys, of 0% introductory purchase credit cards, from data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.
This week a Conservative politician managed to get both the SNP and Labour to applaud them in the Chamber. Unfortunately for Theresa May, it wasn’t in response to government policy. Instead it was Europhile – and Tory grandee – Ken Clarke, who took the opportunity to explain why he thinks Nigel Farage is the ‘most
The capitulation of the establishment to the politics of transgenderism has been astonishing. I’m struggling to remember any other time when a new and contested ideology has been so uncritically embraced by the powers-that-be. We have a Tory government pushing a Gender Recognition Act that would allow anyone to change his or her gender without
The mammoth debate on the government’s EU withdrawal bill has only just started – but already it is turning nasty. Labour’s Frank Field was one of the first to speak and used the opportunity to take a none-too-subtle dig at Hilary Benn, telling his fellow Labour MP: ‘I’ve always bought my houses, never inherited them’.
Brexit means Brexit, but unfortunately the EU withdrawal bill – which actually does the legislative job of taking Britain out of the EU – is somewhat trickier to get to grips with. The original bill is 60 pages long, and there are now 470 amendments – running to some 200 pages – and counting. The House of
Is Theresa May growing in confidence again? At the weekend, the Prime Minister warned Brexit rebels against blocking Britain leaving the EU, and tried to force their hands by tabling an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill on the date of Brexit. That hasn’t gone down so well with the rebels, who are variously tabling
Giles of Rome, the great 13th century author, once noted: ‘Considered in absolute terms it would be preferable that the King be elected; but the corrupt desires of men and their manner of acting must make heredity preferable to election.’ There’s little that would dissuade him of that view today. Britain’s politics are in a worse
As BBC2’s flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight prides itself on attracting the finest politicians and pundits to offer their two cents worth on breaking news stories. So, Mr S was curious to learn of the tactics deployed by one producer to get politicians on the show. Speaking at an event in Soho, Amber Rudd recalled
It once seemed a near certainty that Brexit talks would progress on to the next stage by Christmas. Now, it seems somewhat less likely: David Davis reportedly told business leaders it was a 50-50 chance of making a breakthrough by December, according to Bloomberg (although Davis denies saying this). So what explains the latest hold-up?
Oh dear. Anyone who harbours serious hopes of becoming the next Conservative Prime Minister – or perhaps Opposition leader at this rate – knows that the first thing they must do is not make their ambitions known. This is why the main contenders are at pains to seem loyal to Theresa May. So, spare a
Among the many things that have been puzzling me since Priti Patel’s resignation last week, one stands out. So far as I can see there doesn’t seem to be a single person on the Conservative – or conservative – side who has claimed that the campaign against Ms Patel (for campaign it most certainly was, within
There has been an equivocal reaction, wouldn’t you say, to the Church of England’s pronouncement that little boys should be allowed to wear tiaras and high heels at school, while issuing a helpful form to encourage teachers to report transgender bullying; the new rules, it says, are designed to ‘challenge homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying’;
What would a perfect tax system look like? For companies, profit taxes should be competitively low, to encourage inward investment, with generous reliefs for start-ups, research and capital projects; the corporate tax code should be designed to generate rising productivity and prosperity rather than to maximise short-term tax revenues, and companies should acknowledge a duty
Boris Johnson had to be summoned to the Commons by an urgent question from Labour, but when he got there, he did eventually apologise for his blunder in which he had told MPs that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been visiting Iran in a professional capacity to teach journalism. The Foreign Secretary was in far less bullish
Parliament is back in action today and David Davis kicked the new session off with a bang. In a statement to the House, the Brexit Secretary appeared to perform a U-turn as he announced that the final Brexit deal will take the form of an act of Parliament. This means that as well as the current
I don’t hold much faith in forecasts by the IMF. They have been so wrong in the past as to be worthless. A week before referendum day in 2016, for example, the IMF predicted that a Leave vote would take 5.5 per cent off UK GDP by 2019, tipping us into recession in 2017. We’re
When the EU Withdrawal Bill returns to the House tomorrow, Theresa May is hoping Tory MPs – and some Labour rebels – will be persuaded to play ball. However, an appearance on the Daily Politics by Labour’s Frank Field and Nicky Morgan offered an insight into the difficulties ahead. "I certainly think he should be
Today’s Guardian has an odd splash headline, denouncing as ‘Orwellian’ a letter that Michael Gove and Boris Johnson sent to Theresa May warning her that some parts of her government are unprepared for ‘no deal’. I’m not quite sure what’s Orwellian about that, or even so controversial. Here’s the leaked extract of the letter. ‘Your
The ongoing investigation into Russian influence in the US election is looking more and more like an existential threat to big tech. A couple of weeks back, Facebook, hauled up in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, revealed that up to 126 million people saw political adverts that had been purchased by the Kremlin backed
‘Take up our quarrel with the foe’, intones John McCrae’s famous In Flanders Fields. ‘To you from failing hands we throw, the torch’. For the millions of us marking Remembrance Sunday today, that quarrel is a solemn reminder of past sacrifice. It refers, somewhat euphemistically, to one of the bloodiest, most tragic conflicts in history. For
It’s remarkable how fast the unthinkable becomes the expected. It felt almost routine to pick up the New York Post last Sunday morning and see the front page mocked up as a wanted poster for Harvey Weinstein and the news that the NYPD is preparing to arrest him for alleged rape. Between the daily barrage of Trump’s
It is Remembrance Sunday, and the party leaders put their politics aside this morning as they gathered around the Cenotaph to lay wreaths and honour those who lost their lives in times of war. However, in the TV studios, the political debate still carries on with as much vigour as before: Sadiq Khan – Boris
The latest competition invited you to submit cringeworthy portmanteau words. The word portmanteau was first used in this sense by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass when Humpty Dumpty is explaining ‘Jabberwocky’ to Alice: ‘Well, “slithy” means “lithe and slimy”… You see it’s like a portmanteau — there are two meanings packed up into
Jeremy Hunt has told Tory rebels that”if we don’t back Theresa May we will have no Brexit”. It echoes a point Paul Mason once made – a point that you hear quite often: there’s no chance of no deal on Brexit, because there is no parliamentary majority for no deal. It’s understandable, given recently chaos, to imagine
On rolls the Harvey Weinstein horror show with no finale in sight. The next episode looks likely to star Uma Thurman, who’s waiting for the right moment, she says, to tell her own Harvey story. Hollywood waits for Uma and I wait for Robert De Niro, who said of Donald Trump: ‘He’s a dog, he’s
The latest single of Bertrand Cantat, a French pop singer who murdered his girlfriend and who was present in the house where his ex-wife killed herself, is being heavily played on French pop music stations. This would be of little interest to anyone who isn’t following French pop music or observing the tolerance of the
Another week, another Cabinet resignation. Now, as I say in The Sun this morning, there are those saying that Theresa May is just being unlucky right now. As Downing Street aides point out, few would have predicted a few weeks ago that Westminster was going to be engulfed in a sex scandal or that Priti
I wonder if a factor additional to those widely mentioned lies behind differing attitudes to the ‘Pestminster’ scandal. It is well known in every generation that the young find it disgusting that old people (by which they mean anyone over 40) should have sex at all. In his own youth, the late Auberon Waugh wrote
Dealing with a hung parliament was never going to be easy, but no one quite foresaw the decay which now seems to have set in to Theresa May’s government. The best that can be said for the Prime Minister is that the past week’s events have weakened her rivals within the Conservative party. No one
