All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Those dread words ‘Grammar schools’ are back in the news again. The education secretary, Damian Hinds, has today announced a new fund that will allow established academically selective schools, i.e. the 163 grammars clustered around the country, to found new ‘satellite’ schools. The proposal could increase pupil numbers at grammar schools by 16,000 over the
The Lords have lost it. They’re out of control. They have taken a wrecking-ball to the government’s plans for Brexit 14 times in recent weeks, putting themselves on a war footing with the people we actually elect. They are behaving like they did in the first decade of the 20th century when they arrogantly vetoed
The archbishop of Liverpool, Malcolm McMahon, got it right: the Government has broken its manifesto promise on church schools – can we just drop the “faith schools” bit? As he said trenchantly: “In their general election manifesto the Conservative Party made a commitment to the Catholic community that the unfair rule effectively stopping the opening
What will happen when the teenagers stabbing each other on the streets of London grow up? Some will go straight, some will go to prison and some will probably follow a similar trajectory to Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. These two evolved from being minor figures on the south-east London gang scene into two of
This is the leading article in this week’s Spectator magazine. Since its inception, cryptocurrency has been regarded as technically fascinating but fundamentally unreliable. Those who invested £10 in Bitcoin eight years ago would have £1.6 million today — a fluctuation which, while mind-boggling, further undermines the notion that digitally created currency is a stable store
Ann Maguire was a dedicated teacher, utterly devoted to the children in her care. She had worked in the teaching profession for over four decades, had a loving husband, two grown-up daughters and, after the death of her sister 30 years earlier, selflessly raised her two nephews as her own. She was a good person
It’s difficult to think of a good comparison from the thousands of public holidays, festivals, galas and pageants around the world by which to describe Victory Day celebrations in Russia. Remembrance Day is too sombre, Bastille Day too jolly. The day on which Russians remembers the nasally voice of Joseph Stalin coming over the wireless to announce the end of the war is a curious mix of solemnity and jubilation. In St.
Would it really be fairer, in an inter-generational sense, to whack an ‘NHS levy’ on pensioners while giving every 25-year-old £10,000 to help them buy a first home or start a business? These are recommendations by the Resolution Foundation, chaired by former Tory minister Lord Willetts, to address what it sees as a breakdown in
What does Tim Farron think about gay sex? Like Ken Livingstone’s repeated reluctance to discuss Hitler, the former Lib Dem leader has never really offered his views on the subject. This time a year ago, for instance, he was so busy talking about all the things his party was putting into its general election manifesto
What comes after the end of the Iran nuclear deal? Is Donald Trump an expert diplomat worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, or a maniac let loose? Why don’t ethical millennials care about the moral cost of their drug habits? And are emojis ruining children’s abilities to communicate? Find out about all this and more
Awkward scenes in the Commons just now where Conservative MP James Duddridge has called for a debate on John Bercow’s replacement as speaker. After being picked by Bercow, the Tory MP told Parliament: ‘Given your manifesto commitment to go by the 22nd June, can we have a debate…about what we want from a speaker, what
Jerusalem It’s a sunny day in Jerusalem where Israelis are waking up to fresh conflict on the country’s border with Syria. I’m in town as part of a Bicom delegation and the picturesque scenes give little indication of the events of the night before which saw 20 rockets fired by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards at
‘Na-zi scum!’ Na-zi scum!’ ‘Na-zi scum!’ Who? Me? How come? I’m on my way to a genteel picnic in St James’s Park and appear to have strayed into the path of a virtue-signalling tsunami. A wall of raggedy demonstrators clutching anti-fascist banners inch their way towards me, faces contorted with self-righteous fury. ‘Move to the
Sunday’s March for Freedom on Whitehall was peculiar, as far right protests go. It didn’t just feature the usual suspects as speakers – Milo Yiannopoulos and Tommy Robinson – but Muslims, comedians and queer people. While Milo is flamboyantly gay and For Britain party leader Anne Marie Waters defiantly lesbian, drag artist Vanity Von Glow
For the past year or so, in speaking to groups, I’ve ventured to suggest that Donald Trump will ultimately rank among the least consequential presidents in U.S. history. I did not intend that to be a laugh line. Trump, I argued, was likely to end up being to the 21st century what James Buchanan was
The parliamentary majority for keeping a free press in Britain fell to just nine votes this evening. The attempt to bring back another Leveson Report to harass the press was defeated by a dangerously thin margin. Quite something, given that the ideas under discussion would not have looked out of place in Orban’s Hungary. The point
Tory Brexiteers and Remainers might share the same benches in parliament but they don’t always see eye to eye these days. Which makes Mr S pleased to see the likes of Crispin Blunt and Ken Clarke find common cause this afternoon. So what did they finally manage to agree on? Blunt and Clarke – as
Will John Cleese now leave England? Mr S. only asks because yesterday the former funnyman tweeted this: Unfortunately for Cleese, things in the Commons haven’t gone his way, with MPs voting not to go ahead with Leveson 2. So, is he a man of his word?
More trouble for the Speaker today. It’s becoming clear that John Bercow is not just unpopular but unlucky as well. He skipped PMQs to attend the funeral of his predecessor, Michael Martin, who was ousted by a mutiny in 2009. Newer members, perhaps believing that insurrection is the correct way to eject an unwanted speaker,
Given the deep Cabinet splits over Theresa May’s plans for Britain’s customs arrangements with the EU after Brexit, there was a very clear line of attack for Jeremy Corbyn to lead with at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. The Labour leader doesn’t always take the most obvious line, but he did today, first asking May about
They may have perfected the sexy selfie and a nonchalance about internet porn but millennials are just not that into sex. The guilty secret behind today’s swipe-right hookup culture is not promiscuity but abstinence. Research out this week suggests that one in eight 26-year-olds have never had sex, up from one in 20 a generation
An unexpected downside of Donald Trump’s presidency is the rare occasion on which he makes a wise call. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran deal is wise and demonstrates a clear understanding of Tehran’s motives and tactics. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement, and it was sold
The EU referendum result was relatively narrow. 52/ 48 per cent is a very different result from 55/ 45 per cent or 60/ 40 per cent. In these circumstances, seeking some kind of compromise to try and unite the country seems sensible. But the problem is that while there is a coherent case for leaving
Yesterday, the present (ninth) Duke of Wellington proposed the latest Remainer amendment in the House of Lords, which removes the date of leaving the EU from the Bill. He is the most politically engaged Wellington since the first one, so it was nice to see him. But I wish he had called to mind his
Those pushing for press regulation claim to have the people on their side, and since the phone-hacking scandal, Hacked Off has posed as warriors for the victims of press intrusion, standing up to the big media barons. Today, MPs vote on amendments to the Data Protection Bill that would effectively force publications into state-backed regulation
Three years ago when the Iran nuclear agreement was signed there was massive political resistance in Washington. Notably – but not solely – from Republicans. In London, by contrast, there was almost nothing. As Catherine Ashton and co worked away with the Iranians there was next to no resistance from the UK political class and
The Met Gala is among the most iconic nights of the fashion calendar. Every year, A-list celebrities flock to New York City to attend the annual fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. There’s always a theme. This year it was, ‘Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.’ Getting into the spirit of
Fixing your mortgage repayments for five years means you can be sure of the repayment costs, and they won’t budge an inch. It makes budgeting easy – but it does mean you are stuck in this plan for five years, no matter what happens to interest rates around you! Here are the best five year
Did anybody really think President Donald J Trump wasn’t going to pull out of the Iran deal? He’s said all along he would and this Commander-in-Chief’s number one public image rule is that, unlike most politicians, he honours his word. Trump’s other big rule is that anything Obama has done he’ll undo. And Obama’s biggest achievement,
Washington, DC. With Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, American foreign policy is getting radioactive. “We cannot prevent a nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the agreement,” Trump declared with his habitual understatement. The only thing missing was another shot at Barack Obama for bothering to negotiate with
From the dreaming spires of Oxford this afternoon comes a potent combination of student censorship and fake news. A group of geographers had claimed victory on Twitter in a campaign to remove the portrait of Theresa May from the School of Geography and the Environment. May is an alumnus of that school, but the Not
It ought to be a statement of the obvious that Labour is fighting a civil war between revolutionary socialists and social democrats, which goes back to the Russian revolution 100 years ago. The armies may have changed, but the battle line remains as static as ever. Instead of seeing what is in front of our
Poor old Theresa May. Last week, a portrait of the Prime Minister was unveiled at Oxford University as part of their ‘wall of geography women’. But the PM’s time on the wall at her former university has been short-lived. A group calling themselves ‘Not all Geographers’ is claiming success after May’s portrait was taken down
The Resolution Foundation has called for 25-year-olds to be paid £10,000 to help them afford homes, saying the ‘generational contract’ between young and old has broken down. But is it really harder for young people to buy a home now than it was 30 years ago? House prices were booming in the first half of