All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Ken Livingstone could soon find himself booted out of Labour for good if the party ever gets its act together to deal with his suspension. So it Ken sorry? Not a bit. The former mayor of London told LBC this morning that the anti-Semitism row was a ‘complete diversion’ and insisted it wouldn’t damage the
There are big things happening on the Korean peninsula. Today’s declaration of peace is a massive moment in Korean history, and it is being greeted with tremendous excitement (my wife, who is from Seoul, was physically jumping with joy at the news). You can understand why people are getting so worked up. After all, it’s the
The Resolution Foundation suggested that a third of Britons born between 1980 and 1996 will never own their own home. Which European countries have the highest and lowest rates of homeownership? Highest Romania 96.2% Slovakia 90.3% Lithuania 89.9% Croatia 89.7% Hungary 88.2% Lowest Switzerland 44.5% Germany 52.5% Turkey 61.1% Denmark 63.3% UK 64.4% Source:
This is an extract from Martin Vander Weyer’s ‘Any other business’ column in this week’s Spectator The season of high-street banks’ annual general meetings is with us and I urge you to turn up and make trouble. When I say ‘you’, I don’t mean the likes of New York ‘activist’ Edward Bramson — who holds
This is an edited version of a presentation given by Owen Matthews at The Spectator’s What does Russia want? event. What I’d like to do is give a run-through of how we got to where we are with Russia. From the end of the Cold War onwards, focusing on the economy – and how the
Diane Abbott is calling for Amber Rudd’s head over the Windrush scandal – but Mr Steerpike was somewhat taken aback by her line of attack against the Home Secretary. On BBC News, Abbott asked: ‘Who can have confidence in Amber Rudd to make far-reaching changes in the Home Office, if she doesn’t seem able to
Dominic Raab has awoken to a scandal relating to his team. The Daily Mirror reports that one of the Housing Minister’s staff has been ‘selling sex to sugar daddies’. While the paper refrains from identifying the staffer in question, it does publish their account of life working under Raab – and this is where the real
Imagine a world in which all politicians were computer scientists. What a dreary dystopia that would be. It’s hard to think of anything worse than a nation ruled by people with PhDs in machine learning. That said, politicians do need to know something about the digital world. It’s no longer good enough for our
While Emmanuel Macron has been wowing Washington there’s been something of a mini crisis in France. To put it bluntly, the country was invaded on Sunday, its border in the French Alps breached by a force of around 200 foreigners, who then fought with the police as they advanced on the small town of Briançon. The
In the early days of The Independent, when the newspaper was self-consciously serious to the point of being mildly priggish, Royal events were frequently relegated to the news in brief column. This week, nodding to those sunnier days for The Independent, the happy arrival of the Duchess of Cambridge’s third child was greeted by the
Amber Rudd has had a torrid few weeks thanks to the Windrush scandal and her department’s failure to get a grip on the issue. Matters weren’t helped on Wednesday when Rudd told the Home Affairs select committee that her department doesn’t ‘have targets for removals’ of illegal immigrants – only to have to today admit that
Dominic Raab has found himself the subject of much mockery today after one of his aides allegedly told an undercover reporter about his rather repetitious lunch habits: ‘He has the chicken Caesar and bacon baguette, superfruit pot and the vitamin volcano smoothie, every day. He is so weird. It’s the Dom Raab Special.’ Happily, Mr
Today’s Sun reports that Cabinet ‘big beasts’ – Michael Gove, Amber Rudd and Gavin Williamson – are amassing ‘huge war chests’ as they line up leadership bids. Williamson is on £10,000 – behind both Rudd and Gove. Still, the ambitious Defence Secretary is making sure he is not outdone on other fronts. Williamson is down to
What’s Nicola Sturgeon playing at on Brexit? Quick answer: politics. Longer answer: politics. The SNP leader has rejected a deal to resolve the impasse between Westminster and Holyrood over the repatriation of powers from Brussels. She accuses the Tories of a ‘power grab’ because some areas of responsibility will initially go to the UK rather
In this week’s podcast, we discuss Meghan and the monarchy – is Meghan Markle good news for the Establishment? And what are we to make of her anyway? We also discuss the potential for Tory rebellion on the customs union, and ask, does economic research back up higher government spending? As the royal baby is
So, Tom Evans, Alfie Evans’ father, seems to have conceded defeat after the Court of Appeal ruled that he could not take his child to Italy, where a hospital has agreed to do its best to treat him. He told reporters today: “We got rejected yesterday to go to Italy unfortunately. We could take it
Amber Rudd must, privately, be hopping mad about the Windrush row. Not only is she having to defend policies that her predecessor and now boss introduced when she was Home Secretary, she is also having to try to resolve the mess that was exacerbated by Number 10 in initially refusing a meeting with Commonwealth leaders
The royal nativity opened proceedings at PMQs. Mrs May sounded thrilled about the newborn nipper but the Labour leader could barely conceal his ill-temper. Mr Corbyn slouched at the despatch box and forced a muttered tribute to ‘their baby’ out of the side of his mouth. He sounded like a man who’s just twisted his
Len McCluskey, the secretary-general of Unite and a key Corbyn ally, has poured petrol on the flames of the Labour row over anti-Semitism. In a piece in the forthcoming issue of the New Statesman, he accuses a group of backbench Labour MPs of using the anti-Semitism issue ‘to attack and undermine Jeremy Corbyn’. McCluskey claims
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions saw the Maybot reactivated. Jeremy Corbyn decided to lead the session on the fallout from the Windrush row, widening out his questions to the flaws in the hostile environment policy on illegal immigration, and on who was to blame for these flaws being apparent but not fixed for so long. The
For those Brexiteers worried the government may change its mind on leaving the customs union, David Davis’s appearance in front of a select committee gave reasons for reassurance – but also possibly some cause to worry. The Brexit secretary was clear that he is sticking firmly to his guns on the issue. But can he
Oh dear. On Tuesday evening, Jeremy Corbyn met with Jewish leaders to discuss his party’s anti-Semitism problem. The meeting didn’t sound as though it would be the most harmonious affair what with the Labour leader accused of not taking the concerns of the Jewish community seriously – and his decision to meet with the ‘radical’
There was never going to be a happy ending to the story of Alfie Evans, the 23-month-old boy treated at Alder Hey hospital, Liverpool, for an undiagnosed neurological condition that destroyed his brain. But somehow the British establishment has contrived to make a tragic situation worse – to the point where large swathes of European
Should governments abolish their welfare states and replace them with a Universal Basic Income (UBI), paid to everyone, even billionaires, regardless of means? Such payments would be designed to cover essential living costs, leaving individuals free to make the choice of whether they wished to work in order to gain themselves a better lifestyle. It
People are expressing bemusement that Presidents Trump and Macron should get on well, since they seem such different people. Surely a clue lies in their shared title. They are the only important executive presidents in the western world, so they have that particular combination of real power and ceremonial pomp which is rightly denied to
Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron have a history of trying to upstage each other on the world stage. When the pair met in Paris last year, they subjected each other to a half-a-minute long handshake, with both determined not to be the first to let go of each other’s hand. At the Nato summit, Macron
At Cabinet today, ministers discussed the fallout from the Windrush scandal. I understand that Boris Johnson made the point that there needed to be a broader immigration amnesty for long-standing Commonwealth immigrants. He argued that this was necessary to prevent others from getting caught up in the same situation, having to produce overly onerous amounts
Oh dear. As anxiety grows about the Theresa May’s customs union stance, Jacob Rees-Mogg has this afternoon told hacks that the government’s mooted customs partnership is ‘completely cretinous’. The Moggster’s tough talk will play out well among Brexiteers who fear May’s own resolve has weakened in recent months. What will play out less well with
Amber Rudd is not having a good few weeks thanks to her department’s shaky handling of the Windrush scandal. Now she’s under fire on another front: shoes. The Financial Times reports that the Home Secretary told guests at a private business dinner this month that the post-Brexit registration scheme for EU nationals will be ‘as
On freedom of speech, Britain has become the laughing stock of the Western world. People actually laugh at us. I recently gave a talk in Brazil on political correctness and I told the audience about the arrest and conviction of a Scottish man for publishing a video of his girlfriend’s pug doing a Nazi salute
Buy-to-let property is still a popular investment choice for those who can afford it. Here are the best 5-year fixed rate mortgages on the market at the moment.
When Westminster Council granted planning permission for a statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square to mark this year’s centenary of women getting the vote, many people were puzzled. Few had heard of this feminist campaigner, and even fewer knew about the suffragist movement which she led. The suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst seemed a far more
Twenty-one years ago the sun finally set on the British Empire with the handover of Hong Kong. Now, the sun is setting on what is known as the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. It would be easy to blame Brexit for London’s increasing irrelevance in Washington. After all, the U.S.
Celebrity apologies are all the rage. Such is the power of Twitter, that stars without round-the-clock PR surveillance and teams of media advisors will often find themselves in hot water. This week, it’s pop-country singer Shania Twain who has fallen foul of the perpetually offended. Why? Twain had the audacity to talk about supporting Trump in