All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
A Times investigation has uncovered the terrible fact that women and possibly young girls in Haiti have been exploited by the very people paid to keep them safe: the staff of Oxfam, which sucks up £300 million a year from us in public and private money. It’s a shock — and it’s not. Under the
Donald Trump’s election as US president has meant the whole notion of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ is now very much part of a wider conversation. But for decades before the Trump era, more honest or open-minded journalists were aware that some of their colleagues often didn’t tell the whole truth about all kinds of matters,
The first rule of politics is never resign. Yet hapless MPs have been forced to quit in scandals involving sex, theft, drugs, double-crossing call girls and even attempted murder. Others have staged kamikaze resignations to damage their own leaders. Then there are the canny operators who took principled stands, ending up on the right side
There is clearly a will in Westminster to change the culture of sexual harassment that was so horribly exposed in the autumn. Previously, there was little will and no clear way for victims to get help, despite widespread anecdotal evidence that there were quite a lot of victims out there. Today a cross-party working group
Regular passengers on the East Coast mainline are inured to change — and baffled as to why this transport artery cannot be run at a steady but modest profit by a private-sector operator. We recall with sadness the demise of GNER, the first post-privatisation franchisee from 1996 to 2007: part of the Sea Containers group
It is really worth bothering with Mark Carney’s upgrading of the Bank of England’s growth forecast for 2018 from 1.5 per cent to 1.7 per cent? Carney, you might just remember, warned before the EU referendum that the UK would most likely suffer a technical recession if Britain voted to leave. Even in August of
On this week’s episode, we ask whether there’s such thing as a good financial crash. We also look at the reality of the housing crisis and the ethics of dwarfs in the entertainment industry. First, with the Dow Jones taking a tumble at the end of last week, market watchers were on high alert for
My guest on this week’s books podcast is the author and critic Stuart Kelly. His new book, The Minister and the Murderer: A Book of Aftermaths, tells the story of the only convicted murderer ever to become a minister of the Church of Scotland. We talk about the Ten Commandments, faith and doubt, Stuart’s experiences of
Local government appears to be on its knees, and it’s not the usual suspects of authorities run by opposition parties who are complaining loudest. Today, Surrey County Council is revealed to have a £105 million funding gap, and this after Northamptonshire issued a Section 114 notice, which bans almost all new spending. Organisations such as
Here we go. This week the Freemasons have come under increased scrutiny after the Grauniad ran a front page reported that two Freemasons’ lodges are operating at Westminster – which it said were for MPs and political journalists. This had led to a series of hit-pieces and criticism of the secretive society. Now the Freemasons are fighting
I am proud of my great-aunt Kathleen Brown, who once hijacked a horse-drawn fire-engine in the suffragette cause and charged it down Tottenham Court Road clanging its bell. She did time in Holloway. She was also sent to prison in Newcastle for breaking a window in Pink Lane Post Office, and went on hunger strike.
John Humphrys is usually the one who asks the questions on the Today programme. Not today. The veteran presenter was taken to task this morning for appearing to make light of the Carrie Gracie row, after leaked remarks revealed him joking with the BBC’s Jon Sopel. At the end of his interview with the Lib
To the Natural History Museum, for the Conservative Black and White ball. Theresa May’s Cabinet were given a chance to unwind with a glass or three of ‘Brexit juice’ (English sparkling wine) after a crunch meeting on the Irish border that afternoon. Guests munched on beef and kale (a pitch to metropolitan liberals?). Theresa May’s
This article is about gender and the law. When I asked several friends, politicians and journalists, about writing it, they all said the same: don’t. It will go badly for you. And that is why I’m writing this. In fact, that’s what I’m writing about: fear. The fear that persuades some people they can’t say
Sometimes as an investor, you wish your Prime Minister or President would keep their thoughts to themselves. Perhaps hold off on that keynote speech about Brexit? Brush over that State of the Union address? Why? You may ask. Because it plays havoc with your investment strategy, that’s why. And I don’t think the likes of
Turkey and Russia back different sides in the Syrian conflict, but they do agree on one thing: the role of the United States in Syria has grown too large. This view accounts for the recent Turkish incursion against US-backed Kurdish militias in Afrin, in northern Syria. As well as taking military action, Turkey’s politicians are
Here we go again. More than four months after Germans went to the polls and gave both main parties the thumbs down, Germany’s Christian Democrats and Social Democrats have finally agreed the terms of yet another Grand Coalition. True, the CDU and the SPD are still Germany’s two biggest parties. Between them they still command
The S-bomb landed on PMQs this afternoon. Suffragettes. Exactly a century and a day has passed since parliament granted women the vote. Mrs May was honouring the occasion when she heard – or pretended to hear – Labour sisters shouting ‘some women.’ ‘Some?’ she said. ‘Yes universal suffrage did come in, ten years later, under
I’ve worked in several warehouses unloading stock and I’ve also worked in supermarkets stacking shelves. I’d have to say the latter is marginally harder. Not that there’s much in it: both are physically hard, mentally untaxing, and probably undervalued – but then, don’t we all feel undervalued at work? Warehouse jobs are more of a
Oh dear. It’s crunch day for Theresa May as her Brexit war cabinet gathers for the first of two meetings to discuss the type of trade relationship the UK ought to seek with the EU post-Brexit. With tensions running high in the party and Brexiteers nervous that Theresa May could be about to agree to
After PMQs today, Theresa May will rush back to Downing Street to chair a meeting of the Brexit inner Cabinet. This meeting will take place against a backdrop of heightened Tory infighting over Europe. This isn’t being caused by the Cabinet, who have been fairly well behaved in recent days, but the backbenches. May’s problem
I have decided that my work is of equal value to that of Claudia Schiffer and that therefore in future I should be paid the same as her. Why not? Okay, we don’t quite do the same thing, but we both get up in the morning, go out and do what we do as best
Theresa May has been condemned for her failure to stick up for the NHS during her conversation with Donald Trump last night. The criticism comes after Trump tweeted to say Britain’s National Health Service was ‘going broke and not working’. But while we can be rightly proud of the NHS, we shouldn’t be blind to
PMQs proved a more lively affair than usual thanks to the Beast of Bolsover. Dennis Skinner attempted to ask a question on NHS funding but John Bercow managed to distract from the message by congratulating the veteran Labour MP on his upcoming birthday. The MP for Bolsover will turn 86 on Sunday – not that he’ll
Far too often in politics, women on the centre-right find themselves labeled as the ‘wrong’ sort of feminist, or even worse, told their political views aren’t compatible with the main principles of feminism. It is a general attitude which not only affects everyday women but has followed the most successful women in politics, all the
Will 2018 be the year that you finally get round to buying a new house, or even become a homeowner for the first time? If so, this week’s Best Buys – of two year fixed-rate mortgages – is worth having a look at.
What will the consequences be for the latest chemical weapons attack in Syria? Currently everyone is accusing everyone else, but doing very little. The United States says Russia is covering for President Assad. Turkey is accusing the United States of ‘calculations against’ Turkey, Iran and maybe Russia too. So a war of words, but no
Justin Trudeau is no stranger to virtue signalling, but he has surpassed himself with his latest gesture. The Canadian PM was taking part in a Q and A at a university when he took a female* audience member to task. Her offence? Succumbing to the patriarchy and referring to ‘mankind’. Trudeau interrupted her to mansplain
Today’s centenary of some women being given the right to vote seems to have bewildered a number of people. My colleague Ross Clark, in particular, was perturbed by the Today programme turning into Woman’s Hour to mark the centenary, which he felt was inappropriate for a news programme, and also didn’t cover the fact that
On this, the centenary of some women getting the right to vote, there has been a lot of talk of pardoning the suffragettes. Jeremy Corbyn and Ruth Davidson have both said they back the idea, and the Home Secretary Amber Rudd has said she’ll look into it. But pardoning the suffragettes would be wrong. For many of them deliberately
When David Cameron and George Osborne were in government, the pair heralded a new ‘golden era’ where the UK would be China’s ‘best partner in the West’. However, since Theresa May moved into No 10, questions have been raised about the health of this partnership. Osborne ally Lord O’Neill has criticised May for a focus on New
Anniversaries are very interesting, of course, but all the same I think a news programme ought to revolve around, well, the day’s news. That is something which increasingly seems to be missing from the Today Programme, once the BBC’s flagship news programme. Overnight, as I have read elsewhere, stock markets have plummeted around the world.
Donald Trump has found himself in the midst of another international spat, fuelled this time by his attack on the UK’s national religion. In an attempt to verbally jab the opposition in his own country, the President has managed to rile up many thousands, if not millions, of people who have deep reverence for Britain’s National
Exactly 100 years after (some) women won the right to vote, Ruth Davidson has joined calls for a posthumous pardon for jailed suffragettes – the militants who violently fought for that right. ‘Voting was a value judgement, not an intrinsic right,’ says Davidson. And that historic inequality is why she supports the pardon, no questions