All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
It has long been my belief that whereas the quality of gentiles drawn to Judaism is very high (Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, myself), the dregs are drawn to Islam. And leaving aside the dozy broads who gravitate to it for kinky reasons after watching one too many Turkish Delight ads (Vanessa Redgrave, Lauren Booth), there
Oh Jeremy Corbyn, your takeover of Labour is all but complete. Left-winger Richard Leonard has triumphed in the Scottish Labour leadership, defeating moderate rival Anas Sarwar. The Yorkshireman and former GMB official becomes the party’s sixth leader in ten years and takes over from Kezia Dugdale, who abruptly quit the post in August for the
In the end, it wasn’t even close. Richard Leonard now takes ownership of the black spot handed to every leader of the Scottish Labour party. He defeated Anas Sarwar, the son of the former MP Mohammed of that ilk and the early presumed favourite in the race, by 12,469 votes to 9,516. Mr Leonard is
Three events in the next four weeks will determine Theresa May’s future as Prime Minister, I say in The Sun today. If May goes 0 for 3 on the Budget, the Damian Green inquiry and the EU Council then she’ll truly be on the skids. But if the Budget doesn’t unravel, Damian Green is cleared
Brexit is proving such a distraction that few seem to have noticed the creeping start to direct rule in Northern Ireland. While much of the coverage in the newspapers focused on the EU withdrawal bill, the Northern Ireland Budget Act – which shifts Stormont’s most important power, the task of setting Northern Ireland’s budget, to London –
Wasn’t the whole point of electric vehicles supposed to be to civilise our cities, making them safer and less-polluted places to live? I just wonder what the mung bean-eaters who act as cheerleaders for the industry are making of the latest performance by Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla. Launching his latest vehicle, a £150,000
In the argument about tax avoidance, people feel very strongly, yet it is hard to define wrong behaviour. We all know that tax evasion, being illegal, is wrong. But what tax behaviour is legal, yet wrong? Take a deliberately trivial example. Safety riding hats carry no VAT if they are sold as children’s hats. No
I have to admit, I feel a bit sorry for Damian Green about the porn found on his work computer. What if someone else had downloaded it? What if it had been planted as kompromat via some Russian malware? Especially as what’s on telly can be far more alarming. I was sofa-side on Monday night, crying through
You’re probably sick of hearing that Britain is in the midst of a housing crisis – we’ve all heard it said so many times. Over the last few months, Theresa May has been focusing on the topic; claiming that our housing market is ‘broken’, promising to take ‘personal charge’ of the problem. ‘We must get
Christmas is meant to be the season of goodwill. Alas, no-one at Labour HQ appears to have got the memo. The Labour party have released their Christmas cards – with a distinct Conservative vibe this year. Corbyn’s party has used the festive opportunity to make fun of Theresa May’s conference speech where the letters fell from
So much for that Friday feeling – Theresa May’s day out at the European social summit has proved a slog. First, an increasingly angry Irish Taoiseach threatened to block the progress of Brexit talks over the Irish border – telling hacks that he couldn’t ‘in any honesty’ say that an agreement is close. Then, Donald Tusk issued a
Is the net closing in on Jared Kushner? It is now being reported that Trump’s son-in-law received a ‘Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite’, which he also reportedly forwarded on. Both Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein are alleging that Kushner did not turn over several important documents to investigators despite numerous
Nigel Farage found himself in the news over the weekend after his former aide claimed she was told to keep her ‘relationship’ with Farage secret at all costs – to help save Brexit. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Annabelle Fuller alleged that she and Farage had a relationship dating from 2004 until October
Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters announce themselves to be the leftist of the left: a band of brothers, who have saved the Labour Party from neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism. Yet they happily align with the most right-wing imperialist power in the neighbourhood. All around Corbyn, questions about Russian influence in the US election and the Brexit
Last night saw the award of this year’s £30,000 Baillie Gifford Prize – the country’s most respected prize for non-fiction – to David France’s How To Survive A Plague (Picador). You can read Peter Tatchell’s Spectator review of this account of the ‘plague years’ of the Aids crisis, and the extraordinary work that activists did
Oh dear. After a fortnight of government shambles, Jeremy Corbyn can enjoy the weekend safe in the knowledge that his party is… still neck and neck with the Tories. On last night’s Question Time, Emily Thornberry offered an insight into why her party – and it’s plan for 21st century socialism – may be failing
It has not been a great few weeks for David Davis, the government’s designated Brexit Bulldog. In the first place, his ambition to succeed Theresa May as leader of the Conservative party and prime minister looks and feels increasingly at-odds with the temper of the times. I suppose parading buxom lasses in figure-hugging t-shirts emblazoned
The Westminster sleaze scandal has resulted in many awkward conversations having to be had across Parliament. However, at yesterday’s Press Gallery lunch, David Lidington was on hand to let it be known that this in itself is nothing new. Back when the Tories were in Opposition, the Conservative MP was tasked with updating Ann Widdecombe, then
The oddest thing about the Dickin medal awarded to a dog called Mali today, and given to animals from carrier pigeons to horses for ‘conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving or associated with any branch of the Armed Forces or Civil Defence Units’, is that it was instituted in 1943. Back then, there
Next week’s Budget could be the government – and Philip Hammond’s – last chance to snatch the political momentum away from Labour. So what should he announce? Today’s newspaper editorials have some advice for the Chancellor: Not too long ago, John McDonnell’s ‘alternative budget’ would have been announced ‘in complete obscurity’, says the Daily Telegraph.
Stepford students have been busy in recent years picking off targets from the past to vent their fury at. Cecil Rhodes in Oxford and Edward Colston in Bristol are the most high-profile victims of this attempt to wipe parts of posterity from the face of university campuses. Now, there is a new target: William Gladstone,
In the argument about tax avoidance, people feel very strongly, yet it is hard to define wrong behaviour. We all know that tax evasion, being illegal, is wrong. But what tax behaviour is legal, yet wrong? Take a deliberately trivial example. Safety riding hats carry no VAT if they are sold as children’s hats. No
Two of the biggest unsolved domestic crises in this country are surely social care and housing. Both have creaked from ‘in trouble’ to ‘already in crisis’ without much in the way of serious policy or money from successive governments. Today, ministers turned their attention to both matters, making rather different announcements on how they might
On this week’s episode we look at the social media revolution which could sweep the Tories away. We also discuss next week’s budget and agonise about the state of the nation with Jeffrey Archer. Whether it’s Jeremy Corbyn, Donald Trump or the Brexiteers, successful politicians seem to have one thing in common: a command of
Should the British government be more suspicious of Russia? Theresa May obviously thinks so, telling Vladimir Putin in a speech this week that ‘we know what you are doing and you will not succeed’. Jeremy Corbyn is less keen, with his spokesman telling journalists that ‘I think we need to see more evidence of what’s
The Times‘ Matt Chorley has succeeded in getting everyone talking with his story about Michael Gove supposedly using cabinet meeting to audition for the role of chancellor. Gove reportedly talked about ‘the obscure Markets in Financial Instruments Directives’ two weeks ago and has cabinet sources complaining that at this week’s meeting he used ‘lots of
Vegetables are rotting in the fields for want of Eastern European pickers, patients are being left untreated thanks to a haemorrhaging of EU nurses, our universities are in peril as European academics flee from a xenophobic Britain which no longer wants them. That, at least, is the picture that is continually presented to us by
John McDonnell has busied himself today on the airwaves setting out Labour’s five key demands for the budget. His call for an end to austerity would mean pausing the roll-out of Universal Credit, ditching the public sector pay cap, more money into infrastructure, health, education, and local government along with a large-scale house-building programme. All very well. Only the
Q: How many Remainers does it take to fix a light bulb? A: Why should we fix it? It’s Russia’s fault it’s broken An old joke; I think the original concerned Arabs and Israel, but then there are numerous parts of the world where all manner of events are attributed to historic enemies. I remember a
The EU withdrawal bill survived its first test at its commons committee stage this week – but there is still a long way to go. And it seems some on the Tory back benches are determined not to make it plain sailing for the government. Theresa May’s ‘mandate for a hard Brexit is weak’, says
Last week, I predicted that the Mugabe era was at its end and that all that remained was how, when and who? Well we now know: it was Emmerson Mnangagwa, it took just 48 hours and it was in the form of a disguised coup. The leadership of the G40 faction in the ruling Party
The socialist thugs who run Venezuela have made such a pig’s ear of running the economy that the country has now been declared in ‘selective default’ on its international debt. This week, Standard & Poor’s, the credit ratings agency, said Venezuela had failed to make $200m (£152m) in repayments on its foreign debt and that it
Do you know what your partner earns? And if you don’t, is that a problem? If it’s just a matter of whether or not you go Dutch on the next date, then perhaps it’s not all that important. But when it comes to joint bank accounts, or a joint mortgage, then that becomes a whole
Does Theresa May want to build more homes? The problems that the Prime Minister faces on this matter were summed up very neatly by two different Tory backbenchers at Prime Minister’s Questions today. She was asked by Tom Tughendhat whether she would ‘take the chance to build more homes’, to which she replied that ‘my
