All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Transport for London has decided it knows what will keep me safe better than I do. The transport regulator has today refused to reissue Uber’s private hire licence, on the basis of ‘public safety and security implications’. Let me tell you about security implications as a woman in London. If I come out of a
It’s good to be here in this great city of Florence today at a critical time in the evolution of the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. It was here, more than anywhere else, that the Renaissance began – a period of history that inspired centuries of creativity and critical thought across
Let’s face it, the decision today by TfL not to renew Uber’s licence to operate in London has not come about ultimately as a result of genuine concerns over passenger safety. It is a protectionist move to promote the business interests of London’s black cab drivers and to satisfy the unions and other left-wing activists
Eight days. That’s how long you have left to enjoy Uber if you live in the capital. Transport for London, a body that should really replace ‘for’ with ‘against’, says it will not renew Uber’s operating licence when it expires on September 30. It’s a victory for the cabbie lobby, which cannot match the private
Forget power to the people, today it’s power to black cab drivers! Transport for London has announced that Uber will not be issued a new private hire licence, with London mayor Sadiq Khan ‘welcoming’ the decision. This means no more Uber in London – though the decision will be challenged in the courts. So, as 40,000 drivers worry
Oh dear. With North Korea threatening to detonate a nuclear bomb in the Pacific Ocean, world leaders are left scratching their heads over what to do about the rogue state’s penchant for nuclear weapons. But has North Korea actually just done the world a favour by threatening to bomb Japan, South Korea and the US?
Theresa May’s Brexit pitch today will deliver to the EU ‘divorce terms that she hopes it can’t refuse’, says the Times. An early draft of her speech suggests she will start by explaining the choice of location, Florence; a city, the PM will say, ‘that taught us what it is to be European’. This begs
Owning a property in Central London is a dream for some, but a burden for others – if you are an accidental landlord, that is. An accidental landlord? But that I mean you were lucky enough to buy a property 20 years ago, then decided to move out of London – and were left wondering what
If there was any doubt that Bernie Sanders is gearing up for another run for the presidency, his speech today in Fulton, Missouri removed it. Sanders appeared at the very spot where Winston Churchill pronounced in 1946 that Stalin was creating an iron curtain in Europe. Sanders, however, enunciated a more emollient message than the
Theresa May will give her Brexit speech in Florence today safe in the knowledge that she finally has the full backing of her Cabinet – at least, until the warm prosecco comes out at party conference. After a difficult week, Cabinet ministers today met on Thursday a two-and-a-half hour meeting where approval was given. In an
On this week’s Spectator Podcast we look at the final Brexit war amongst the Conservatives. We also discuss the maverick politician taking Ukraine by storm, and get on the blower with Blowers. First up, with a 4,000 word intervention by Boris Johnson doing the rounds this week, ahead of Theresa May’s pivotal Brexit speech in Florence, the Conservatives look
In this week’s Books Podcast I talk to the Pulitzer Prize winning historian (and former Spectator deputy editor) Anne Applebaum about her devastating new book Red Famine. The early 1930s in Ukraine saw a famine that killed around five million people. But fierce arguments continue to this day whether the “Holodomor” was a natural disaster, or
Sarah Champion could hardly be blamed for bearing a grudge against Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour MP was among those who nominated Corbyn in his original bid to become Labour leader. Yet it’s likely that she regretted that decision when she was forced out of the shadow cabinet for her comments on Pakistani grooming gangs. Now, it
Tomorrow in Florence, Theresa May needs to make the speech of her life. Britain has a strong hand to play in these EU talks and it’s time the Prime Minister showed it. May must assert once again that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’, shoring up the UK’s bargaining position. She should also
A week is a long time in politics. After Boris Johnson kicked off his working week with a 4,000 word Brexit essay for the Telegraph, the Foreign Secretary has been dogged by resignation rumours. Now, however, the Cabinet is all smiles. Although Johnson and Philip Hammond are reported to be on a collision course over
As the Catalonian independence battle continues to escalate ahead of the proposed October 1st referendum, Mariano Rajoy’s government is going all-out to thwart the secessionist efforts of Catalan president Carles Puigdemont. As he does so, it is becoming harder to see when or how this increasingly unpleasant conflict will be resolved. Following the orders of
Should the exit bill be €20bn or €40bn? Should the trade deal be the ‘Swiss-plus’ or ‘Canada-lite’? Should our negotiating strategy be the full cliff-edge, or should we opt for the reverse gear? If we had a couple of micro-chip factories for every different version of Brexit on offer, we’d probably be worrying about it
The SNP’s Fiona Hyslop is not an obvious candidate to lead a cultural revolution. The Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs is more Nicola Murray than Nicola Sturgeon. Hyslop has a permanent look of terror that someone might ask her a question but she’s harmless enough. Stick a few flags and
Ahead of tomorrow’s Brexit speech in Florence, the Sun has some advice for the Prime Minister: show that you’re prepared to walk away. The paper says it is vital that the Cabinet pulls together around the PM’s Brexit. But it also asks: what happens if Angela Merkel doesn’t buy her plan? Of course, it would
Although this year’s Labour conference is to take on a distinctly anti-mayoral vibe – with both London mayor Sadiq Khan and Manchester mayor Andy Burnham refused speaking slots – it seems there are still some safe spaces out there for regional mayors. At next month’s Conservative party conference in Manchester, West Midlands Mayor Andy Street will
We at The Spectator are delighted to announce that Lionel Shriver is joining us as a columnist. As regular readers will know, she has written a few diaries for us and is one of the very best writers on either side of the Atlantic. She’s a hugely successful novelist but what marks her out as a
It won’t shock you to read that bank branches are closing. They’re expensive to run, and fewer customers are using them. In fact just 11% of the UK population now prefers visiting a branch to carry out their banking business. But behind these simple facts is a rather grim reality. In the next few years,
Donald Trump’s speech before the United Nations General Assembly was both an echo of George W. Bush and something original. At times, one expected the president to lapse into a Texas drawl and warn about ‘nuclear weapons’; at others he was distinctly The Donald. Despite the seeming contradiction, it was a fairly cogent and consistent
Sir David Norgrove, the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), is an honourable man. When he publicly rebuked Boris Johnson for his use of the famous £350 million figure about our weekly EU contribution, I am sure he was statistically, not party-politically motivated. But two points occur. The first is that Sir David was,
You must listen to the feisty new episode of the Holy Smoke podcast, in which Cristina Odone and I ask our guest Jeremy Vine whether, if he were alive in the 21st century, Jesus would have been on Twitter. If so, what would happen to him? Jeremy – whose new book What I Learnt discusses
After concerns about the Foreign Secretary’s job security bumped Vince Cable’s keynote leader’s speech at Lib Dem conference off the news agenda yesterday, a sense of stability has been restored to Cabinet. Boris Johnson has told hacks in New York that he is not going anywhere – likening Cabinet harmony to ‘a nest of singing birds’. The
The Conservatives have had a difficult few days. After Boris Johnson published his 4,000 word Brexit blueprint in the Telegraph, the Cabinet is feuding, Theresa May’s authority is under strain and backbenchers have taken to the airwaves to call for the Foreign Secretary to be sacked. But fear not, help is on its way. Tomorrow
Boris Johnson’s Brexit intervention ‘is a dismal reflection on Theresa May’s position’, says the Times. But worse than that, this Cabinet ‘disunity is corroding the Conservative brand’ – and making a Corbyn victory at the next election ever more likely. ‘In normal times,’ says the Times, ‘the case for dismissal would be unanswerable’. But while
When Boris Johnson received a sharply worded rebuke for his ‘clear misuse of official statistics’ from Sir David Norgrove, the Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, The Spectator rushed to his aid. Steerpike asked why the statistics chief had intervened when ‘every word from Boris (this time) was accurate’. The short answer is that Norgrove
One of the City’s best-known economists, Roger Bootle, discusses whether a success could be made from Brexit, just over a year after Britain to leave the European Union. Bootle begins by explaining the ‘overblown’ nature of the ‘European Single Market’ concept: I don’t think what has been clearly said or argued is that the [European]
When you’re looking for a new current account, the interest rate is often one of the most important factors in choosing between the many choices on offer. This week’s Best Buys highlights some of the best deals on the market, using data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.
Donald Trump fully embraced his inner neocon before the United Nations today. He lashed out at North Korea, indicating that he was ready to ‘totally destroy’ it. He upbraided Iran as a corrupt and malignant regime that had taken America and its allies to the cleaners with the nuclear deal—’One of the worst and most
It is with a real sense of pride that I stand before you as leader of the Liberal Democrats. First of all, I’d like to put on record my thanks to my predecessor, Tim Farron. He hands over a Party, which is larger, stronger and more diverse than the one he inherited. He stood up for refugees
I know many Leave voters. Most of my family. Around half of my friends. Lots of the people in the immigrant community in London I grew up in. (We’re bad immigrants, being anti-EU, so we never feature in the migrant-sympathetic commentary of EU-pining hacks.) And not one of them has ever said they chose Brexit