All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Theresa May is warning Tory rebels that if Parliament gets a meaningful vote on Brexit, the European Union will be ‘incentivised’ to offer the UK a ‘bad deal’. She is right. But that doesn’t mean the Prime Minister should dismiss the prospect of the House of Lords inflicting a second defeat on the government, with peers
Remember David Cameron’s renegotiation with Brussels in the run-up to the referendum? There’s a good chance you’ve probably forgotten; after all, even the Prime Minister wasn’t keen to talk up his paltry deal. Yet there’s a danger of history repeating itself if peers have their wicked way, warns the Sun. ‘Peers and rebel Tory MPs’
On the eve of the Budget, the row about whether ministers struck a ‘sweetheart deal’ with Surrey Council on social care funding to stop the local authority from having to hold a referendum on raising council tax has blown up again. BBC Surrey has recorded extracts of a meeting between council leader David Hodge and
Oh dear. Of late, Mr S has kept readers up to date with the antics of today’s Stepford students. From students at LSE submitted a motion to ban the university’s free-speech society to City University students banning newspapers at the institution famed for its journalism school. Now it’s the turn of young Conservatives. Over at Lincoln
It’s a curiosity of the 21st century that there is no one quite as bigoted as the person who screams ‘bigot!’ all the time. More often than not, those who casually brand as bigots anyone who has the temerity to hold a different point of view to theirs are the ones behaving with bigotry. Consider
Social care is in crisis. Everyone knows that – or at least likes to say so to sound well-informed. It is Westminster’s latest trendy crisis – rich with case studies of elderly people trapped in hospital for weeks, or trapped in their beds at home with one flying fifteen minute visit a day in which
As a nation, we obsess. We obsess about the weather, taxes, the state of the roads, death and the cost of milk. I could go on. And there’s one other thing uppermost in our minds: house prices. I’ve lived in the same place for six years but I still can’t pass an estate agent without
As part of John McDonnell’s recent ‘tea offensive‘ to reach out and offer an olive branch to politicians on all sides of the Labour party, the shadow chancellor has invited both Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair for a cuppa. Alas, extending the hand of friendship to New Labour grandees is proving costly when it comes
Marine Le Pen must be struggling to contain her glee at the implosion of the centre-right Républicains party. An extraordinary 24 hours began on Sunday when François Fillon assembled his supporters in the torrential Parisian rain to reaffirm his intention to stand as their candidate in next month’s election. The former Prime Minister then appeared on TV yesterday evening to
You don’t earn a nickname like ‘Spreadsheet Phil’ for being a showman. But is Philip Hammond’s powder-dry demeanour and unwavering focus on the numbers actually his strong point? Yes, says the Sun, which suggests the chancellor’s cautious approach is exactly what Britain needs right now. The paper says that whereas Hammond’s predecessors would use their Budget announcements
Last week Dawn Butler used an appearance on Question Time to reveal that she hadn’t actually gone up to campaign in Copeland ahead of the party’s disastrous by-election result, as she suffers from… car sickness: DB: I didn’t go to Copeland as I suffer from car sickness and I heard the roads are really bad.
It’s an increasingly familiar scenario: grown-up children moving out of rented accommodation and back into the family home as they save for their first property. For some, the idea of coming together under one roof again conjures the return of family movie nights and getting to know your loved ones afresh. For others, it will
There was a good programme last week on Channel 4 about Muslims looking for love, or at least marriage. It was called ‘Extremely British Muslims’, and it did indeed show us some young Muslims who were very much like anyone else. But it was also a reminder that many Muslims have a deep-seated assumption about religion
As a Newcastle United fan, fretting whether my team will make it to the Champions League isn’t something I am burdened with on a regular basis. If it was, I might be tempted to pay for BT Sport. If that was the case, however, I’d be among the 10 million people who, from April 2, will
As Budget day approaches, the opposition are attempting to pile pressure on the Tories. As part of these efforts, Jeremy Corbyn has published details of his tax return in an effort to force Philip Hammond to do the same. However, if the stunt was meant to put the focus on the Chancellor, it has backfired spectacularly this
Ahead of his budget announcement this week, Philip Hammond has told Andrew Marr that the UK may continue to face EU contributions after Brexit, though he dismissed claims of a £60bn divorce fee as ‘a piece of negotiating strategy’. The Chancellor looked relaxed as he shrugged off the potential failure of a trade deal with the EU,
It’s not been a great week for Ukip. Following Paul Nuttall’s by-election loss in Stoke-on-Trent Central, the Ukip leader went on holiday while his party went into free fall. As Nigel Farage mounted a coup against Douglas Carswell over reports that Ukip’s only MP had scuppered Farage’s chances of being awarded a knighthood, Arron Banks labelled Nuttall’s leadership ‘weak’ and
Sir John Major does political intervention just right, doesn’t he? Never mind what he actually says. Once a year, twice max. Lob in a perfectly prepared hand grenade, wave and get the hell out. None of that terrible neediness of Tony Blair, still so stricken that he’s not in office. No children will cry, nor
Lord Heseltine has been denounced because he says he will vote against the government over Brexit in the House of Lords. It seems terrifically unfair. Has there ever been an occasion, in his long political career, when he has not been in favour of British membership of the EU (or EEC)? Why should he change
‘They will hate you because of who I am,’ Jesus says in the Gospels. He forgot to add: ‘And the ones who don’t have a clue will point and laugh.’ It’s a lesson Carol Monaghan has learned abruptly. Monaghan is MP for Glasgow North West and a member of the Scottish National Party. A former
I’m eager to order a Nokia 3310, the classic mobile phone of the millennium that was relaunched this week. The original was famed for its simple functions, unbreakable casing and ultra-long battery life; my earlier 3210 was just as good. I lost it on a coach trip 15 years ago and haven’t been truly happy since,
Here’s the bad news. One day you or someone like you will be shopping in a mall or enjoying a concert or about to catch a train when the first sudden, sharp crack will rend the air and your world will change forever. Around you, people will start to crumple and as the panic and
They were the elections you didn’t hear about, because the UK press mainly instead covered Bruce Forsyth’s chest infection. But Northern Ireland just woke up to a world where the Unionists’ vote share is a princely 45.7%. It was the highest turnout since 1998 (64.8%), the year of the Good Friday Agreement, that buoyed Sinn Féin
If the British establishment really wants to troll Ukip, then I suppose it ought to give Douglas Carswell a knighthood for blocking Nigel Farage’s knighthood. He says he didn’t, of course, and I don’t see how he could have done. Farage, though, clearly thinks he did, and his wrath about this is the most fun
The notion of artificial life created in a lab – heralded today with the news that scientists at Cambridge have managed to combine two sets of mouse stem cells to start the process of embryo creation is mildly alarming, no? Shades of Aldous Huxley, Brave New World? These aren’t exactly embryos; a scientist friend prefers
Normally, the Saturday before a Chancellor’s first Budget would be dominated by discussion about their plans for the economy. But, as I say in The Sun this morning, Philip Hammond would rather not be delivering a Budget next week. He thinks it should be in the autumn, but he has one more Spring one to
When Kingsley Amis won the Booker prize for The Old Devils in 1986, he said that he had previously thought of the Booker as a rather trivial, showbizzy sort of caper, but now considered it a very serious, reliable indication of literary merit. It was a joke, evidently. Indeed, when he said it during his
I campaigned hard for a business rates review, and even tried to claim credit for it — or at least for its pro-northern bias — when details emerged last September. The smallest enterprises are exempt and the provinces will gain some benefit; but it’s clear that new rateable values from 1 April will impose undeservedly harsh
Chief Constable Simon Bailey, who heads Operation Hydrant, the police investigation of ‘non-recent’ child abuse cases, now says that paedophiles who view images of child abuse should not be prosecuted, because police cannot cope with the numbers involved. Mr Bailey is wedded to the doctrine that someone who says he is an abuse victim must
Poor Paul Nuttall. He seemed to have everything a cheeky by-election victor needed: the outsider vim, the accent, the cap. Then it emerged he had made stuff up about Hillsborough. That was that. He moved from admirable Scouser to tragedy-crasher. In interviews over the years, Nuttall has referred to being at the stadium in Sheffield
The ongoing war between Donald Trump and the Hollywood A-list has entered a new and unpredictable phase. Celebrity criticism of Trump — keenly anticipated as the chewy takeaway from last week’s Academy Awards ceremony — was instead overshadowed by a celebrity cock-up. Thanks to a mix-up of the sacred envelopes, presenters Warren Beatty and Faye
As Prime Minister, John Major was intolerant of opposition from within the Conservative party over the EU — memorably calling Maastricht rebels ‘bastards’. It was unwise, and the bad blood it created within his party has been swirling around ever since. Now that the tables have turned and Sir John now finds himself the rebellious outsider
Theresa May might have won every Brexit vote in the House of Commons so far, but it’s getting trickier now. The House of Lords this week rejected the plan to trigger Article 50 without offering assurances to EU nationals, knowing that most MPs are sympathetic. I understand that the Tory whips are working hard to
The row about whether Douglas Carswell did or didn’t block Nigel Farage’s knighthood has sparked another bout of civil war within Ukip. But Mr S is pleased to report there could be a happy ending after all. On Russia Today (natch), the former Ukip leader had a taste of what it would be like to get