All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Sir Philip Green has dug deep into his bulging pockets to plug the gap in BHS’s pension scheme. But the newspapers are in agreement: the tycoon’s £363m gesture counts for precious little. Even this huge payout won’t save Green’s reputation, says the Sun, which argues that while the former BHS boss has done the ‘right thing’,
Donald Trump’s first address to Congress last night was the best speech he has given since he won the election last year. A low bar, you might say, and the new Commander-in-Chief will never match the rhetorical skill of his predecessor. Yet before the joint session of Congress a few hours ago, President Trump at
I never expected to be writing the following, since Michael Gove is, to me, one of the few heroic figures in modern politics. But he did write a very strange column in the Times last week, inciting the government to ‘Put VAT on school fees and soak the rich’. He seems to be outraged that
How far do you think £321 would get you from London? Halfway across the world maybe? Asia? The US? All of these are possible if you hunt around for cheap flights. But in the wonderful world of UK train travel, £321 of your hard-earned cash buys you a return trip from London to Manchester, a
House prices moved up a gear in February, according to Nationwide, with property values increasing by 4.5 per cent in a year. The BBC reports on the building society’s latest house price index which also reveals that property prices were up by 0.6 per cent compared with the previous month, bringing the cost of the
Eight months ago a majority of voters opted to leave the European Union. I believed then – as I do now – that was an historic mistake, but it was one – once asked – that the British nation had every right to make. The Government cannot ignore the nation’s decision and must now shape
The Government is getting worried. So far, the passage of the Article 50 bill through Parliament has been relatively smooth. Tomorrow, there’s a chance that could change: peers will debate the issue of what happens to EU citizens in the UK after Brexit. This topic has been something of a political hot potato for the
Gerald Kaufman, who has died aged 86, was instrumental in saving the Labour Party, back when the Labour Party was something that could still be saved. It was Kaufman who pithily pegged the 1983 manifesto as ‘the longest suicide note in history’. He knew the phrase would hang around the far-left and dog any attempt to
Although Keir Starmer refuses to say whether he harbours ambitions to be Labour leader, the shadow Brexit secretary did do his best to dazzle hacks this afternoon as the guest of honour at today’s press gallery lunch. Alas while Starmer was full of charm for the hacks, he was less willing to wax lyrical about
Imagine going back twenty years in a time machine, when a young Tony Blair was about to be swept to power on a wave of optimism, and telling someone* that in 2017, Labour would be on just 16 per cent among working-class voters – and this despite having a leader several octaves to the left
Oh dear. With the SNP thought to be on manoeuvres over a second independence referendum, today the party have been at pains to stress that any future vote would be down to the actions of Theresa May’s government. So, Angus Robertson must have thought he was in luck when ‘Tony Robinson OBE’ retweeted him saying
Although last week’s by-elections exposed cracks in Labour, it’s Ukip that has gone into free fall as a result. After Paul Nuttall failed to win in Stoke-on-Trent Central, both Nigel Farage and chief donor Arron Banks were quick to go on the attack. Over the weekend, Banks called for Nuttall to make him party chairman or
The ghosts of Prime Ministers past aren’t making life easy for Theresa May. John Major has now followed in the haunted footsteps of Tony Blair by criticising his successor’s approach to Brexit. Major used a speech yesterday to say people are being offered an ‘unreal’ vision of Brexit by the Government. Unsurprisingly, Major’s intervention has
You’ve saved for years into a defined benefit pension scheme in the expectation it will provide you with a secure and comfortable retirement. Then, without warning and through no fault of your own, the company supporting the scheme goes bust, plunging you into uncertainty. That’s the worry faced by members of many of today’s nearly
The final Treasury Questions before a Budget or Autumn Statement always reveals not just what the Opposition plans to attack the government on, but also where the government is feeling particularly vulnerable. This week’s session suggested that ministers are rightly quite nervous about social care funding – and that they realise they will have to
If you want to know why we never seem to be able to develop a sensible and proportionate policy towards prosecuting sex offences look no further than the comment threads beneath this morning’s story about Chief Constable Simon Bailey. Bailey, speaking on the Today programme, suggested that men who view child porn should not automatically
A campaign is currently underway to have Bristol’s Colston Hall renamed because Edward Colston was a slave trader. This has set me thinking. How gross does someone’s moral turpitude have to be before memorials to him are considered ripe for removal? Two years ago, the Rhodes Must Fall campaign successfully lobbied for the removal of
The Financial Ombudsman Service has revealed that unresolved grievances about the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) still dominate its workload. According to the BBC, the organisation received 150,000 new complaints in the six months to December 2016. Just over half of them – 78,000 – were about PPI policies. Chief ombudsman Caroline Wayman said: ‘PPI complaints
What calamity could possibly be worse than waking up to find that the small, rarefied town near your weekend cottage has lost its bookshop, leaving you nowhere to go browsing for the latest tome by George Monbiot or Naomi Klein before going home for tea and crumpets? Answer: when a new bookshop opens up, purporting
Tonight’s Parliamentary Labour Party meeting began with loud cheers. As with most PLP meetings nowadays, these weren’t directed at the Labour leader and nor was Jeremy Corbyn around to hear them. Corbyn had earlier sent his apologies that he was unable to make the first PLP meeting since the party’s defeat in Copeland due to a prior engagement. In
Its economy will be destroyed by leaving the single market. Losing access to European sales will destroy swathes of industry, and without free movement, employers will be crucified by skill shortages. Nicola Sturgeon is no doubt already preparing her lines for a vote on Scottish independence once the UK leaves the EU. Right now, that
UK workers are near the bottom of the wage-growth table compiled by the TUC, says the Independent. The average wage across 112 countries rose by 2.3 pc per year in the period 2008 – 2015. Meanwhile UK workers saw their wages fall by 1 pc. Great Britain comes 103rd in the table, ahead of the West
‘Take back control’ was the mantra of the Brexit bunch during the referendum – but eight months on, Britain is still waiting to be handed the keys. Next month, says the Daily Telegraph, part of the wait could be over. The paper reports that Theresa May is planning to announce an end to free movement for EU migrants
After Jeremy Corbyn’s campaigns chief Simon Fletcher quit his role earlier this month, it was branded a victory for Seumas Milne. Fletcher was known to have clashed with Corbyn’s director of strategy and communications on a range of issues, including the EU. Now, in a sign things are moving further in Milne’s favour, Steve Howell
Dinner table conversations these days prove that you don’t have to be an estate agent or work in the property industry to have a view on the UK housing market. Just a look at the headlines and stories on housing which appear in the media every week is further proof of the country’s interest in
After 2016 brought Brexit and Trump, it’s proving to be a particularly fractious time in politics. However, there are some things that can still transcend the issues of the day and bring people together — namely kebabs. On Sunday night, MPs from across the House put aside their differences as they gathered for the annual British Kebab
The most dangerous place in Washington DC, the old joke goes, is between a politician and a television camera. It’s a wonder there are any such places left, so intimate have the third and fourth estates become. Periodically, American journalism gets itself into a funk over its proximity to power and the consequences for integrity
Last year, the Oscars came in for quite a bit of criticism within the American film community. The problem wasn’t that the nominees were too worthy, or the speeches too long. Nor was it that some of the best films of 2015 – Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Martian, Steve Jobs – were snubbed.
Oh dear. Although Paul Mason has taken to the airwaves this morning to suggest that Scottish independence would be a good thing, it had been thought that comrade Jeremy Corbyn was still on the side of the unionists. So, Mr S was curious to hear the Labour lead thank the SNP in his speech at today’s Scottish
Shami Chakrabarti and Peter Whittle would probably furiously deny playing by the same political rules. But this morning on the Andrew Marr Show, the Labour peer and Ukip politician were both using suspiciously similar scripts to try to excuse poor performances by their party leaders in Thursday’s by-elections. First up, Peter Whittle on how Paul
As Paul Nuttall, the Ukip leader, has recently discovered, there usually comes a point in a British political career when you have to apologise to Liverpool. The origins of this custom are obscure, rather like the rule that the Cap of Maintenance must accompany the Sovereign to the State Opening of Parliament, but it must
We’re told not to judge books by their covers, but faced with these two it’s hard not to. Harman’s is one of those thick, expensive tomes which, understandably, politicians write when they’ve had enough earache and, unbelievably, publishers keep buying for vast sums, despite the fact that a fortnight after publication you can pick them
I am quite used to people smirking into their sleeves when they hear that I’ve just written a book called The Islamic Enlightenment. The really helpful wags say they expect something along the lines of The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro Agnew, which was billed as a collection of all the memorable aphorisms of the
To my mind, a bookshop is like a library — the only difference is that you buy the books, you don’t borrow them. But both have a duty to provide books (space and budgets allowing) reflecting a wide range — as wide as possible — of interests, reading tastes, subjects and points of view. Walk