All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Financial companies, large and small, are trying to grab a piece of the burgeoning digital advice market. Also known by the unattractive name ‘robo advice’, this uses computers to give low-cost financial advice online with little or no human intervention. It could help the huge numbers of people who need financial advice but do not
Since December, when Islamic terrorist Anis Amri drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market, Germans have been waiting fearfully for the next Islamist attack. However right-wing terrorism is also a growing concern in Germany, and the latest case to come to light shows how this extremist movement may be evolving. Germany’s Military Intelligence is
Oh dear. As the only Labour MP left in Scotland, Ian Murray has a fight on his hands come June to retain Edinburgh South. So, luckily he’s got his campaign material out early. Only there’s a problem. Murray’s constituents have been sent a letter detailing why he is planning to stand for re-election. In a bid to impress
Another knife-attack was thwarted yesterday in Westminster. Overnight there were anti-terror raids in Kent and London. These were unconnected, but police say that they have foiled an ‘active terror plot.’ All this will blend into the background soon, as much as last month’s attack in Westminster already has. Not because we don’t remember anything, but because we
We all have different ways of realising we’re not as young as we were. I still remember the first time England named a cricket captain younger than me: Andrew Strauss (a man I still believe will one day serve as a Conservative parliamentarian incidentally). Passing that milestone didn’t bother me much, but the relative
Poor old Paul Nuttall. Today was supposed to be a fresh start for Ukip as the party launched its election campaign event in the run-up to June 8. Instead, it’s descended into chaos. A group of protesters from ‘Stand up to racism’ have gatecrashed the launch event, waving banners and shouting and screaming moments before
This week’s Best Buys, provided by Moneyfacts, are Two-Year Fixed Rate Bonds.
While Theresa May makes her mind up over the triple lock on state pensions the OECD has come up with an altogether more radical suggestion: that the state pension be withdrawn entirely from the richest five to 10 per cent of the population, in order that more money be available for the poor. I am
Oh dear. With few MPs in the Labour party keen to take to the airwaves and wax lyrical about the pros of their leader as PM, Jeremy Corbyn must have thought he’d got lucky when Giles Fraser appeared on BBC’s This Week to do exactly this. In an interview with Andrew Neil, the Church of England
The result of the general election in England might be regarded as inevitable, with even Labour MPs telling constituents it’s safe to vote for them because Jeremy Corbyn is not going to become prime minister. But in Scotland, there’s a fierce contest going on between the SNP and the Tories, and this is where the
‘Mugwumps‘ are in the news today, after Boris Johnson used the term to describe Jeremy Corbyn. In the 2 October 1959 issue of The Spectator, Evelyn Waugh also used the term, when he wrote a piece entitled ‘Aspirations of a Mugwump’: I hope to see the Conservative Party return with a substantial majority. I have bitter memories
Yesterday the UK financial regulator released complaints data for the second half of 2016. While this happens every six months, yesterday was meant to be different. This data was meant to arm consumers with information to make more informed decisions, and ultimately empower people to make the financial world better. Sadly, it turned out to be
Why is it so striking that Tony Blair has said that Theresa May will be Prime Minister ‘if the polls are right’? On the surface, this appears to be a statement of the bleeding obvious, given the Tory party national poll lead isn’t exactly within the margin of error. Of course, around election time, politicians do
Well, this is a bit awkward. The Johnson family has a long history of Conservatism. This holds true today, with Boris Johnson is the Foreign Secretary and his brother Jo is a Conservative MP. Up until now, their sister Rachel was broadly supportive of the party — voting ‘nothing but Tory’ in general elections as ‘a matter
Paul Nuttall has just confirmed he will be standing in the upcoming election. The Ukip leader promised to be ‘leading the party into battle’ on June 8th. Where he stands, we’ll have to wait and see. Nuttall said that he would announce in the next 48 hours which seat he planned to target. In a statement,
One of the favourite tenets of Jeremy Corbyn supporters is that their movement is persecuted by the ‘mainstream media’ and that if only there were a fair, left-wing-friendly press in this country, then the public would be flocking to JC’s hugely popular policies. This debate has trudged its way through many acres of print already,
A man in his late twenties has been arrested on Whitehall today and is being detained under the terrorism act. The BBC are reporting that the man was known to the police. Photos from the scene appear to show a knife on the ground. The police are saying that following this arrest there is no
On this week’s episode of The Spectator Podcast, we discuss whether France is voting for the lesser of two evils in Emmanuel Macron, consider whether Tim Farron made a mistake by bringing God into politics, and look at how the spread of Mayism across Britain could alter the Conservative party. First, following Emmanuel Macron’s stunning
Boris Johnson has stolen the show this morning by calling Jeremy Corbyn a ‘mugwump’. But the Labour leader is making a pretty miserable attempt at trying to recapture the limelight. During a campaign speech in Essex, Corbyn had a golden moment to set out Labour’s pitch to voters. The Sky News camera was rolling, with hundreds
The wrangling over key policy areas in the upcoming general election has begun in earnest. If you’re already tired of the political argy-bargy, don’t worry, there’s only, ahem, six weeks to go. Stay with me though, because there’s one topic in the personal finance arena that really, really matters. The triple lock state pension guarantee.
Trust Boris to dominate the headlines by reopening that most famous of books, Johnson’s Dictionary. Writing in the Sun, our effortlessly provocative Foreign Secretary swiped at Jeremy Corbyn with this colourful barb: ‘He may be a mutton-headed old mugwump, but he is probably harmless.’ Couched rather incongruously as the reflections of ‘the people’, this comment
France is in a flap and Emmanuel Macron is to blame. On Sunday evening the En Marche! leader looked for all the world like a man who believed he’d already been crowned king. Bounding onto stage with a wink, a wave and a smile to his adoring supporters, after his first round victory, he then
Boris Johnson has entered the election campaign with a bang. The Foreign Secretary was being squirrelled away, some were saying, after a number of ministers apparently suggested to Theresa May that she should sideline Boris to avoid alienating voters. It’s clear that’s not going to be happening. Today, Boris is front and centre calling the leader
Oh dear. With Jeremy Corbyn’s future as Labour leader looking, at best, a challenge after the snap election, it ought to come as little surprise that some of his comrades are hoping to trade the struggle for a safe seat come June 8. Alas the Corbynistas have been thwarted once again. With a Labour safe seat now hard to find,
How people who want a fairer society should vote at this election is causing agonies across the liberal-left. It is easy to mock the torn activists. Why do they bother? One vote is worth next to nothing under a PR system. Under first past the post there are hundreds of safe seats where there’s no
Oh dear. When Jeremy Corbyn announced this week that a Labour government would focus on the issue of food banks, Mr S is pretty sure he didn’t imagine what would follow. On Tuesday, Mr S revealed the curious tactics of Momentum activists in Hove. Kate Knight — the Hove Momentum and Hove CLP executive officer — took
Earlier this month, Tim Farron appeared to cast doubt on the idea of forming a ‘progressive alliance’ where the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems work together to stop the Tories. The Liberal Democrat leader said that (while he held the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas in high regard) ‘the only plausible route of any kind towards
Farewell then, Malia Bouattia. The only president of the National Union of Students to earn herself a condemnation from the Home Affairs Committee, Bouattia has been defeated in her bid to win re-election at the NUS conference in Brighton. Her time in charge of the NUS was ended by Shakira Martin, the Union’s vice-president for further education,
When launching the Scottish National Party’s election campaign, Nicola Sturgeon said the word ‘Tory’ 20 times in 20 minutes. For much of her political lifetime, it has been used by the SNP as the dirtiest word in Scottish politics. Nationalists have long liked to portray the Conservatives as the successors to Edward Longshanks: an occupying
There was astonishment at the start of PMQs as Michael Fabricant’s wig flew up into the air. Fortunately its owner was rising to speak at the same time so no embarrassment was suffered. John Bercow indulged the house in this last session before the election and let MPs give speeches rather than ask questions. The
When the snap election was called last week, it looked like plain-sailing for the Liberal Democrats. Tim Farron’s party appeared on course for significant gains by simply appealing to the 48pc and talking about Brexit from a Remain perspective. However, a week on and it’s questions of religion that are proving a headache for the
Is Ivanka Trump’s visit to Berlin a triumph for Angela Merkel, or a diplomatic disaster? As always, that depends on which newspapers you read. Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung called it a ‘a veritable coup for the chancellor,’ but the headlines in the British press have focused on the boos that greeted Ivanka at yesterday’s W20 Summit,
Journalists have hunted down Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, about Christian views of homosexuality. Originally, they asked him the wrong question, doctrinally, by inquiring whether he thought ‘homosexuality’ was a sin. This was an easy one for him to repudiate, since an involuntary disposition is not a sin. I forbore to point this out,
I’m a member of a small and weird minority, the conservative urbanophiles. Obviously cities are nests of degeneracy and, even worse, the false faith of progressivism – my postcode voted 82 per cent Remain and the Tories finished fourth in 2015 – but nevertheless urbanisation is glorious, the best thing our species ever did. City