All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Just in case European Union leaders were in any doubt over President Trump’s feelings towards them, his rumoured pick for ambassador to the EU has been giving some pretty strong hints. Appearing on This Week, Malloch — who visited Trump Towers earlier this month to discuss the potential role — was open about his Euroscepticism. This led Andrew
I didn’t go on the women’s march last weekend, and it’s not the kind of thing I’d go to. However, Trump’s previous form with regards the female sex is a reasonable cause for at least registering a protest. This is not to deny there are things I wish would be protested more, such as Rotherham, but
The taxman’s failure to properly pursue the UK’s richest people risks undermining confidence in the entire system, according to parliament’s spending watchdog. The Guardian reports that the Public Accounts Committee has concluded that Britain’s super-rich appear to receive preferential treatment from HM Revenue & Customs. The MPs’ report, released this morning, scrutinised HMRC’s specialist unit,
Last week, Lily Allen became the subject of much mockery online after she claimed to have discovered the flaw in Theresa May’s plan for a global Britain. The pop singer said Brexit was unlikely to be a success as the ‘world still hates us’ because of… slavery. While Allen has refrained from offering any further Brexit analysis this
On Thursday afternoon, huge numbers of ministerial Range Rovers swept into Parliament after government whips got whiff of an SNP plot to mess with the government’s Brexit plans. Believing the SNP were planning to call for a last-minute vote on next week’s business involving the Brexit bill, Tory MPs came back to make up the
There are some strange goings-on in Rome at the moment. Two of the world’s smallest sovereign states, both headquartered there, are having a spat over who is in control. The head of the Knights of Malta, the former Guards officer now Grand Master, Fra’ Matthew Festing has announced he will step down. He has been
Theresa May mentioned Donald Trump only once in her speech to the Republicans gathered in Philadelphia tonight, but its centrepiece was a gift to him. In his inauguration speech, he said that the US was now out of the business of liberal interventionism. She told Republicans that the same applies to Britain. Here’s the key quote:-
Freddy Gray and Gabby Morrongiello, White House correspondent for the Washington Examiner, analyse the first days of Trump: I defy any person to travel to this great country at any time and not to be inspired by its promise and its example. For more than two centuries, the very idea of America – drawn from
Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead, has resigned from the Labour front bench over Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to impose a three-line whip on the Article 50 vote. Siddiq’s argument is that she doesn’t back triggering Article 50 and nor does her constituency, which voted heavily to Remain in the EU, and so she can’t
After the government lost its Supreme Court appeal, Article 50 must now be triggered by an Act of Parliament. As a result, Theresa May must now put a bill through Parliament on triggering Article 50 to take the UK out of the European Union. Today the two-clause bill was given its first reading — and can
I don’t know about Donald Trump’s press conferences, but there are certainly enough ‘alternative facts’ being spewed out by the Remain lobby. This morning the Office of National Statistics (ONS) produced its first estimate for economic growth in the last quarter of 2016. It came out at 0.6 per cent, a notch up from the
This week in the books podcast, we’re taking on some big issues. John Hands, the author of Cosmosapiens: Human Evolution From The Origin of the Universe, is in the grand tradition of ambitious gentleman amateurs. His book attempts to answer the fundamental human questions – who are we, why are we here, and where are
Within the space of a week, it has been announced that another 189 high street banks and building societies will be shutting their doors through the course of 2017. Last week, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank outlined plans to close 79 branches. On Tuesday, HSBC reported it will close another 62 branches on top of the
After Isabel Oakeshott co-authored Call Me Dave with Lord Ashcroft, the former Sunday Times political editor became the scourge of the Cameroons thanks to a story involving the former prime minister and a pig. However, despite this, she made a return to Fleet Street as the Daily Mail‘s political editor-at-large. A year on (and after months of speculation)
Royal Bank of Scotland has set aside £3.1 billion ($3.8 billion) to deal with US claims that it mis-sold risky mortgage-backed securities ahead of the financial crisis. The Telegraph reports that the lender, which is still 72 per cent owned by the taxpayer, now faces a loss for 2016, the ninth year in a row that
On this week’s episode, we discuss the hurricane that’s headed for Holland, the state of parliamentary sovereignty here at home, and whether taxing horses is really the way to go. First up: with elections in the Netherlands less than two months away, the eyes of Europe’s political pundits are being drawn to the clash between the incumbent
The Tory press is swooning because Mrs May will on Friday become the first foreign leader to visit Donald Trump. Think of that! We are still top of the world; still, after all these years, at the front of the queue to pay tribute to the new emperor of the West. Despite everything, and the
The jig may finally be up for Britain’s non-doms. After years of having it all this beleaguered elite are in the cross hairs. And now they’re going to pay. From the 6 April 2017, non-doms who have lived in Britain for at least 15 out of the past 20 years – the 15/20 Rule –
Mr Corbyn has spent a week shuddering at goblins that don’t exist. At least outside his head. But he wants his posse of demons to exist in our heads too. So he keeps conjuring them up. He says Mrs May is about to turn Britain into ‘an offshore tax haven.’ Being a Puritan he hasn’t
Parents: stop whatever you are doing, go home and give your daughter more pocket money. She needs it. A report out this week shows that girls are getting less than their fair share from the bank of mum and dad; a whopping £2.20 a week less, to be precise. Boys are favoured when it comes
At the risk of coming across all Holden Caulfield, this is a seriously phony age. Everywhere you look there are people objecting to things they think other people have said or would like them to have said. This past Saturday provided a fine example when in Washington and various other Western capitals some people decided
It is one of the oldest tricks in the book: make news just before the leader of the opposition gets up at PMQs to wrong foot them. This is what Theresa May did to Jeremy Corbyn today, announcing that there will be a government white paper on Brexit after all. The Labour leader was clearly
The Knights of Malta – an ancient Catholic order that dates back to the crusades – have enjoyed the privileges of a sovereign state for 900 years. Last night the Order of Malta was effectively stripped of its sovereignty in what appears to be a brutal power-grab by the Vatican. Pope Francis has demanded and received the resignation of the
Oh dear. To describe today’s Prime Minister’s Questions as bad for Labour would be an understatement. After Jeremy Corbyn was put on the backfoot by Theresa May over the government’s Brexit white paper, he was left lost for words as he stumbled around for questions. To make matters worse, he also managed to mess up
Just a year ago, the phrase ‘Brexit rebels’ denoted Tory MPs like Peter Bone who had a distinguished pedigree of pushing the government to be as Eurosceptic as possible, with the odd eccentric comment along the way. Today, it means former Cabinet ministers such as Nicky Morgan, who are trying to push the government away
Following Donald Trump’s surprise victory in America, Jeremy Corbyn’s team have tried to take inspiration from the new US president by pitching the Labour leader as a left-wing Trump. In a bid to jump on the populist wave, Corbyn and his supporters have gone to lengths to big up his anti-establishment credentials — even adopting a Trump-esque
Some gloomy news this morning as toy manufacturers and brewers announce price hikes to their products. The Guardian reports that the price of some toys, including Lego and Peppa Pig merchandise, could increase by up to 15 per cent as a result of the plunging pound. Natasha Crookes, spokeswoman for the British Toy and Hobby Association, said most
It has, to be honest, been rather hard to keep up with the flow of executive orders, policy pronouncements and big name appointments from the new US president: they’ve been coming thick and fast. So it’s been tricky drawing up any sort of running audit of debits v credits, though some changes, like the appointment
The Supreme Court has today rejected the Government’s appeal from the High Court judgment by a majority of eight justices to three. The decision means that a new Act of Parliament will now be required before the Government may lawfully trigger Article 50. However, the Court has also unanimously dismissed the devolution challenges, which argued
As a former property journalist I understand why the media uses Brexit to explain the performance of the UK housing market. Or even, at a stretch, Donald Trump. House prices are a national obsession, but a Brexit headline gives the story an extra dimension. Coverage of all three subjects is likely to intensify in 2017,
It has been claimed that Jared Kushner masterminded the success of a seemingly impossible campaign. He was the rational voice behind an irrational man and sanitised Donald Trump so effectively, it has become almost fashionable to support him. His reward is a seat at the President’s right hand: senior White House adviser in the Trump administration. His first
The English tradition of dissenting judgments in the important cases of the civil law is a good one. They are often better than the majority ones, because they tend to be advanced by judges who resist the self-aggrandisement of their profession. In the Miller case on triggering Article 50, before the Supreme Court, Lords Reed,
It is of course nonsense to describe Donald Trump as a fascist or a dictator, as his opponents like to do. And yet… well, he does sometimes rather invite it. There was his inaugural address in which he dusted off the ‘America first doctrine’ – as used by the isolationist, anti-Semitic group that urged the US
During the massive, impressive Women’s March in London on Saturday, in which thousands of noisy women, men and children stuck it to Trump, the organisers tweeted the following: ‘We are the people.’ Wait — it’s okay to say ‘the people’ again? Since Trump’s victory in November, and even more so after the Brexit Revolt in