All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Margaret Thatcher’s Lord Chancellor, Quintin Hailsham, himself half-American, once observed that the US system of government was ‘an elective monarchy with a king who rules . . . but does not reign’. The British system was ‘a republic with a hereditary life president who . . . reigns but does not rule’. And so, perhaps, it
Some Christians on the fundamentalist fringe think President Trump is ‘the new David’ who will turn the United States into a godly kingdom. More mainstream evangelical leaders, meanwhile, hope he can reverse the tide of American secularism, not least with Supreme Court appointments. Both groups are likely to be disappointed – but as Tim Stanley of the Daily Telegraph
Things are changing in Washington… and not just at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Political newbies watched the fireworks at the Lincoln Memorial on Thursday night. Elderly women prepared for their first inauguration. One family had brought their daughter to Washington to witness the moment that Donald Trump was sworn in. And Washington regulars – the politicos, party hacks
One of the most important jobs in The Spectator is opening up, and we’re looking for a pretty exceptional person to fill it. Peter Robins, our brilliant production editor (read about him here) is off to the New York Times. We’re looking for someone with skill, patience and a love of writing to take his
The irony of Barack Obama’s presidency is that while it began at a time when it seemed America’s fortunes could only improve, his inauguration day turned out to be his personal high water mark. The retiring President’s speech in Chicago last week contained flashes of the optimism that he brought to a country and a world
When Martin McGuinness said he was retiring from politics due to serious illness it gave vent, almost immediately, to the sort of ‘How McGuinness became a man of peace’ stories. Personally I have always thought the salient point about the man is not that he became a man of peace but that he was ever a man of
On Thursday, Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet found themselves in disarray after the Labour leader suggested he would issue a three-line whip for MPs to vote to trigger Article 50. This upset many in his party as they had hoped he would make Labour’s consent — at the very least — conditional upon certain details being revealed or caveats
There are certain traditional ceremonies without which the inauguration of a new American president cannot take place. Chief among them, at least on this side of the atlantic, is the opportunity such a moment provides for pondering anew the health and well-being of the ‘special relationship’. A remarkable amount of tripe must be talked on these
After Labour party members in Copeland rejected Jeremy Corbyn’s preferred choice as candidate for the upcoming by-election in favour of former doctor Gillian Troughton, the hunt is on to find a suitable candidate for the upcoming Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election — to be held on the same day. With Tristram Hunt quitting to take a job with
Jeremy Corbyn is a famous rebel, so famous that when he was elected, many in his party wondered how he might tell MPs to vote the way he wanted them to when he himself had refused to listen to the whips throughout his backbench career. When he was still a backbencher, he enjoyed telling a
When Seumas Milne first announced that he was joining Labour as Jeremy Corbyn’s director of communications in 2015, it was made clear that he would not be exiting the Guardian for good. Instead — in an arrangement that raised eyebrows in Westminster — Milne would merely work for Corbyn while taking leave from his role as the
Ella Mills, née Woodward – aka ‘Deliciously Ella’ – was on Radio 4 this morning discussing ‘clean eating’. Many will know her as one of the main advocates of this fashionable nutritional advice, even though she now says she doesn’t like to use the phrase ‘clean’. Her best-selling book suggested that food could be used as
On Wednesday, No 10 was forced to clarify that the Foreign Secretary had not compared the French President to a Nazi after Boris Johnson warned Francois Hollande against trying to ‘administer punishment beatings’ in the manner of some ‘world war two movie’. Alas not everyone in Johnson’s party has proved so helpful in coming to his defence. An ill-timed press
The angrier, snootier sections of the Remain camp have done many bad things since 23 June. Some have suggested Brexit should be overthrown. Others have issued terrible libels against Leave voters, branding them ‘low information’ and xenophobic. Witness Nick Clegg in this Guardian video published this week having a good old laugh at Sheffield people
Britain’s biggest mobile operator EE has been fined £2.7 million for overcharging more than 30,000 customers. Between July 2014 and July 2015, the company added almost £250,000 to the bills of customers who called its 150 helpline while abroad in the European Union. They were incorrectly billed as though they had made a call to
Who would have thought it? The man who declared his presidential ambitions after arriving down a gilded escalator and whose private apartment has been derided as over-the-top dictator chic, is having a low-key inauguration. Once Donald Trump, showman extraordinaire, has been sworn in as the 45th president of the United States he will depart down
On this week’s episode, we discuss the winners and losers as Trump moves into the White House, where Theresa May’s Brexit strategy is headed, and whether you can wear fur so long as the animal died in a snowstorm. First, the world’s media is currently congregated in Washington for the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th
This is an organisation that is, as it says in the very first line of your Mission Statement, committed to “improving the state of the world”. Those of us who meet here are all – by instinct and outlook – optimists who believe in the power of public and private cooperation to make the world
Hardly a day goes by without commentary and new research on Britain’s housing market. Now the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has said that the market ‘stuttered’ at the end of last year and has started slowly in 2017. The Guardian reports that sales activity fell in December and estate agents are less optimistic about prospects over
Irish eyes aren’t smiling – when it comes to Brexit. As one who hails from the Emerald Isle, I’ve taken plenty of ‘schtick’ from Irish diplomats, relatives and pundits after publicly voting to leave. For the Republic of Ireland, European Union membership carries deep political significance. Joining in 1973, along with the UK but on
Asked earlier this month for his 2017 financial resolution, the newly knighted former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb replied it could be summarised in four words: ‘get a financial adviser’. No matter how much assistance you can find online these days, most people would still think twice before setting out to sell their own house
Although Theresa May used her Brexit speech on Tuesday to emphasise to European leaders that she hoped for a close and mutually beneficial relationship between the UK and the EU, not everyone appears to have got the memo. Today Boris Johnson found himself in hot water after he warned Francois Hollande against trying to ‘administer punishment beatings’ in the
Poor grey sad Mr Corbyn. So angry. So useless. And so weird as a visual spectacle. His sharp-featured head looks, from a certain viewpoint, like an anvil pebble-dashed with porridge oats. But guess what? Today he scored a victory against Mrs May. And guess what? He blew it. First he revealed his team’s latest attempt
Jeremy Corbyn’s attack line on Theresa May at Prime Minister’s Questions today might have been more effective had the Labour leader not appeared confused about what he was asking. He had no option but to talk about Brexit, something he has tried to avoid in his year and a half in the job because of
The earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous offered their famous Twelve Steps, which the drunkard must take in order to recover, born of their own experience. The Twelve Steps are still the foundation of AA. They work because they are taken by people who have hit rock bottom and realise it. The first step says, ‘We
Although Theresa May’s speech revealing her plan for a global Britain was well-received by her party and much of the media yesterday, the SNP found much cause for concern. While Nicola Sturgeon has said May’s announcement that the UK will leave the single market makes a second independence referendum more likely, Paul Monaghan has a
The reaction in Europe to Donald Trump’s recent remarks critical of the continent was all too predictable. It was an echo of the response when, following the Islamic terror attacks in November 2015 that left 130 Parisians dead, Trump said: ‘Paris is no longer the same city it was….they have sections in Paris that are
Britain’s biggest mobile network has been fined £2.7 million for overcharging tens of thousands of customers. The telecoms regulator Ofcom found that EE, which is owned by telecoms giant BT, broke a billing rule on two occasions. According to the BBC, ‘users who called its 150 customer services number while roaming within the EU were
Barack Obama’s decision to commute the prison sentence of Private Manning is a final, disgraceful undermining of American interests by the outgoing US President. Manning’s decision to dump vast swathes of stolen information with the Wikileaks organisation, which then published them, caused untold and untellable damage to America and her allies. It revealed operational details
Theresa May’s Lancaster House speech sought to answer the question: does the Government have a plan for Brexit? Open Europe’s judgement is that she succeeded. And she also started to set out a wider vision for the UK’s relationship with the EU, linking it both to Britain’s place in the world, and to her own
Kipling wrote about Brexit first, you know: “It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: Though we know we should defeat you, We have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away.” That, in essence, was David
A hard Brexit, currency markets seemed to indicate yesterday, would mean an even weaker pound. How, then, to explain this afternoon’s surge in sterling, which surged from just over $1.20 to just under $1.24 within a couple of hours of Theresa May’s speech? The rise more than reversed the falls since Monday morning, when the
Many mad things are happening on campuses. Fancy-dress parties are banned lest the costumes offend minority groups. Saucy pop songs are forbidden lest they turn male students into marauding sex machines. Controversial speakers are No Platformed. But perhaps the worst thing is the rekindling of the racial imagination, the return of judging people by race.
Nicola Sturgeon inched Scotland closer to a re-run of its independence referendum today by reacting angrily to Theresa May’s Brexit speech. Having already put indyref2 ‘on the table’ – but not for this year – Scotland’s First Minister said the Prime Minister’s speech today had made another independence vote ‘more likely’. ‘The UK Government cannot be