All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
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
Listen to Isabel Hardman, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth reviewing Theresa May’s speech: Theresa May’s speech today was striking for how much it took off the negotiating table. Britain is, she said, leaving the single market. She isn’t going to spend anytime seeing if free movement – but only for those with a job –
With Theresa May opting to give her speech in the grand settings of Lancaster House rather than the Commons, it fell on David Davis to face anxious MPs in the House. With many MPs feeling sidelined by the Prime Minister, the Brexit secretary summarised May’s speech — re-asserting that the final deal will be put
Theresa May was at pains in her Brexit speech and in the question-and-answer session from journalists afterwards to appear as friendly as possible to European leaders. She pointedly took questions from members of the European press who were present. She told the room that ‘we are leaving the European Union, but we are not leaving
In front of a packed audience at Lancaster House, Theresa May delivered a speech outlining some of the key components of the Brexit deal that she is seeking. As Fraser Nelson dissects in his piece, there was confirmation of the UK’s exit from the single market and customs union, along with other telling hints about her negotiating strategy. Isabel
Today Theresa May revealed her plan for ‘a global Britain’ in a speech at Lancaster House. While her words were well-received by her party and the media, not everyone is so convinced. Step forward Lily Allen. Yes, the pop singer — who last year apologised ‘on behalf of my country’ on a visit to the Calais
Listen to Isabel Hardman, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth reviewing Theresa May’s speech: A little over six months ago, the British people voted for change. They voted to shape a brighter future for our country. They voted to leave the European Union and embrace the world. And they did so with their eyes open:
As Theresa May reveals her plan for Britain in her much-anticipated speech, Philip Hammond has beaten her to the punch at Treasury Questions. The Chancellor has announced that Britain will leave the single market: ‘We will go forward understanding we cannot be members of the single market.’ Hammond also used the session to try and
‘A Global Britain’ promised the slogan behind Theresa May as she delivered her big Brexit speech. It was robust and well-judged, very much in the tone of The Spectator‘s leading article endorsing Brexit – she even used the same ‘Out, and into the world’ language we put on our cover. The referendum, she said, was ‘a vote to restore, as we
At some point a few years ago, after the financial crisis had passed but the economic stats still showed the effects, while wandering down the posh bit of my local high street where all the top-end furniture retailers, Italian delis and estate agents reside, I suddenly got it. I noticed that the ones carrying the
Inflation has risen more than expected and the headline rate is now at its highest level since July 2014. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the Consumer Price Index (CPI) hit an annual rate of 1.6 per cent in December – up from 1.2 per cent the previous month. Economists had predicted
In this week’s Books Podcast, I talk to Lady Antonia Fraser about her new book. Our Israeli Diary, 1978 is a little time capsule: a day-by-day diary she compiled of a fortnight spent with her late husband Harold Pinter visiting Israel nearly four decades ago, and had thought lost until it more or less tumbled
How much will Theresa May’s speech today surprise us? The Prime Minister’s promise to offer more detail on Brexit was made before Christmas, but Number 10 types seemed curiously relaxed about the prep for the speech over the holiday. And even though those briefing the speech over the weekend warned of a ‘market correction’, this
Donald Trump’s Times interview has been a big story in Britain, but the President Elect’s parallel interview with Bild Zeitung (Europe’s largest circulation newspaper) has made an even bigger splash in Germany. Why so? Because Trump’s comments about Germany were a lot more pointed – and specific – than the pro-Brexit platitudes he tossed to
When asked recently by a waiter if I was enjoying my pizza, I replied: ‘It’s great, thanks.’ But I was lying. It tasted no better than a £2 supermarket pizza, and I was further put off by a rather persistent fly hovering above the table. While we’re all good at moaning – a reassuringly British sign
The British people, whose good nature is so frequently abused, could have done with hearing today’s argument from Daniel Hannan during the referendum campaign, could they not? Before he and his band of zealots received authorisation to manage our economic and political future it would have been good manners if they had told us how
The backdrop to Theresa May’s Brexit speech is almost as interesting as the speech itself promises to be. First, there’s the government’s very deliberate decision to make clear—via a Philip Hammond interview in the German press—that Britain will play hardball if it can’t secure a decent deal with the EU. Hammond made clear to Welt
And so there we have it. Shortly after midday in Stormont, Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill declined to nominate a replacement for Martin McGuinness, causing the collapse of the power-sharing executive after five months shy of a decade. At 5pm, authority to hold elections passes, under the Northern Ireland Act 1998, to Secretary of State for
