All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Jonathan Ray visits the oldest rum distillery in the world and gets his hands dirty blending My travels round the Caribbean wouldn’t be complete without a trip to Mount Gay, the longest-established rum brand in the world. The oldest surviving deed from the company shows that it was in operation as early as 1703 and
In Grenada, Jonathan Ray attempts to extend his life by eating plenty of dark chocolate. I’m in the House of Chocolate mini museum in St. George’s, Grenada, and Kindra, my guide, is giving me a brief chocolate master class. Not only do I learn all about its production, I stuff my face with as much
Winston Churchill said the inherent vice of capitalism is its unequal share of blessings. Today, the ever-widening chasm of inequality is contributing to a potential tide of political shocks across the West. But it is not all doom and gloom. A rapidly increasing number of individuals are attempting to redress inequalities by using their money
Here we go again. First Steven Woolfe quit Ukip following a row with his MEP colleagues and now it is the turn of Diane James, the former party leader. James has released a statement announcing that she will sit in the European Parliament as an independent — adding by way of explanation that her relationship with
Discovering my sons’ school had invited back former pupil Milo Yiannopoulos as a guest speaker was the highlight of an otherwise terrible parents’ evening. I chatted with the Head of School about the teenage Milo and whether there had been any clues as to his future transformation into a darling of the alt-right and anti-hero
So, Angela Merkel has ignored the Spectator’s advice and has decided to run for a fourth term as German Chancellor in next year’s federal elections. If she wins and serves a full term, she’ll overtake Helmut Kohl as the longest serving German Chancellor since Bismarck. What does Merkel’s bid for four more years mean for
Corporation Tax The Prime Minister will today pledge to match the lowest corporation tax rates within the G20 — even if that means sinking to President-elect Trump’s 15 percent, says The Times. At her conference speech, Theresa May seemed to signal that she would be cracking down on big business which saw tax as ‘an
And once more the polls have got it wrong. For months French pollsters confidently predicted that the first round of voting to find the centre-right candidate to represent Les Républicains in next year’s presidential election was a straight shootout between Nicolas Sarkozy and Alain Juppé. The other five contenders? There to make up the numbers
Today Theresa May used her speech at the CBI annual conference to both reassure and inspire business leaders about Brexit Britain. In doing this, she also managed to upset a number of Brexiteers by suggesting — in the Q&A — that the government could pursue a ‘transitional deal’ with the EU as ‘people don’t want a
So farewell, then, Nicolas Sarkozy. After winning just 21pc of the votes in the primary to decide the conservative candidate (and, most likely, the next French president) he has bowed in favour of François Fillon, his 62-year-old former Prime Minister, who had an unexpectedly good campaign. Just a month ago, Fillon was languishing on less
Today the Confederation of British Industry hosts its annual conference. Last year, David Cameron gave a speech to attendees and this year it’s Theresa May’s turn. Alas signs so far suggest it won’t be all smooth-sailing for the Prime Minister. While CBI president Paul Drechsler is expected to use his speech to urge May to ensure
You already know that Coffee House serves up the best analysis, comment and insight into the day’s political events. Why wait for tomorrow’s papers when the best writing is already up online? But our emails – Lunchtime Espresso and Evening Blend – mean you don’t even have to wait until you can log on to
There were two items on BBC radio this morning which rather summed up the Corporation thinking about the State of the World. One was a brief but telling discussion on the Broadcasting House programme as to whether our political discussion now is getting to the point where we can’t actually air differences at all; that,
Oh dear. Today James McGrory of Open Britain appeared on Sunday Politics to explain why exactly the group are campaigning for Britain to remain a member of the single market when we leave the EU. As part of their efforts, the think tank has circulated a video which appears to show many Leave campaigners advocating staying in
This morning’s Marr show was something of a financial matter, with the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell sharing the sofa. As Andrew Marr pointed out, having the pair of Chancellors share a sofa is a ‘great tradition’, but one that had a stop put to it when George Osborne was in charge.
When turbaned warriors from Daesh (or Isis) advanced on Raqqa in Syria two years ago, they whooped wildly about having ‘broken the Sykes-Picot Agreement’. They were celebrating the destruction of national frontiers which had stood for nearly a century, since the fall of the Ottoman empire in 1918. They were also venting their spleen against
At least two former Spectator figures understood things about the recent American contest which eluded most commentators. The first is our former proprietor, Conrad Black. Disagreeing with the anti-Trump conservative National Review, for which he writes, Conrad filed a powerful piece at the time of Trump’s nomination: ‘What the world has witnessed, but has not
It’s rare for me to celebrate anyone’s financial misfortune, but if Leonard Cohen had not lost $5 million of his retirement savings due to alleged fiddling by his former manager, he might not have re-embarked on recording and touring in his seventies, and we would have heard much less of that uniquely stirring voice in
Michael Gove makes a semi-persuasive case for patriotism in The Times this week. Brexit and Trumpism are largely just assertions of the basic, healthy human impulse to love one’s homeland, and to defy the international structures, and liberal sneering, that denigrate this impulse. The reality is that the moral status of patriotism depends on which nation
Normally, the Saturday before an autumn statement would be dominated by speculation about what is in it. But, as I say in The Sun today, both Number 10 and the Treasury are emphasising that while there’ll be important things on productivity, infrastructure and fiscal rules in Wednesday’s statement, there’ll be no rabbits out of hats.
This time around you were invited to supply resignation letters from God. Despite mankind’s attempts to kill Him off, God continues to bounce back. ‘The Almighty,’ as Terry Eagleton puts it in his book Culture and the Death of God, ‘has proved remarkably difficult to dispose of.’ But what if He decided one day that
There are plenty of theories about how Donald Trump pulled off his shock victory. But however he did manage to achieve one of the unlikeliest political upsets in history, one thing seems clear: social media won the day for the Donald. The starting gun was fired when Hillary Clinton called Trump’s supporters a ‘basket of
Sunday brunch at Hugo’s, a bustling Mexican restaurant with a mariachi band and a multi-ethnic clientele: at the next table, a big Latino family with a happy baby in a high chair. This is a true picture of Houston: only a third of its citizens are white, and only 22 per cent of under-20s; the
“Is she really going out with him?’ asks the old Joe Jackson song about a mixed-attractiveness couple. ‘They say that looks don’t count for much — there goes your proof.’ High society used to abound with couples in which the woman was far more beautiful than the man. But while we can still point to
In Northern Ireland recently, I sought out the Mass times of the local Church of the Immaculate Conception. Its website duly listed them, but I was surprised to find roughly half its web-page filled with a picture of a young woman’s all-but-naked torso and the invitation to click for more ‘Diva pics and videos’. I
Labour tasted victory today in the Commons. MPs voted 253 to 37 in favour of Pat Glass’s private member’s bill to stop the government reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600, as part of the boundary change review. The bill will now face a second vote, where the Tories are confident they can thwart it.
For all the top jobs being dished out by Donald Trump, there’s one figure close to the president-elect that worries me more than the others. Steve Bannon’s appointment as Chief Strategist might have fired up the Twitter mob, but it’s the elevation of Jared Kushner as Trump’s unofficial chief consigliere which seems most troubling of
Today’s warning from every former Health Secretary from the past 20 years about inadequate mental health provision raises a number of questions. The first is whether the government really is serious about its pledge to make parity of esteem between physical and mental health a priority. Mental health has become more of a political issue
However tempting it would be to think otherwise, I don’t think we will be seeing ‘JS’ on Earth again. She is the 14 year old girl who died of cancer and whose mother has won in the high court the right to have her body cryogenically-preserved in the US – against the wishes of her
Oh dear. With Stepford students on a mission to make every university a safe space, there has been a clear shift in recent years when it comes to what can be classed offensive. Earlier this year Mr S reported how students in London were on a mission to ban free-speech societies. Now they have a new
Here are some statistics you’re unlikely to hear on Thought for the Day. Churchgoers in America backed Trump by 56 to 42 per cent – while six out of ten British Christians backed Brexit. Now, clearly these aren’t identical constituencies: I didn’t spot much enthusiasm for the US president-elect among Christian Leave voters. But we can spot one
Many women still suffer from a touch of the Cinderella complex. These days, few want men to sweep up the bills as well as sweeping them off their feet. But many women implicitly expect to rely on their men’s private pensions in retirement. ‘My husband is good with money. I leave that stuff up to him’,
One and a half million households, many of them poor families or pensioners, are not on the correct energy tariff for their consumption says the Daily Mail’s This Is Money. The big six power giants – British Gas, EDF, Eon, Npower, Scottish Power and SSE – are overcharging by a net amount of £440 million
Bob Dylan called it pretty much right. When he sang ‘your old road is rapidly ageing’ he was calling time on an old order that went on to die in 1968. The events of that year ushered in a liberal order, revolutionising social norms, which lasted until Thatcher and Reagan in 1980. The conservative era then