All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Today’s decision to give the go-ahead for Hinkley C after a six-week review seems to confirm what was indicated in July: that Theresa May’s problem with the project was mostly concerned with security issues. What has been announced today is that the government will take a special share in all future nuclear power projects to
The chances of another Bank of England rate cut today are close to zero after some recent upbeat economic data, although further action is expected later in the year, according to Thisismoney. The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, which announces its latest interest rate decision at midday today, cut the base rate from 0.5 per cent
It’s been a difficult week for Hillary Clinton. Not only was she diagnosed with a bout of pneumonia but she also found herself under fire for labelling half of Donald Trump’s supporters as ‘a basket of deplorables’. Those so-called deplorables are the subject of Christopher Caldwell’s cover piece, in which he argues that Trump’s pandering
In recent months, Derek Hatton has been taking to the airwaves to wax lyrical about Jeremy Corbyn. Although the former deputy leader of Liverpool Council’s request to rejoin the party 29 years after they expelled him was turned down, he remains a supporter of the Corbyn regime. So, with this year’s party conference in his home
You can, I maintain, get the Brits to agree to almost any biomedical advance – I use the word in its neutral sense – no matter how repellent, on the basis that it helps sick kiddies or the infertile. So we now have a situation whereby you can actually create human embryos for the purpose
Remember how it was? Many fans of Westminster still recall with fondness the happy afternoons when the Tories used to greet Ed Miliband at PMQs with a storm of ironic contempt. Nowadays the Labour-shambles is barely worth a half-hearted jeer let alone a burst of orchestrated scoffing. When Corbyn stands up at the despatch box,
Although Alex Salmond is Scotland’s First Minister no more, luckily the public still have a chance to hear the SNP politician’s thoughts on a weekly basis thanks to his LBC phone-in. Today Salmond led the charge for Nicola Sturgeon blocking Brexit: ‘If Scotland could block Brexit, then I think Nicola Sturgeon should do that. I think
‘Oh please not more lies from the LibLabCon BLIAR propaganda machine!’ ‘If the author of this article had read the documents of the Council of Chalcedon in the original Greek, then he might not throw around the word “monophysite” with such casual abandon.’ ‘Only one way to stop the Caliphate capturing every village hall in
Today Jeremy Corbyn used PMQs to go on the attack over Theresa May’s plan to bring back grammar schools — a topic many had hoped he would lead on last week. Better late than never, the Labour leader put in his best performance to date as he used all six questions to take the Prime Minister to
There are not many predictions that are safe to make in the financial markets. M&S’s results will always be disappointing is perhaps one. Sir Philip Green will never apologise for anything is another. And there is one more that can now be added to the list. The Bank of England won’t raise interest rates when
David Cameron is not having the best of weeks and the Foreign Affairs Committee’s highly critical report on his Libya intervention will not improve his mood. When the Chilcot Report came out, Cameron made much of how the National Security Council structure that he had put in place had improved policy making. But the FAC
It is more than half a century since Jessica Mitford published her landmark work of investigative journalism, The American Way of Death. But her exposé of the specific and often nefarious ways the funeral industry had made the average service more expensive remain pertinent today. Back in 1963, Mitford, one of the celebrated aristocratic Mitford sisters, reflected on the mortuary’s talent
Consumers who are forced to have prepayment energy meters put in should face a maximum installation fee of £150, the regulator has proposed. Currently such energy users – already the most vulnerable to debt – face a charge of up to £900, said Ofgem. As many as 4.5 million people use prepayment meters for electricity,
In the aftermath of ‘traingate‘, one of the most striking things about the incident was not that Jeremy Corbyn had a seat despite claims to the contrary, but that the Labour leader and his team kept providing conflicting versions of events. Although Corbyn eventually admitted he had just wanted to sit next to his wife, this was
Yesterday afternoon the government released a new Green Paper which focussed on its initial proposals for expanding the number of high-quality school places throughout both the primary and secondary sectors. This task is particularly urgent given the existence of a demographic bulge currently passing through the primary year groups. The proposed reforms are united by an overarching theme,
The housing crisis is often seen from the perspective of younger homebuyers when the lack of affordable housing is a problem that affects all ages. It’s why the government-backed Older People’s Shared Ownership Scheme (OPSO), specifically designed to help people aged 55 and over, can be such a lifeline for an age group often overlooked
Although David Cameron’s resignation honours were widely criticised for cronyism, it’s fair to say that Jeremy Corbyn’s one appointment to the House of Lords caused just as much upset. The Labour leader was accused of a conflict of interest for giving Shami Chakrabarti a peerage after she chaired his anti-Semitism inquiry. Apparently unfazed by the
We are, of course, a nation committed to celebrating cultural diversity. Except, that is, when a foreigner sits down to tuck into a plate of dog meat. Then, we start to behave like the Taliban, believing that we have the right to dictate standards to the entire world. On Monday, MPs staged a bizarre debate
Given the fragile egos of Theresa May’s three Brexiteers — Boris Johnson, Liam Fox and David Davis — Mr S suspects it’s for the best that none of them were present at today’s press gallery lunch with Nick Clegg. After accusing David Cameron of engaging ‘in a brutal act of one upmanship’ by quitting as the
Jeremy Corbyn has today announced the launch of the Labour Organising Academy, a new body designed to look at methods of turning the party’s newly engorged membership into an effective campaigning body. In the pamphlet he produced, Corbyn observes that ‘Labour is now Europe’s biggest political party’ and that the ‘party’s membership will transform how
Kublai Khan, said Marco Polo, had ‘a more extensive command of treasure than any other sovereign in the universe’. There were no jangling pockets of coins in Kanbalu. Bark had been stripped from the mulberry trees and beaten into paper notes. The notes carried delicate little pictures of earlier currency — long, frayed ropes weighed
This week the Boundaries Commission has released its proposals for new constituencies in England and Wales. Although this is part of a wider effort to reduce the number of MPs in the Commons from 650 to 600, the Labour party feel as though they are being unfairly picked on. While the plans mean George Osborne and
Should it be a crime to hate women? This unfortunate question is thrown up by the news that misogyny might soon become a hate crime across England and Wales. Two months ago, Nottingham Police launched a trial ‘crackdown on sexism’, investigating cases of, among other things, ‘verbal harassment’ and ‘unwanted advances’ towards women. Now top
Throughout the EU referendum campaign, we heard that Brexit would not only sink the UK economy but destroy the Union because Scots were likely to vote Remain. In the event there was a difference at the polls—38 per cent of Scots voted for Brexit, vs 52 per cent in the UK as a whole—but was
The number of fraudulent insurance claims rose to 2,500 a week last year, according to industry figures. In total there were 130,000 fraudulent claims, up 6 per cent on 2014, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) said. Dishonest motor claims remained the most common crime, accounting for over half the total. But fraudulent claims for injury,
The worst men always find themselves in others. If they are instinctive liars, they accuse their opponents of lying. If they mistreat women, they assume all other men do the same. If they are sleazy, over-promoted know-nothings, they see their angry faces in every stranger they meet. On this reading, Liam Fox’s barroom tirades are
My daughter started secondary school on 1 September. She was very excited. I wish I could report that she skipped through the gates on her first day, but this is France, and no child skips through school gates in 2016. Instead she stood in a queue outside the entrance, as one by one she and
When Hacked Off first launched in 2011, Hugh Grant was its lead spokesman — regularly appearing on shows such as Newsnight and Question Time to preach the importance of press regulation. While the Notting Hill actor donated the damages he received from News International over phone hacking to Hacked Off, the group were accused by the Register of being
This competition has now closed. Read Jonathan Ray’s post-competition blog here. I’m hoping you might forgive a little self indulgence with our latest competition. My dear old dad Cyril Ray – formerly assistant editor of this very magazine (in the days of Inglis, Levin and Whitehorn) and twenty times the writer about drink (or indeed anything
‘I don’t think we are a charity. We are a successful, multi-national educational institution,’ explained the public school head to me. And he was right. As it happens, he was a highly progressive head committed to using the wealth and resource he enjoyed to collaborate with an under-performing local academy. For the first time, their
Is David Cameron trying to trash his own reputation? First came the worst resignation honours list for decades, which seemed designed to confirm everyone’s worst fears about his chumocracy. And today, he has handed a gift to those who denounced him as a career politician, someone with no sense of public service, whose interest in
The French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, has announced that the French police and intelligence services have identified 15,000 people across France who are either ‘radicalised’ or in the process of becoming radical. In response to this Nicolas Sarkozy (who is of course in campaigning mode) has given an interview to Journal du Dimanche in which
David Cameron chose a rather blustery Oxfordshire afternoon to announce that he was stepping down as MP for Witney with ‘immediate effect’. Cameron had previously suggested that he would stay on in Parliament, telling the BBC it was ‘very much [his] intention’ to continue as an MP. Pundits have linked Cameron’s surprise u-turn to Theresa
Is Theresa May planning an epic battle with some of her own MPs to introduce new grammar schools in England? When Justine Greening gave her statement in the Commons this afternoon, she repeated many of the Prime Minister’s own lines about selection already existing through house prices and so on. But her language was much