All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Once upon a time, ITV was the darling of the Corbynistas. In fact, it was Mr S who disclosed that Seumas Milne — Corbyn’s director of communications — had been overheard discussing the pros of the broadcaster over the Beeb, back in January. Alas, things have since taken a turn for the worse. The problem?
It’s all fixed! Julian Assange, Infowars, Russia Today, millions of Internet users, and even Trump himself are convinced that ‘the powers that be’ will ensure Hillary is the next US president. The globalists will cheat democracy to maintain the status quo. Obviously. Or as Assange put it, Trump ‘won’t be allowed to win’. But what
Whichever unappealing candidate wins the US Presidential election next week, one thing seems to be pretty certain: they are almost certainly going to be one-term presidents. If he’s elected, ‘the Donald’ will be a 74-year-old incumbent come 2020, so even if he turns out to be a much more effective president than most would predict at this juncture,
Staring at a brown envelope, my husband said: ‘I’ll deal with that post-breakfast,’ and then laughed as though he had made a joke. In his mind it was a play on words, the unspoken words being post-Brexit. It is true that no one is safe from that phrase these days. As a compound adjective, it’s
Can you be a Disney princess and the feminist messiah? I wondered this earlier this week, upon seeing new images released for the new Beauty and the Beast film. It stars She Almighty – Emma Watson – the woman who hates female subjugation, gender stereotypes and all-round sexism, yet will be in a franchise that romanticises
In September, Marine Le Pen travelled to Brachay, a microscopic right-wing commune in northeastern France. Despite its diminutive size, this French locality has the greatest percentage of Front National voters – 72 per cent – so its politicians consider it emblematic. With her raucous gusto, produced thanks to decades of smoking, Le Pen regaled the local, mainly
The 17.4 million who voted for Britain to leave the European Union were giving advice, rather than an instruction, to Parliament. This ought not to be a controversial point. David Cameron chose to hold a consultative rather than a legally binding referendum – and was able to do this because it would be unthinkable for parliament to
‘I don’t actually feel attracted to robots.’ Presidential candidates have to deny all kinds of things, but only Zoltan Istvan would be compelled to clarify that he’s not interested in sleeping with robots. As the Transhumanist Party’s contender, he’s unsurprisingly enthusiastic about some pretty far-out ideas involving the crossover between people and machines. He even
What worries government ministers, as I say in The Sun this morning, is not the actual vote on the Article 50 bill—voting against the bill as whole would be akin to rejecting the referendum result—but attempts to tie Theresa May’s hands ahead of the negotiation through amendments to the bill. One senior Cabinet Minister tells
For the latest competition you were invited to compose odes on a Grayson Perry urn. Jonathan Jones memorably described being in a roomful of Grayson Perry’s pots as ‘like being trapped in a room full of trendy folk talking bollocks’. Frank McDonald obviously agrees with this assessment. His ode begins: ‘Do Grayson Perry urns deserve
For Mark Carney to have returned to-Canada after five years as Governor, as he originally planned, rather than serving until 2021, might by now have looked like a win for his critics — so adding an extra year, up to the end of Brexit talks in 2019, is a sidestep worthy of Strictly. Meanwhile, I
For one in seven people alive today, Facebook is their window on the world. More than one billion of them log onto the social network on their mobiles each and every day. Facebook knows their hopes, dreams, secrets and fears. It knows who their friends and family are and what they look like. It knows
Forget your state-by-state polling; your analysis of the voting preferences of suburban mothers in Pennsylvania; never mind your understanding of America’s shifting demographics; your breakdowns of the Latino vote in swing states, or your perception of America’s anger issues. This election, like most elections, will be decided by personality. We all know that Donald Trump
As a general rule, any day the government loses in court is a good day. So yesterday was an especially fine day. A delicious one, too, obviously, in as much as the fist-clenched, foot-stamping, whining of so many Brexiteers was so overblown and ludicrous it toppled into hilarity. People who shouted for months about the urgent
Stephen Phillips is resigning as a Tory MP in protest at the government’s reluctance to engage with Parliament over Brexit. Phillips, a lawyer by profession, voted Out in the referendum. But he has repeatedly argued that parliamentary sovereignty means that the executive must come to parliament before triggering Article 50 and consult with parliament over
We’re four days away from the presidential election, and America’s evangelical Christian leaders are still supporting a thrice-married man who boasts of grabbing women’s genitals. Meanwhile, it looks as if most Catholics will be voting to keep Donald Trump out of the White House. This grotesque election has split the evangelical-Catholic alliance that claimed the credit
Rents across the UK are set to rise considerably faster than house prices over the next five years, according to property agents Savills. It forecast that rents will go up by 19 per cent between now and 2021, while house prices will only rise by 13 per cent, the BBC reports. The gap will be
Britain’s newspapers aren’t happy at yesterday’s High Court ruling that the government cannot trigger Article 50 without the say-so of Parliament. And the news isn’t going down well in Europe either. There are fears that a Brexit hold-up could have ramifications on the continent. In the days after the referendum, European leaders were quick to call for a speedy Brexit.
After nearly a year of bickering and stalling, Spanish politicians have finally formed their country’s new government. Mariano Rajoy, leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), returns for a second term as prime minister. This time, Rajoy heads up a coalition made up of the PP, centrist newcomer Ciudadanos (‘Citizens’) and the centre-right Canary Islands Coalition.
The High Court’s ruling that Parliament should have the final say on pulling the Article 50 trigger has not gone down well in today’s papers. ‘Enemies of the people’ screams the front page of the Daily Mail alongside a picture of the judges who made yesterday’s decision. If its headline didn’t make its view clear
Things are looking up for George Osborne. Not only have bookies slashed his odds of making a political comeback, the former Chancellor is adapting nicely to life on the backbench. According to the latest register of interests, Osborne has managed to trouser almost £100,000 from giving just three speeches across the pond. So, what did
This speech by John Hayes, the transport minister, was first delivered on October 31 Politicians speak a lot and sometimes they speak sense. Too rarely they challenge orthodox assumptions and more rarely still take action to turn back tides. This evening I will challenge an orthodoxy, and give notice to the determinist doubters and defenders of the
Given the number of people Theresa May managed to offend at last night’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards, the Prime Minister’s decision to accept her gong from George Osborne wearing the former chancellor’s hard hat and high-vis jacket was pretty low-ranking. Nevertheless not one to be easily outdone, George Osborne has hit back today. The MP
Glamour magazine has announced its annual women of the year awards, and, this year, they’re naming a man of the year too. Paul Hewson – or as we know him, the prat in glasses, or, Bono – has been given the award for being one of the ‘most outspoken advocates for women and girls’. Glamour
It is such bad luck for Mrs Clinton that her last-minute troubles have come upon her because of the curious 21st-century men’s habit of sending pictures of their genitals to people via social media (‘Dickileaks’, is what the New York Post calls the scandal). If only Anthony Weiner, ex-congressman and recently estranged husband of Mrs
This week, national treasure David Attenborough joined the post-Brexit pile-on of the plebs. Should the little people really be trusted to make decisions about complicated matters like the EU, he asked? You know the answer: of course we shouldn’t. We’re too dim. We don’t have as many degrees as him. The point of parliamentary democracy, he
Is there anything more absurd than hearing a bunch of Remainers claiming that they have achieved a great victory for Parliamentary democracy in today’s High Court ruling that Parliament should vote on the exercise of Article 50, beginning Britain’s exit from the EU? Parliament voted for a referendum, in which the British people voted to
The currency has been devalued by more than 30 per cent. Interest rates have been pushed all the way up to 20 per cent. The IMF is standing by with an emergency package, and capital controls and dollar rationing have been maintained. It has been a heck of a morning for the pound – although,
On this week’s podcast, we discuss the fraught relationship between Mark Carney and Theresa May, the similarities between the sieges in Mosul and Aleppo, and why we all have to wait so long at the airport. First up, this week saw Bank of England Governor Mark Carney announce that he would be stepping down from
It’s about time. The city watchdog has announced it will take action to improve competition in the current account market. Let’s face it, current accounts are a bit rubbish, aren’t they? Many offer 0 per cent interest no matter the balance, overdraft charges can be extortionate, late payment fees are astronomical and, despite years of
This year’s Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year awards, sponsored by Benenden, saw Theresa May reunited with her former Cabinet colleague George Osborne — and Boris Johnson declare that Brexit will be a Titanic success. Here are a selection of photos from the event, courtesy of Alan Davidson:
The government has lost the High Court Article 50 case. The court has ruled that Article 50, the formal two-year process for leaving the EU, can’t be invoked without parliamentary approval. The government will appeal to the supreme court. If parliament does get a vote on Article 50, I doubt that it would vote it
A decision by the competition regulator not to recommend a cap on excessive overdraft charges could be re-examined, the Financial Conduct Authority says. In its report on bank accounts published in August, the Competition and Markets Authority decided against a cap on charges. The BBC reports that the FCA has now announced that it is
I am honoured to be invited to present these awards. Thank you very much for taking me out of my unemployment. When I read the Spectator front cover on the eve of the referendum, I thought it was advice on how to vote: ‘Out – and into the world’. But it turned out to be