All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
On Monday night I took part in a discussion on free speech in London for the think-tank Policy Exchange. The other speakers were ‘feminist comedienne’ Kate Smurthwaite, a student called Kitty Parker Brooks and the wonderful Munira Mirza. Jess Phillips MP failed to show up, which was a shame because I wanted to decide for
Ministers are today publishing a document that is already being rubbished as a ‘dodgy dossier’ about the options for Brexit. The report, which comes out later, concludes, funnily enough, that all of the alternatives to EU membership would leave Britain ‘weaker, less safe and worse off’ and that ‘no alternative model guarantees that British businesses
After Super Tuesday, Donald Trump is the clear favourite to be the Republican candidate in the US presidential election. As naysayers go into panic mode over the possibility of President Trump, an unlikely ally has come to Trump’s aid. Step forward Piers Morgan. The former Mirror editor waxed lyrical about the presidential hopeful on the
Today, I have joined 70 doctors and academics in writing to the government calling for a ban on tackling in rugby matches, saying that injuries from this ‘high-impact collision sport’ can have lifelong consequences for children. I speak from both professional and personal experience. I remember as if it were yesterday, that autumn afternoon 11 years ago when my
Under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour party has been rather quiet when it comes to fighting for Britain to remain in the EU. Happily, Chris Bryant got the chance to put the pro-EU argument forward at last night’s Great Brexit debate, organised by the University of London Brexit Society. Sitting on a panel alongside SNP MP Stephen Gethins,
Donald Trump said in his Super Tuesday victory remarks that he had watched Hillary Clinton’s speech before coming on. He confessed that he didn’t quite get it. “Making America great again,” his campaign slogan, is going to be much better than ‘making America whole again,'” whatever that is, he said. He had some kind words
Welcome to the Spectator Super Tuesday live blog. Jeremy Lott, Mat Vaillancourt and the Spectator’s Freddy Gray will be providing updates through the evening. 05.03 FG: Trump squeaks it in Vermont. Seven out of 10, with Alaska still to come. 04.37 FG: Bernie Sanders’s night is getting better as it goes on. He’s won four
It is recognised that the era of television has made it well-nigh impossible in Britain and the United States for a balding leader to win an election if pitted against one with more hair — Callaghan/Foot/Kinnock v. Thatcher, George H.W. Bush v. Clinton, Hague/Howard v. Blair, McCain v. Obama. (The only exceptions I can think
It was perhaps rather optimistic to hope that the row over Eurosceptic ministers being banned from seeing official papers in the lead-up to the EU referendum would be cleared up in one select committee session alone. But Sir Jeremy Heywood’s appearance in front of MPs did manage to demystify some of the confusion over what
Sir Jeremy Heywood is currently insisting to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs select committee that there is absolutely nothing untoward about his guidance to civil servants about withholding documents that have a bearing on the EU referendum from ministers. ‘I’m really struggling to see what the problem is here,’ he has just argued to
John Bercow hit out at Greg Hands for his ‘long-winded, boring and unnecessary’ answer in the Commons: Ken Livingstone said that his history of rebellions, as well as those rebellions orchestrated by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, proved they were right: The former London mayor also said Labour was ‘completely out of kilter with the
Whenever I return to England from my home in France I am struck at once by the number of grossly fat people of beached-whale proportions, by the almost militant vulgarity of much of the population, and by the shabbiness of the infrastructure. This suggests to me that our deeper problems are unrelated to our membership
Punch and Judy politics is clearly the mood of the moment in the House of Commons. Last week, David Cameron offered Corbyn some motherly advice on his dress sense, while a Tory MP heckled Jeremy Corbyn by yelling ‘who are you?’ during an EU debate. This morning, it was Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell’s turn to be
As expected, there was one topic which dominated Treasury Questions today and that was the EU. The Chancellor did his best to hold his nerve as he faced strong opposition — in the shape of MPs in his own party. It’s a rare occasion when George Osborne is able to find more support in the Labour benches than
The worldwide Uber debate is quite helpful in that it forces politicians to answer a simple question: are you for the people, or the vested interests? Sadiq Khan, the Labour candidate for Mayor, declared his hand today in an LBC phone-in. Challenged by a (Scottish) black cab driver about his views on Uber, he said:
With the exception of Gordon Brown – and he was always so dour it was impossible to tell what he was thinking – there hasn’t been a Prime Minister in living memory who has actually enjoyed coming to Scotland. Margaret Thatcher became spiky and aggressive when she crossed the border – well, more spiky and
Jeremy Corbyn left Labour MPs angry last night after he ducked out of answering questions at a meeting of the PLP in order to appear on ITV’s The Agenda. So, with members of his own party turning against him once again, the Labour leader decided it was an opportune time to revisit another old feud —
As a general rule politicians should spend less time saying things they do not really believe. However useful such a strategy may be in the short-term it will, sure as eggs be eggs, backfire on you eventually. But there are also occasions when it is a mistake to talk about the things in which you really
Britain’s membership of the European Union is a matter of principle and emotion for most Tory MPs. But it is also a matter of party management. David Cameron would have had an easier time as Prime Minister in the last parliament had he realised that while Conservatives will always want to bang on about Europe,
We’ve been warned that Brexit could spell the end of cheap travel. But is it really true that Britain voting out of Europe would hit holidaymakers in the pocket? Easyjet’s boss Dame Carolyn McCall said before that Brexit ‘wouldn’t be good for Britain’. And in a company prospectus, the airline warned this year that if
Jeremy Corbyn’s much-awaited appearance at the weekly meeting of the parliamentary Labour party didn’t go particularly well this evening, which means that for the group of increasingly determined MPs trying to oust him, it was a hugely successful session. MPs were reminded that the meeting is off the record at the start, before being given
Angela Merkel gave a defiant interview last night in which she defended her handling of the refugee crisis. She declared, ‘I have no Plan B’—worryingly, I suspect this is true. But how much worse the refugee crisis could become worse is made clear in leaked minutes of a meeting between the President of Turkey Recep
Even if there has been no mistake at all in the guidance to civil servants about what documents they can share with pro-Brexit ministers during the referendum campaign, the government has clearly made a number of mistakes at least in the presentation of that guidance, as this afternoon’s urgent question in the Commons showed. The
Although the Tories currently find their party divided over Europe, they can at least take heart that the opposition face greater internal conflict. In fact, rather than attack Matthew Hancock in the Commons today over the Cabinet’s Brexit issues, Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson opted to make a joke about his own party’s misery: ‘Mr Speaker sadly I am not in the strongest
After months of playing nice, Marco Rubio has finally turned on his Republican candidate rival Donald Trump. After criticising Trump for his approach to business during the CNN debate, Rubio has now gone one step further and gone after his manhood. Speaking to his supporters at a rally, the Florida senator appeared to take aim at the size
Boris Johnson said he wanted to see ‘total transparency’ ahead of the EU referendum. He referred to this as a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ chance to get it right: Owen Paterson laid into ‘Project Fear’ – suggesting that by the time it got to June, ‘dragons coming out of the Thames’ and ‘serpents coming out of our taps’
Given that one of the major findings of the Beckett report into Labour’s general election loss was that the party were not trusted with the economy, it’s safe to say that John McDonnell has his work cut out when it comes to winning back voters on this issue. So, the latest individual to be appointed as
I’m planning to propose to my boyfriend this leap year. I’m proposing that he earns another £10,000 and loses a stone. But marriage? Hell, no. I don’t know why, in the age of equality, society still endorses women going down on bended knee on one solitary day every four years. The internet blames it on
During the Scottish independence referendum, the SNP claimed that Scotland’s oil revenues for 2016-17 would be somewhere in the region of £7.9 billion. However, since then the oil price has plummeted meaning the revenues will likely be just a fraction of their estimate. So, now would be an opportune time for the SNP to show that despite
The one thing quieter than the quiet Commons at the moment is the Labour leadership. Even when Jeremy Corbyn speaks in the Chamber, he makes so little impact that trees falling in empty forests have excited more attention. Last Monday during his response to David Cameron’s European Council statement, Labour backbenchers nattered amongst themselves in
If the parliamentary diary for this week is anything to go by, the next few days are going to be very quiet in Westminster. There is hardly any legislation in the Commons, save for the exciting and largely pointless circus of Private Members’ Bills on Friday, and a series of votes on estimates – public
With the Sunday papers filled with stories suggesting David Cameron’s party is in turmoil over the EU, Sky’s Dermot Murnaghan decided to raise the issue with Anna Soubry during an appearance on his show. Alas he got more than he bargained for when the Minister for Small Business — who is known not to mince her words — proceeded to
I’m one of those sad folk who rather likes airline food. On those rare occasions I get to turn left, of course, never when I get to turn right. Don’t be daft. And now that they are finally taking it seriously, I rather like airline wine. Food and drink might only be ninth or tenth
Q. What does méthode traditionelle mean on a wine label? It is the process (sometimes known as Méthode Champenoise) by which champagne and other top-quality sparkling wines are made, the bubbles being caused by a secondary fermentation in bottle. It distinguishes such wines from those sparklers such as Prosecco made by other cheaper methods. Q. It’s