All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Cameron hi-jacked today’s PMQs with a show of calculated brutality masked as high dudgeon. Feeble, whey-haired Corbyn obeyed the commands of his unwanted passenger and meekly drove him wherever he wished to go. Cameron’s destination was ‘extremist Labour’. Corbyn strives constantly to outdo himself in uselessness and today’s rambling, ill-structured assault was typical. Early on
After Prime Minister’s Questions turned into ‘Questions for the Leader of the Opposition’, David Cameron did at least face some scrutiny today in the form of the Liaison Committee. Summoned before its chair Andrew Tyrie to answer questions on the EU referendum, it was clear that Cameron would rather not be there — having tried to get
Tuesday’s protest against Key Stage 1 Sats was moronic on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to start. For one thing, it wasn’t a ‘kids’ strike’. Did a national committee of six- and seven-year-olds get together and decide on a day of action? Even in Brighton, the centre of the boycott, that
Zac Goldsmith spent almost every day out on the stump during his London mayoral campaign dressed in the formal dark suit he inherited from his father, and had recut on his death in 1997. At least that is what a member of his team told me as I was out observing proceedings one day. I
This morning, Ted Cruz bowed out of the race. Now, John Kasich has given up. As a result Donald J. Trump, the most grotesque candidate ever to have run for the Oval Office, is now the only candidate still running for the Republican Party’s nomination. And so the most powerful country on earth, a nation teeming with talent,
It was gloves off time at PMQs today. With elections taking place across the UK tomorrow, David Cameron went for Jeremy Corbyn repeatedly. He kept attacking Corbyn for having referred to Hezbollah and Hamas as ‘friends’ and called on him to withdraw the remark. He argued that Sadiq Khan’s willingness to share platforms with extremists
As Labour’s anti-Semitism storm continues to dominate PMQs, it’s almost too easy to forget that the Tories are dealing with a big problem of their own. Today electoral watchdogs are meeting with police to ask for more time to decide whether to launch possible criminal investigations into Conservative campaign spending in the general election. Following
Why is the government preparing for a U-turn on accepting more unaccompanied child refugees? George Osborne was speaking this morning on television about the ‘discussions’ that the government is having on this matter, which underlined that ministers are indeed going to announce concessions before MPs force them into accepting the Lord Dubs amendment to the
Many years ago, sometime in the last century (how worldly I feel writing that!) I was at the launch party for the dear dead Modern Review mark II and feeling mildly appalled by the whole flimsy thing when a young man introduced himself to me as Nick Cohen and told me he’d be writing for
Are women sleepwalking into a retirement nightmare? That’s the suggestion behind new research published by investment group Fidelity. It revealed that while women’s average retirement income is likely to be around £5,000 less than men, almost twice as many women have no idea about their pension pot or its payout. It’s not the first time
This Sunday marks the debut of Robert Peston’s new ITV politics show. Peston on Sunday is set out to rival the BBC’s politics shows — such as the Andrew Marr Show, Daily Politics and Newsnight — as the channel try to win back ground with its politics coverage. However, before Peston’s former BBC colleagues break a sweat over their
Yesterday we reported that the ‘bank of mum and dad’ is now the equivalent of a top ten mortgage lender in the UK. Today comes the news that one of Britain’s biggest lenders has launched a new ‘bank of mum and dad‘ deal for people with wealthy parents. The new mortgages from Barclays have reduced the deposit homebuyers
Farewell then Ted Cruz, who has now accepted the inevitable and suspended his candidacy for the Republican Party Nomination. Cruz ran a brilliant campaign but was endlessly undermined by his own unattractiveness as a human being. It wasn’t just his looks, and his unfortunate physical awkwardness. He came across as a duplicitous evangelical preacher, despised by everyone
Donald Trump’s victory in Indiana means he’s now all but certain to be the Republican nominee. It’s a moment that many thought just couldn’t happen. As journalists, we’ve spent months writing off the Donald and ruminating on why his latest ‘gaffe’ will spell the end – he has said he wants to build a wall
Tomorrow is D-day for the London mayoral hopefuls. After months of mud-slinging between Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan’s teams over the Labour candidate’s links to extremists, Goldsmith’s campaign has been branded ‘racist’ by certain Labour politicians. However despite these allegations, the Tory candidate has also been the provider of some of the biggest laughs of the campaign. Although it is rarely
Christ help us – Corbyn or Hodge! I think, given the choice, I’m pretty firmly with Jezza. One deranged bien-pensant half of Islington versus the other. At least Corbyn isn’t smug. It’s one of the few things you can say in his favour. Re the anti-Semitism. There are a number of broad points to make.
The world now has two famous managers called Ranieri. One is Lew Ranieri, the corpulent monster of Salomon Brothers’ 1980s New York trading floor. Thanks to Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker, that Ranieri is forever associated with ‘Food Frenzy Fridays’ — vast pig-outs of Mexican and Italian takeaway — and the observation by a fellow trader
It’s less than 48 hours until the polls open for the local elections and following last week’s anti-Semitism media-storm, Corbyn needs all the friends he can get if he hopes to keep voters onside. Alas, some friends are more helpful than others. As Labour try and show that they do not condone anti-Semitism, Corbyn has
Our political culture contains some tension between Jews and Muslims. And some secular anti-Semitism, particularly on the left, and some Islamophobia. But, at the risk of getting Pollyannaish, let us see the positive. This country’s main religious culture, Christianity, is not involved in any of this nastiness. It does not contain any substantial prejudice against Muslims or
Today thousands of children are taking part in a ‘kids strike’ so as to avoid taking their Sats. The strike action comes following concerns from parents that Sats are putting too much pressure on young children and making them overly-stressed and anxious. With Nick Gibb claiming it is wrong for parents to let their young
A sneak preview from the ‘Barometer’ column of facts and figures in the next Spectator, out on Thursday… Other remarkable things about Leicester: 28% of the population is made up of ‘Asians’ or ‘British Asians’, higher than any other district in England and Wales. Leicester has the highest percentage of residents born in India and
Tell me something. When you watch the above video of Justin Trudeau, does it warm your heart? Do you think it funny and therefore good? Do you say to yourself, ‘Aww, isn’t it great that our politicians don’t take themselves too seriously? It’s all in a good cause, too, bless!’ Or do you cringe and
Jeremy Corbyn’s critics may well be setting the Labour leader impossible challenges by demanding that the party wins 400 seats in this week’s local elections. But Corbyn himself isn’t exactly making things easier either, telling reporters today that his party won’t lose seats on Thursday. Independent experts such as Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher are
So now we know: the right and the respectable left are just as good at PC purges as potty, radical students are. In fact they’re better. The effective exiling of Ken Livingstone from polite society; yesterday’s almost hourly toppling of Labour councillors who once tweeted or Facebooked something ugly about Israel; the scouring of social
[audioplayer src=”http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/262486539-the-spectator-podcast-erdogans-europe.mp3″ title=”Roger Alton and Nick Hilton discuss Leicester’s title win” startat=1063] Listen [/audioplayer] Jean-Philippe Toussaint, in his recent book Football, observes that the sport is ‘measured and appreciated’ in the imagination. Toussaint, an intellectually fanatical supporter of the Belgian national team, is used to failure. Indeed, he is an acolyte of the view that football support is
Trailing in the polls with three days to go until the London mayoral elections, Zac Goldsmith continues to attack his rival Sadiq Khan by accusing him of having links with extremists. It is a pretty desperate strategy, reduced to making the charge that Khan has ‘shared a platform’ with extremists. It is also somewhat undermined
When the baby-boomer generation bought their first homes they were typically in their twenties, took out a 25-year loan, and fully expected to be mortgage-free long before they hit the big Six-Oh. Bring on the cruises and the two-seater sports cars. With an empty nest, no debts to speak of and a final salary pension, life
Today’s Indiana primary is Ted Cruz’s last chance of disrupting Donald Trump in his bid to wrap up the Republican nomination. Cruz knows that if Trump wins, barring what will be seen as a Republican coup, his rival will be facing off against Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House. Whilst the results
If you’re a parent then today’s housing news may come as little surprise: the ‘bank of mum and dad’ is now the equivalent of a top ten mortgage lender in the UK. Research by Legal & General and the Centre for Economics and Business Research has found that parents helping their children on to the property
There have been moments in the EU referendum campaign when it has almost seemed as though Stuart Rose is working for the Out campaign. Despite being the chair of Britain Stronger in Europe, the retail supremo managed to forget the name of his own campaign group four times in an interview. He also scored an own goal when
In his new book God is No Thing: Coherent Christianity, Rupert Shortt notes that religion is in some ways taken more seriously now than a decade or two ago. But huge habits of ignorance and condescension remain: ‘When secular humanists attack Christianity, they often fail to realise that it is the gospels which provide unseen
Note from the editor. The Spectator has been informed that, due to an EU Court ruling, the below article will now longer show up under Google search results. Here’s the rather creepy email:- So someone, somewhere, doesn’t want this article to show up when you Google for a certain name, or company, or somesuch. We had received no complaint
A few weeks ago, the Sunday Times had an amusing story by the estimable Tim Shipman about Nicholas Soames MP having lost weight – thanks (it was rumoured) to a new gastric band. All very jolly, but it seems to have sent Soames into a fury. He’s no fan of press freedom (he was one of
Oh woe. Investment bank profits are evaporating after a disastrous contraction of trading revenues reflecting zero-to-negative interest rates, weak commodity prices and worries about China and other emerging markets. Not to mention the stagnant eurozone, the possibility of Brexit, increased capital requirements (which will rise further for banks that must ‘ringfence’ their trading operations) and
