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David Cameron is now having to face questions on what he would do if, as looks far more likely than he would have liked at this stage, Britain votes to leave the European Union. As James predicted in his cover piece this week, Cameron will have to row back on predictions that he made about
Denmark has been basking in a glorious June heatwave this past week, hastening the annual migration cycle. ‘Summer Danes’ are a delicate subgenus of the species. We roam the planet’s warmer regions every year between September and May, absenting ourselves from Nordic noir winters. But mercury rising brings us home; and last week was the
Barely a week goes by without the Guardian declaring war on a seemingly harmless food type. According to the paper tea-drinkers possess ‘the worst possible English trait, up there with colonialism‘, HP sauce is the condiment of the establishment and barbecues are simply borderline-racist. Now they have a new enemy in their sights: street parties. Although tens of thousands
There has been speculation for a while that Boris’s fabled mop may have had a touch of the Marilyn Monroe to it. Last year, celebrity hairdresser Heinz Schumi claimed it was a ‘forgery’. ‘I’m telling you, it’s bleached,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘I went to see him give a speech, and when the spotlights shone on his hair, it
What a strange human being the historian Eric Hobsbawm was. I was reminded of this the other day while reading a new report by the New Culture Forum on attitudes to Communism almost a century after the Russian Revolution. It includes this exchange between Michael Ignatieff and Professor Hobsbawm: Ignatieff: In 1934 … millions of
Is Google racist? That is the charge made in a short video in which someone types ‘three white teenagers’ and ‘three black teenagers’ into the Google images and finds that while the former brings up images of happy, smiling students, the latter brings up what appear to be police mugshots. Given that Google searches do
All sides of the Remain campaign are turning their fire on Boris Johnson at the moment. But these attacks are, I argue in The Sun today, a mistake by the Remainers. First, it makes Boris, the most popular politician in the country, the face of the Out campaign when the IN campaign’s strategic aim is
Weary that his republican views could put-off some Labour voters, Jeremy Corbyn has been keen to make clear that he won’t fight to scrap the monarchy — ‘it’s not the fight I’m interested in’ — if elected Prime Minister. So, what of his rumoured successor John McDonnell and his team? Just in time for the
To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. The EU referendum on June 23rd looks set to be one of the most important political moments in a generation. But if Britain does vote out, what would
The latest challenge, prompted by the hashtag #RemoveALetterSpoilABook that’s been doing the rounds on Twitter, saw you at your best. Among many highlights in a whopping, inventive entry were Robert Schechter’s A Clockwork Orange, which featured Donald Trump’s manhood, and a turn by Ted Hughes in Katie Mallett’s Far from the Madding Crow. Other star
Alain de Botton, to judge from his new novel The Course of Love, is trying to be the Freud for our day, the Facebookers’ Freud. For a book that presents itself as an affirmation of married love, it is rather bleak. And the bleakness echoes that of the Viennese know-it-all. Freud, remember, said that our sex
This is an abridged transcript of Nigel Farage’s Brexit interview with Andrew Neil IMMIGRATION Reducing the level of immigration has been central to your pitch to voters, can you tell the British public at what level broadly you’d expect net migration to fall if we left the EU? Up to us. The point about this
The Leave campaign has been talking a lot about immigration, but just what kind of effect would Brexit have? How many fewer would come? “Up to us, that’s the point of this referendum” said Nigel Farage, in is interview with Andrew Neil. Let MPs debate the ideal figure in the Commons, he said. His implication: that
The government’s decision to extend the voter registration deadline by 48-hours was undoubtedly aimed at young people. David Cameron recently cited his ‘greatest concern’ to be getting more people, especially the under 30s, to vote. But, even with the extension, the Remain campaign haven’t really done anything meaningful to urge under 30s to turn out. The extension
Sometimes you sense that Nigel Farage is keen to create controversy, to stir things up. But tonight in his interview with Andrew Neil, Farage seemed keen to do the opposite; turning in a restrained performance. When Andrew Neil asked what net migration would be post-Brexit, Farage replied that ‘it would be up to us’. He
A week after Angela Merkel intervened in the Brexit debate to say she hopes Britain stays in the EU, Germany’s Spiegel magazine has also waded in. The magazine’s headline is certainly emotive: ‘Please don’t go’, it urges, in an issue which includes several pages in English in a bid to reach out to Brits. As
The only arguments that matter in politics today are the arguments on the right. The only futures that are possible to imagine are those offered by the different strands of right-wing thought. The right’s arguments are not good to my mind. Nor are the futures it offers desirable. It is just that the right’s opponents
Newsflash: young people don’t care about the EU referendum. On the whole, we are neither Eurosceptic nor Europhobic. I work as features editor of millennial female news lifestyle site, The Debrief. When we asked our readers how they were going to vote on 23 June, an overwhelming 71 per cent said they would vote to remain. 19
Just in case last night’s Boris-bashing in the ITV debate wasn’t enough, Labour have decided to take another jab at the leading Brexiteer today at its ‘Tory Brexit Budget’ press conference. The room was filled with Remain activists wearing BoJo masks. A number then made their way to the Red Lion in Westminster where they posed with
The prevalent notion is that all those people who wish for us to leave the European Union are thick as mince ‘Little Englanders’ (the wrong insult, incidentally), motivated by racism, nostalgia and xenophobic spite. The left-wing argument to get the hell out has been scarcely touched upon, and yet it is – for me, at
The takeaway point from last night’s EU referendum showdown was the extent of the personal attacks on Boris. The former Mayor of London came under repeated fire during the debate – with his Tory colleague Amber Rudd leading the charge. But did she go too far? And is there a chance the intention of targeting
The only arguments that matter in politics today are the arguments on the right. The only futures that are possible to imagine are those offered by the different strands of right-wing thought. The right’s arguments are not good to my mind. Nor are the futures it offers desirable. It is just that the right’s opponents
When you drift into debt, it’s not easy to get out of it. Many end up in financial trouble for years because, instead of confronting their problems, they meander on paying a little bit back here and there. For many it becomes a way of life. I interviewed a lot of different people about their finances
Cracks are beginning to show in the new pension freedoms, hailed by the Chancellor as a ‘pensions revolution’. About 160,000 people have had to pay fees to access their pensions since these freedoms were introduced in April 2015, with some seeing more than 10 per cent of their retirement pot swallowed up by charges. The study by Citizens
When The Spectator ran a readers’ survey to ask your opinion of the magazine, which writers you like and what you’d like to see more of, an overwhelming number of your responses said ‘more Jeremy Clarke’. So here it is: you can now listen to Jeremy read a selection of his columns – from his starting
‘The isles of Greece! The isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!’ I couldn’t agree more with Lord Byron about the joys of the Greek islands. Here in Cephalonia, the poppies are out, back-lit by a strong spring sun.
At this late stage in the EU referendum campaign, the majority of MPs have declared their voting intentions — with some even finding time to do so twice. However, one crucial voice has been missing in the debate until now. Step forward Dennis Skinner. The veteran Labour MP has let his thoughts on the referendum
Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman review the ITV debate: Welcome to Coffee House’s coverage of ITV’s EU referendum debate. Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom and Gisela Stewart made the case for Brexit, and Nicola Sturgeon, Angela Eagle and Amber Rudd argued for Britain to stay in the EU. Here’s our commentary from the debate, as well
Is the looming prospect of Brexit dampening trade with other EU countries? Not if the latest trade statistics are anything to go on. Figures out today – the final set to be published before the referendum – show that imports to the UK from other EU countries are at a record high: rising by £1bn
Tonight’s TV clash on the EU referendum is being billed as Boris Johnson being ganged up on by a group of women. True, the former Mayor is the only chap in tonight’s line-up (which will give him an unusual glimpse into what most debates feel like for most women in Westminster most of the time),
As polling day draws closer there have been cross-party concerns that the Leader of the Opposition is yet to get properly behind the Remain campaign. While this has been put down to his Eurosceptic tendencies, his colleagues can at least take heart that he has found time for… Joey Essex. Yes, the Labour leader will
The decision to extend the deadline for voters to register in the EU referendum hasn’t gone down well with everyone. As Isabel Hardman has said, whether it’s a cock-up or a conspiracy, ‘Leave’ won’t like the extension which came about after the government’s website went down on Tuesday evening. But are they right to feel
Sarah Wollaston’s defection to Remain is a blow to the Leave campaign, whatever some of its supporters might say. The Tory MP is notoriously independently-minded, and unafraid of changing her mind, too, which makes her a rare species in Westminster. She is also totally uninterested in a government job, which makes it more difficult for
The news that Sarah Wollaston has switched from being a Brexiteer to a Remain-er has gone down like a cup of cold sick with the Out camp. Although the Conservative MP says she defected because the claim that Brexit would free up £350m per week for the NHS ‘simply isn’t true’, conspiracy theories have since emerged. What’s