All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Here is the fundamental stumbling block to a free trade deal, one that the Prime Minister has just confirmed in PMQs. And it is not clear how it can be sorted. The EU wants the unilateral right to toughen up its labour laws, or environmental standards or other so-called level playing field rules. Any such new
Keir Starmer was forced to conduct PMQs from his home this afternoon, after one of his staff members tested positive for coronavirus, and he was instructed to self-isolate. The Labour leader’s image was therefore beamed out from the House of Commons television screens as the Prime Minster stood below. Boris Johnson used the opportunity to
There’s a menace on the terraces. At football grounds across the land, there are fans who are ruining the beautiful game for everyone else. They’re bringing their prejudices into football. They think nothing of grunting and groaning at people they don’t like, at people they view as inferior. It’s becoming intolerable. No, I’m not talking
Oh dear. Kay Burley’s 2020 has taken a turn for the worse after she was caught breaking Tier 2 rules with her 60th birthday celebrations. Burley was taken off air while Sky News bosses began a disciplinary process against her to investigate the claims. As Mr S reported yesterday, her colleagues are seething and she is not expected
While the Pfizer vaccine became the first to be used in a public vaccination programme on Tuesday, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine team became the first to publish their results in a peer-reviewed journal, the Lancet. As the press release announcing the results explained, the overall efficacy rate of the Oxford vaccine was measured at 70 per
Whenever the Scottish nationalists start talking about ‘fairness’, you know someone’s getting shafted. SNP education minister John Swinney has cancelled Scotland’s higher exams for 2021. Not out of concern over safely administering the assessments in a socially-distanced manner, but because letting them go ahead at all could be ‘unfair’. Nicola Sturgeon’s deputy told the Edinburgh
The mood music on Brexit talks may be rather gloomy but there are signs suggesting progress is still being made. As well as an agreement in principle on all the outstanding issues in the Northern Ireland protocol, a date has been set for Boris Johnson’s meeting with Ursula von der Leyen. The Prime Minister will
There have been some dark days for Britain over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, but thankfully today was not one of them. Tuesday 8 December has been hailed as ‘V-day’ as the UK became the first country to begin its mass vaccination programme. Tens of thousands of Brits received their injections, including Margaret Keenan, 90,
How would you feel moving into your new home on Diversity Grove? Or what about a shiny new penthouse on Equality Road? Yes, some Birmingham City Council apparatchik has struck upon the genius idea of naming new streets after lefty buzzwords. The absurd project was announced earlier today after a public competition to name the
The eyes of the world were on Britain today, as the first patients began to receive the Pfizer vaccine, after it was cleared by Britain’s health regulators as safe to use. Unsurprisingly, foreign TV news channels sent their crews to British hospitals to witness the first patients receiving the jab. Outside Guy’s Hospital in London,
Ever since it was first published in May, the Office of National Statistics’ weekly infection survey has been looked upon as the gold standard of Covid data. It is based on swab testing of a large, randomised sample of the population who are tested repeatedly to see if they are infected with the virus –
Matt Hancock sounded like a man who had just been rescued from a rapidly sinking ship when he welcomed the start of the vaccine programme in the Commons this afternoon. Almost visibly dripping with relief, the Health Secretary told MPs that it was an ’emotional’ day, and paid tribute to his civil servants and team
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The world’s first doses of an authorised Covid vaccine were administered today, with ninety-year-old Briton Margaret Keenan first in line for the Pfizer jab. Health secretary Matt Hancock said it ‘makes me proud to be British’, after confirming that restrictions could begin to be lifted once the most vulnerable were protected. Has his approach been
Today brings some surprising Brexit news. The UK and the EU have announced that they have come to an agreement in principle on all the outstanding issues in the Northern Ireland protocol. As a result, the clauses of the Internal Market Bill, which breached the UK’s international law obligations in a ‘specific and limited way’,
There is a tonne of contradictory stuff flying around about what Michel Barnier says is the EU’s bottom line for fair competition in any free trade agreement with the UK. As I understand it, what follows is the EU’s position. For the ‘level playing field commitments’ there should be ‘non-regression’ — i.e. on standards for
Brexit deadline after deadline has slid to the right. There is, however, one deadline that is set in law: that the transition period finishes at the end of this year. Comments from the UK government and the European Commission today suggest that this now is, really, the only deadline. The European Commission has said that
Where the Chilterns rise over Roald Dahl’s family home, which is now a museum, diggers are at work, tearing up the beech woods that inspired one of his greatest books, Danny the Champion of the World, to clear a path for HS2. In the wider world, however, it is Dahl’s reputation that is being dug
Making the case for the union is a rather uphill task these days. With the SNP on course for a majority in next year’s Scottish parliament elections and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon polling well with the public, many Tory MPs comes across as rather defeatist on the issue. But try they must. So, Mr S was
Kay Burley is hardly what you would call a ‘sympathetic personality’ – but Steerpike is a magnanimous sort and he can’t help feeling a little sorry for her on this chilly winter’s morning. The poor presenter is having a miserable time because, having spent much of the year berating others for their failings vis Covid,
Are Remainers to blame for the looming hard Brexit? The theory goes that had Remainers compromised and accepted soft Brexit, none of what is about to unfold would ever happen. It’s true that the behaviour of some Remain campaigners in the aftermath of the referendum has hardly been exemplary. The whole Russian conspiracy thing was
When shaping policy to protect us from Covid-19, the government relies on data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to provide the scientific basis for its actions. The weekly ONS coronavirus survey is supposed to be the information gold standard — and in particular it underpinned Boris Johnson’s controversial announcement at the end of
As we reflect on the Keira Bell case last week, spare a thought for another young person who is challenging an authority that has been bewitched by gender identity ideology. A 14-year-old schoolgirl, known only as Miss B, believes sex is distinct from gender identity. Many others agree with her. But unlike those who have been
It’s a big morning for news in the UK as the first patients receive the Pfizer coronavirus jabs and Brexit deadlines loom. So, one would have imagined Kay Burley would be front and centre of her self-titled morning breakfast show. Apparently not. Mr S was curious to note Burley’s absence on today’s show — with Sky News’s Sarah
If you voted for Brexit, did you think it was a state of pure and perfect national independence, or did you think that given how connected the UK is to the EU – economically, diplomatically, in respect of security – it might be a bit of a fudge and compromise? Is Brexit an absolute state
The upshot of Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen’s conversation this evening is that the pair will meet in Brussels in the ‘coming days’ to see if they can resolve the remaining ‘significant differences’ on the level playing field, governance and fish. Presumably this meeting will take place before the European Council on Thursday.
Roald Dahl was a proud antisemite but if it’s real courage you’re after, look to his family who, a mere 30 years after his death, have finally acknowledged that the children’s author wasn’t keen on the Jews. The Sunday Times reports that the family ‘recently met for the first time in several years to discuss
The ‘Problem of Evil’ was one of the more difficult questions asked by the monks at Ampleforth college when I was a pupil there. How, we were asked, does one reconcile the existence of an omnipotent and ever-loving God with the reality of widespread evil in the world we inhabit? What we students hadn’t realised
The Covid wars in the Tory party aren’t going away any time soon, not least because MPs are expecting a change of policy on the tiered system later this month. But rebels aren’t just demanding a more localised approach to the tier system. They also want a change of tone from ministers. There was fury in
Were Millwall fans wrong to boo players who knelt in support of Black Lives Matter? Yes, according to the assembled pundits who are paid a fortune to talk about football. ‘Let’s be fair,’ wrote Gary Lineker, ‘it only appears to be a small minority of Millwall fans that didn’t boo the players taking the knee’.
Roald Dahl died in 1990. So why does it matter today that he was an anti-Semite? Why has his family apologised thirty years on? And should his work be cancelled as a result? Or, to paraphrase the bible, should the sins of the author be visited upon the third and fourth generations who profit from
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It looks like Brexit talks could finally be coming to a head. After Boris Johnson and Ursula Von Der Leyen decided that efforts to reach an agreement should continue, negotiators spent the weekend bartering over fishing rights and the level playing field. The pair are set to have another call later today, but can it
Oh, do make your mind up. Is snow in Britain going to be eradicated for good due to climate change – or are we going to be plunged into arctic conditions as climate change breaks down North Atlantic currents and sets up blocking patterns which suck frost down from the North Pole for weeks on
This morning the new vaccine deployment minister, Nadhim Zahawi, appeared to change his tune when it comes to the use of ‘immunity passports’ for the British public. After telling the BBC last week that UK residents might need some proof of their Covid vaccination status to dine out at a restaurant or attend a sporting