All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Just to sour the festive mood a little, I thought I’d ask what are your least favourite Christmas songs and carols. I’ve got lots of least favourites. ‘Look to the future now, it’s only just begun’, from Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody is probably the most stupid line ever written in a song. But I like
The 2019 general election will be remembered as one of the most consequential elections in Britain’s recent history. Aside from rejecting a more economically radical Labour Party, the British people used the election to provide what their elected representatives had been unable to provide: an answer to Brexit. For Boris Johnson and the Conservative party, the election
Much of the post-election attention has gone on the next stage of Brexit and the government’s attempts to set down a domestic reform agenda that works for the Tories’ new northern constituencies. As such, the Integrated Security, Defence and Foreign Policy Review, briefed as ‘the deepest review of Britain’s security, defence, and foreign policy since
The newly re-elected MP for Leeds West Rachel Reeves has never got on particularly well with the far-left wing of her party. When Corbyn was elected as Labour leader back in September 2015, Reeves announced she would not be serving in his shadow cabinet. Since then, she has regularly criticised Corbyn, suggesting that he should
We’re closing 2019 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 8: Slavoj Žižek on Roma: My first viewing of Roma left me with a bitter taste: yes, the majority of critics are right in celebrating it as an instant classic, but I couldn’t get rid of the idea that this predominant perception is
Imagine being in love with someone who ignores you eleven months of the year, then suddenly seems really into you. Instead of elation you feel a weird form of pain as your beloved finally smiles on you, and finds you interesting, for you know that it is just a seasonal thing, and that frosty indifference
Diane Abbott I spent the entire day searching for those familiar traditional Christmas delicacies which all kids adore – but could find none anywhere. From shop to shop I went, asking: ‘Do you have any of those large chocolate eggs that children like so much at this time of year? Very often sold in cardboard
Remember when Boris Johnson met Emmanuel Macron for the first time as Prime Minister? It was in August and, as the Guardian made clear to its readers, it was the French president calling the shots. The newspaper illustrated its point with a photograph of the two leaders at their lecterns, the French president looking statesmanlike
I have long since learned, not least from my interview with Al Gore published here in 2017 that the surest way to get called a climate change denier is to quote genuine science that runs counter to the hyperbolic ‘science’ spun by the likes of Gore, Extinction Rebellion and the global Greta community. But no matter,
Just when you might have thought that our departure from the EU was finally dealt with it turns out another cliff edge is looming. We have only a year to agree a trade deal with the rest of Europe. Already there are scare stories about how we may crash out without one, and plenty of
We’re closing 2019 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 9: Mary Wakefield’s article on Benedict Cumberbatch playing her husband: Imagine looking at a photo of a stranger and feeling in response, quite naturally, the sort of happy affection you might feel towards a spouse. Well, it’s weird. In July this year,
I recently tried to put my profession down as ‘actress’ on Instagram, but the only option available from the drop-down menu was ‘actor’. Why? Actress is such a graceful word, so evocative of elegance, refinement and poise that the common and blunt ‘actor’ cannot possibly conjure. It’s even worse when we are referred to as
Spectator writers, past and present, were asked: ‘When have you changed your mind?’ Here is the Prime Minister’s response: What I’ve really changed my mind on was whether it is possible to reset with Russia. I really thought, as I think many foreign secretaries and prime ministers have thought before, that we could start again with
Now that the Tories have replaced Labour as the party of the workers, are we heading towards a one-nation economy? And if so, are the days of ‘rolling back the frontiers of the state’ completely over? It’s not yet clear that the Conservatives have fully come to terms with the enormity of the transformation in
The early promise of the internet – to bring us closer together, better inform us, and spread liberty around the world – can seem naïve today. The internet’s actual effect on our politics, society, and security has been very different. The recent general election was marred by disinformation and fake news, while the outcome of
We’re closing 2019 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 10: Ivan Rogers’s article from June on the prospect of a no-deal Brexit: We all know this is a great country. Sadly, it’s one currently very poorly led by a political elite, some masquerading as non-elite, which has great difficulties discerning and
This year’s Christmas challenge was to compose a poem entitled ‘’Twas the Night Before Brexit’. That seasonal classic ‘A Visit From St Nicholas’, more usually known as ‘The Night Before Christmas’, was published anonymously in 1823 and written by Clement Clarke Moore — or at least he claimed it was. The family of gentleman-poet Henry
It’s an unfashionable thought, but having spent many hours in the university sports hall where constituency votes for Boris Johnson and John McDonnell were counted, I feel freshly in love with democracy. There they all were, local councillors and party workers from across the spectrum; campaigners pursuing personal crusades, from animal rights to the way
The most vocal opponents of our decision to leave the European Union have been the City and big business. For the last three years, from the CBI to the Bank of England to the FT and countless FTSE chairmen and trade groups, there have been hysterical warnings about the consequences of leaving. As Project Fear
I initially misread the reaction of Labour’s leading Corbynites and social media outriders to the party’s most cataclysmic defeat since 1935. I thought they were arguing Labour lost because of Brexit; that Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity was purely due to media vilification; and its manifesto evoked only a positive response on the doorstep simply because they
The thumping majority by which both the second reading and the programme motion for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill passed yesterday, confirmed that Boris Johnson will have no problem taking the UK out of the EU on January 31st. This sums up the remarkable position that this government is in. It will have done the main
Happy Christmas (War Is Over). John Lennon probably didn’t have the decades long Conservative dispute over Europe in mind when he wrote that, but the message seems very apt this year after almost the entire Tory parliamentary party trooped through the lobbies in support of its leader’s plan to take Britain out of the EU.
Stormzy has a song called Shut Up. ‘Oi rudeboy, shut up’, he raps. I wish he’d take his own advice. His predictable political musings are getting boring. His Corbyn cheering went down like a cup of cold sick with the populace. And his chattering-class views are just embarrassing for someone who claims to be grime.
It is worth fixing for posterity the feelings which, on polling day, swirled in the breasts of many who wanted a Boris victory. Being a journalist, I normally enjoy the electoral scene with some detachment. I cannot claim to be neutral, since I have never, even in Tony Blair’s pinkish dawn of 1997, wanted a
Four years ago, during the Labour leadership contest that followed the party’s electoral defeat in 2015, I urged fellow conservatives to join Labour and vote for Jeremy Corbyn. I pointed out that you can become a “registered supporter” of the party – a status that entitles you to vote for the next leader – for
Boris Johnson’s big election win means the Tories have taken back control of Parliament. The PM’s majority ensures that he can deliver on Brexit and also push through his party’s agenda for government. One of the more eye-catching policies planned is a shake-up of Whitehall and the British civil service. Without a radical change, policy implementation
Boris Johnson now has a hefty majority in Parliament. He can reshape Britain. He can redefine the Conservative party. And he can – to use a well-worn phrase – ‘get Brexit done’. Which also means that after more than three years of being engulfed with Brexit, the government can now begin to turn its attention to
The House of Commons has voted to back Boris Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill, setting the country on course to leaving the European Union at the end of January. The Bill was passed by the Commons by 358 votes to 234, a majority of 124 (substantially higher than the majority the government won at the election).
After four failed attempts and one ousted prime minister, the Withdrawal Agreement Bill has comfortably passed the Commons at second reading. In fairness, this is not the first time this has happened. In the last parliament, Boris Johnson narrowly managed to pass the WAB at second reading – however, the government then pulled it when
Andrew Bailey, announced this morning as the next Governor of the Bank of England, is not, to use a term quoted this morning, a ‘rock star’ banker. He has been sold to the nation as a boring, dependable sort who will steady the horses, the safety-first candidate. It no doubt helps in this impression that
The official impeachment debate on the floor of the House of Representatives began with a solemn call from Speaker Nancy Pelosi: ‘We gather today under the dome of this temple of democracy to exercise one of the most solemn powers that this body can take: The impeachment of the President of the United States’. The
And so, with little fanfare and somewhat inevitably, The Independent Group for Change (formerly Change UK, formerly The Independent Group) has announced the gradual cessation of all party activity. In reality, the party was over the moment Boris Johnson successfully managed to engineer a general election, and probably well before then. Undoubtedly this announcement will
One of the most striking things about the government’s Queen’s Speech was Boris Johnson’s focus on where the country could be in ten years’ time: ‘Mr Speaker, this is not a programme for one year, or one Parliament it is a blueprint for the future of Britain. Just imagine where this country could be in
The Prime Minister took to his feet in the House of Commons earlier this afternoon to lay out his government’s agenda for the next five years. Johnson called the plans ‘a blueprint for the future of Britain’ before embarking on a whistlestop tour of his ambitions. Those seeking to probe the government’s policy agenda in
