All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Silence has befallen French pronouncements on Brexit. Le Monde’s vitriolic editorial (12 June 2019) on Boris Johnson apart, the scene is remarkably calm. But this isn’t good news. In fact, such silence is often a sign of French anxiety and a presage to trouble, particularly when Britain is concerned. As rationalists, the French are frequently
I’m bored with writing about politicians and Brexit so this is an article about genitals instead. Feel free to make your own jokes about the sentence above, but I promise what follows is not funny. You could not, as the old phrase goes, make it up. Most of us, I think, like to see ourselves
Is it the country that has gone mad? Or just a majority of members of the Conservative party? They are the questions that rattle around my brain as the self-styled “sensible” candidate in the Tory leadership campaign, Jeremy Hunt, speaks to me for an ITV interview. He tells me it would serve democracy and save his party
About this time of year, two sorts of pictures end up doing the rounds on social media. The first is roughly along the lines of this one, which is being shared from the BBC website: Why are Britain's roadsides blooming? https://t.co/dEgvSH5ine — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) July 2, 2019 This sounds like a lovely, positive
What a great triumph for feminism – three of the BBC’s ten highest-paid presenters are now women, compared with none last year. That, at any rate, is how the BBC has chosen this morning to cover the publication of its annual report. The story on the BBC website is headed: BBC Pay: Claudia Winkleman, Zoe
Today was a big day for Nigel Farage’s band of Brexit party MEPs. After 29 of the Brexiteers won their seats in the EU elections in May, they finally headed to Strasbourg today, to take their places in the European Parliament. But it appears that while the party may now be part of the European elite,
William Hague is not noted for agonies of self-doubt. But the former Tory leader’s judgement, in his Telegraph column on which of Johnson and Hunt is best suited to lead his party and our country, was not a close run thing: Hunt is one of the most impressive ministers Hague has worked alongside, and might
There’s no stopping the Sussexes, is there? Right after they get up everyone’s nose by saying their son’s christening is out of bounds, they’ve gone and told us all to save the planet. On Instagram, obviously. And to help us do it, they posted images of penguins, a sea turtle and a little child holding
Who will replace Jean-Claude Juncker? That’s the question being decided at the European Council summit. But so far, things are not going to plan. From Sunday afternoon, leaders – along with Theresa May, who promised to be “constructive” in the debate – have been discussing who should take over the most senior EU jobs, including the
Israel Folau is taking Rugby Australia to the Federal Court, after his contract with the national rugby team was terminated in May over an Instagram post which warned that ‘hell awaits’ drunks, homosexuals, atheists and others. Launching the proceedings, Folau said that no Australian of any faith should be fired for practising their religion. Initial court
We are now meandering towards a real Brexit deadline. In typical British fashion, we’ve let the other two times that they bumped into us with their trolley in the supermarket go. In similarly typical fashion, the third time is about to be “not on”. But as we head towards the inevitable, it is worth understanding
Theresa May has just a handful of days left as Prime Minister, but is still trying to secure a domestic legacy for herself. She is doing this in a last-minute manner that makes David Cameron’s famous essay crises look incredibly well-organised. Last week, she called for better design rules to prevent ‘tiny homes’ being built,
As Jeremy Hunt has repeatedly claimed during the Conservative leadership campaign, to set a deadline of 31 October for leaving the EU is foolish. Why tie yourself to that date if a deal with EU negotiators seemed close to being sealed? But if you have fallen for that argument, it seems no less puzzling why
News that the Church of England has published social media guidelines promoting ‘truth, kindness, welcome, inspiration and togetherness’ sounds welcome. Surely we all want to live in a world which live and let lives, where kindness and tolerance are key, and everybody has the same human rights, regardless of gender, race, colour, sexuality, nationality, or
It may not seem long ago that the Tory leadership candidate Matt Hancock was positioning himself as a key opponent of the frontrunner Boris Johnson, and saying ‘f*** f*** business’ in contrast to Johnson’s alleged ‘f*** business’ remark. A key thing has changed since then though: with Johnson’s victory looking increasingly likely, Conservative MPs have
Is a ‘woman’ an adult human female or a person who identifies as such? This is the question I asked Nicola Sturgeon at the United Nations earlier this year. But, oddly, she wouldn’t answer it. Instead the first minister of Scotland explained that, as ‘an ardent, passionate feminist,’ women’s concerns about how gender self-ID laws
It’s starting to feel like Ivanka, the daughter of the US president Donald Trump, can’t quite wait to take over the reins of power from her father, even if she isn’t an elected politician. The businesswoman turned President-whisperer had already raised eyebrows at the Osaka G20 summit this week, when she became the only spouse
If you were ever in any doubt that so-called anti-fascists are, in fact, fascists, take a look at this picture of my friend and colleague Andy Ngo: In the ER. pic.twitter.com/spe5N4nzVl — Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) June 29, 2019 A freelance journalist with bylines in Spectator USA and the National Review, Andy was covering an
Boris Johnson – We should increase borrowing for ‘great infrastructure projects’ Sophy Ridge began the day by interviewing the man who many are expecting to be the UK’s next Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. The interview began with how Johnson expected to finance his campaign commitments, which include £4.6 billion for education, 20,000 more police officers,
It’s said that when Iain Dale, overseeing last night’s Conservative hustings in Manchester, announced the news that Oliver Robbins, the senior civil servant in Theresa May’s Brexit team, was leaving his post and the Civil Service, many of the Tory audience cheered. I’m told Iain Dale just read this tweet out at the Tory hustings
Although there’s three weeks until the next Tory leader is announced, the contest is entering what is the most important week of the membership stage. On Saturday (6 July), postal ballots will begin to be sent to the Tory membership. The expectation is that the majority of members will vote quickly rather than wait to
It was somehow inevitable that shortly after Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick announced a fall in violent crime, there would be an absolute horror-show of death across the capital. The ‘weekend of bloodshed’ began on Friday 14 June with the murder of 18-year-old Cheyon Evans, knifed by teens in Wandsworth. A few minutes later Eniola
There has been a lot of talk about how Article XXIV of GATT can provide an alternative to the Withdrawal Agreement. But here’s the deal with Article XXIV of GATT: it is a solution to a problem which is not the problem. Let me try to illustrate this with a story. Imagine a couple –
Your latest challenge was to encapsulate the life story of a well-known person, living or dead, in three limericks. The limerick form was neatly summed up by the late Paul Griffin, long-time competitor and a regular winner on these pages: A limerick’s short and it’s slick; Like a racehorse it has to be quick: The
Since the referendum we have seen a steady escalation of the battle between the Commons and the government over Brexit. It will reach new heights in the run up to October 31st – as the new prime minister seeks to negotiate with the EU and maintain his room for manoeuvre by keeping no deal on the
This weekend, the most popular political party in Britain will hold a rally in Birmingham to plan its march to Westminster. The Brexit party came first in the European elections but to its supporters, this was just the warm-up. If today’s polls became tomorrow’s election result, then the Tories would be left with just 87
It is a week on since the first hustings of the Tory leadership run off. Boris Johnson appears to have righted the wobble that led to his rather lacklustre performance in Birmingham. But Jeremy Hunt is not going to ease off. As I report in The Sun this morning, the Hunt campaign’s attitude is, ‘We’re
Day 2 of the Democratic presidential debates was a touch feistier than day 1, likely because the heavy hitters shared the same stage. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Kamala Harris, the four top contenders in the large field of 20-something candidates, were all front-and-centre hoping for a
Theresa May makes her final bow on the world stage in Japan, where she is attending the G20 heads of government meeting in Osaka. It’s a funny place for it all to end. Japan’s second city prides itself as the country’s comedy capital. It is home to Japan’s ‘manzai’ tradition – a slapstick straight man/funny
This evening in Britain, the Jewish Shabbat dinner will follow the traditional order: blessing the candles and the wine, washing hands, giving thanks for the bread and trying to get through the first serving of noodle kugel before someone brings up the Labour party. The decision by the national executive committee to restore the whip
When Donald Trump took the US presidency in 2016, China was wary, but hopeful. Here’s was a businessman for whom money was important, and China could offer economic growth for both countries through trade. But three years on, Trump has waged a trade war against China and boycotted its national tech champion, Huawei. The Wall
Last night it was suggested that when Boris Johnson was Foreign Secretary, he was caught on camera by a BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary saying that the French were ‘turds’ for their intransigence during the Brexit negotiations. According to the Daily Mail the Foreign Office then allegedly lobbied the BBC to remove the offending line from the documentary when it aired
The New York Times’s strange jihad against post-Brexit Britain continues. Some readers may have missed the paper’s insistence that having only just finished eating mutton, the British public are currently stock-piling food and all but preparing to start eating each other (see here, here, and here just for starters). But yesterday they have returned to the