All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Until this morning Jacob Rees-Mogg had had a remarkable Brexit. From being an obscure backbencher he had risen, without any formal position, to being just about the most powerful figure in the Conservative party after the Prime Minister. He controlled a party within a party, influencing the votes of seventy or so MPs. He became
MPs are rather bewildered today. It’s not just that some of them are trying to understand the intricacies of the Labour Party whipping operation, with frontbenchers saying one thing in broadcast interviews, and the whips saying quite another in private conversations. It’s also that parliamentarians are having to decide what it is they actually want
Watching SW1 these days reminds me of that scene in Citizen Kane when Boss Jim Gettys confronts Orson Welles (Kane): Gettys: ‘You’re making a bigger fool of yourself than I thought you would Mr Kane…With anybody else I’d say what’s going to happen to you would be a lesson to you, only you’re gonna need more than
‘Do you think LGBT rights should be taught in schools?’ Women’s Hour has got itself into a spot of bother by trailing a discussion on same-sex education with this tease. The objection is to the question mark, which hints sinisterly at a debate. We are at very real risk of a debate on relationships education
If you have savings that you quite fancy putting away for a rainy day, but want to have access to at a moment’s notice, then an easy access account might be right for you. Here are some of the best east access savings accounts available now, from data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.
I remember it so well: the existential angst, the self-doubt, the bitter railing against intergenerational inequality, all of which preoccupied me for much my twenties. The cause? Anxiety about getting on the housing ladder. When you’re in that desperate state, it’s all consuming. Owning your own home is the holy grail of adulthood. You imagine
More than 120 years ago, Winston Churchill sailed to Cuba. While there, he dreamt of a country ‘free and prosperous…throwing open her ports to the commerce of the world, sending her ponies to Hurlingham and her cricketers to Lords.’ Now, in spite of Cuba’s communist revolution, the British government seems to have the same optimistic
This matters. I am told that the cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill and the attorney general Geoffrey Cox informed Cabinet that if at the end of the Letwin process MPs pass a motion mandating the PM to pursue a new route through the Brexit mess – perhaps a referendum, or membership of the customs union, or
Theresa May conveyed no sense at Cabinet as to whether her ministers will be allowed to vote with their consciences tomorrow on Sir Oliver Letwin’s indicative votes, to find a solution to the Brexit mess. She has been warned by MP Anne Milton that there could be 20 resignations from junior ranks of government to
Chinese president Xi Jinping came to France and is taking home 300 Airbus jetliners, a large consignment of frozen chickens and a wind farm. A great triumph for France, declared Emmanuel Macron. And for Macron? Never mind that many of the planes will be built in China. Or that Airbus is no longer a French
After the government suffered another defeat last night, MPs will seize control of the Commons and hold votes on various Brexit options on Wednesday. This means that by mid-week there could – in theory – be a majority for a different form of Brexit than May’s deal. The two options seen as likely to attract
Here are the reasons why there must be and cannot be a general election. First, the drivers of a general election: 1) Tomorrow, MPs will start the process of identifying, via so-called indicative votes, a route through the Brexit mess that a majority of them can back. 2) This process is likely to continue next
After the chaos in the voting lobbies two weeks ago, when ministers claimed to not know they’d rebelled against the government, the Conservative whips were taking no chances ahead of yesterday’s crunch vote. MPs were warned early on which motions they should support, and as soon as Oliver Letwin’s amendment was passed, a quick-fire email
Whether or not Theresa May manages to bring forward another Meaningful Vote on her Brexit deal before 12 April, it now seems likely that — in an attempt to clear the Brexit log-jam — parliament will be offered a series of ‘indicative votes’, so that MPs have a chance to say what their preferred Brexit
After today’s Cabinet, ministers are no clearer about what Theresa May’s intentions are. ‘Reading tea leaves would be easier’, remarks one Secretary of State. This problem is demonstrated by the different messages those present took from the meeting. One Cabinet source said that May’s closing words about governing in the national interest ‘felt a bit
With Oliver Letwin’s amendment passing, MPs will seize control of the order paper on Wednesday afternoon to hold indicative votes. These votes will come before any third vote on May’s deal. The not-so-secret hope of many in government is that they might help the withdrawal agreement get over the line. Theory one is that they’ll
The Commons has just erupted into a bizarre row over an insult thrown across the Chamber. Normally, in these situations, the Speaker ends up scolding the MP who deployed the insult, but in this case it was John Bercow himself who provoked the uproar in the first place. Demanding that Tory MP Greg Hands come
This evening MPs voted to take back control, as they backed an amendment tabled by Oliver Letwin to seize control of the parliamentary timetable on Wednesday in order to hold a series of indicative Brexit votes. And while some in the Chamber were clearly happy to see parliament flex its muscles against the government, others
MPs have decisively backed Oliver Letwin’s amendment, handing them control of the parliamentary timetable on Wednesday in order to hold a series of indicative votes on Brexit. The cross-party amendment was voted through by 329 votes to 302. Three Tory ministers – Steve Brine, Richard Harrington and Alistair Burt – resigned in order to back the
It’s seldom hard to distinguish between a liberal and a display of humility and the Mueller report isn’t going to change that. Former FBI director Robert Mueller was tasked with investigating allegations that Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 presidential election. After 22 months, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants,
If you follow the US president on Twitter, you might think that every day is Donald Day. But Sunday was a particularly good day for Trump After two years of special counsel Robert Mueller investigating possible collusion between Trump, his officials and the Russian government, the verdict was finally delivered: not guilty. The letter from
The most damaging thing that Theresa May did last week was to turn on MPs in her Downing Street statement, blaming them for the Brexit chaos. Given how settled Westminster seems to be on this conclusion, you might expect the Prime Minister to have tried to mend broken bridges in her Commons statement this afternoon.
Without the issue of the Irish backstop, it is reasonably safe to assume the UK would be leaving the EU on Friday with a withdrawal agreement. The government would not be falling apart and businesses and investors would know where they were. But of course, as we have been told constantly by the EU, the
It seems that the editors of the New York Times will print any nonsense about Britain — the British live on mutton and oatmeal! — so long as it confirms their prejudices about Brexit. ‘With nothing meaningful to say about our future, we’ve retreated into the falsehoods of the past, painting over the absence of certainty at our
I’ve had a lot of flak for describing Saturday’s march for a ‘People’s Vote’ as ‘disturbing’. Angry emailers inform me it was actually a super-polite demo at which children and even pets joined hundreds of thousands of adults in a good-natured traipse through central London calling for Brexit to be rethought. It’s true the marchers
A point of significant tension at this morning’s cabinet will be over whether the PM is to allow her ministers and MPs to vote with their consciences on the indicative votes today and tomorrow to find any Brexit – or no-Brexit plan – that a majority of MPs can support AND on the statutory instrument
For the latest challenge competitors were asked to submit a recently discovered lost poem by a well-known poet that makes us see him or her in a new light. Step for-ward, Philip Larkin, flower arranger, Slough fan John Betjeman and knickers-on-fire Emily Dickinson. Congratulations all round are in order this week, but I especially admired
The first job of a columnist on a big newspaper is to be noticed. If people aren’t talking about the things you’ve said, what’s the point? By that measure, Sarah Vine is a good columnist. Her name is known. At the Daily Mail she says things that people notice and talk about. She does it on
I am reliably told that Theresa May told Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan Smith, Steve Baker, Jacob Rees-Mogg, David Davis et al at Chequers that she will quit if they vote for her deal, including the backstop they hate. But she gave no specifics. So there is not a lot of trust she would actually quit. And the
In determining that Donald Trump did not engage in secret collusion with Russia, Robert Mueller may well have done Democrats a solid. Instead of going down the chimerical road of impeachment, they can focus on ousting him from office in 2020. At the same time, they can keep the base agitated with intimations that not
What makes me chuckle about the Brexiteers is how little they understand the German mindset. Here in Germany, the European Union is a religion. It is ingrained so heavily in the DNA of nearly every German citizen that any reasoned argument to counter its domination, or challenge its direction, is swiftly dismissed. The integrity of
Katy Balls asks ‘Will there be an election?’ (16 March). That prompts the question: ‘To what purpose?’ Jeremy Corbyn may be ‘keen for an early election to break the deadlock’, but as the EU has repeatedly emphasised that its withdrawal deal is the only one on the table, how would Labour win a substantively better
Philip Hammond – Removing May ‘will not help’ Brexit process The Chancellor has taken to the TV studios once ahead of what was intended to be the UK’s final week inside the European Union. He needed up commenting on reports in several of this morning’s papers that the Cabinet was preparing to oust Theresa May
On Friday in the Spectator’s Coffee House podcast I suggested Michael Gove should be installed as a caretaker leader until June. I believe this is our best chance — perhaps our only chance — of honouring the result of the referendum. To be clear, I’m a passionate Brexiter and would like as clean a break with
