All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Sam Gyimah, the former Minister for Universities who quit in protest at Theresa May’s deal, has become the thirteenth Conservative leadership candidate, announcing his decision live on air on Sky today. When asked by Niall Paterson if he would like to be the next Conservative leader, Gyimah replied “Well, yes. I will be joining the
The message from the EU is clear: there will be no improvement to the deal rejected by Parliament. And if talks fail? Donald Trump today makes an offer: that the United States, the UK’s No 1 customer, is standing by with its own free trade deal. It needn’t take even a year, he says, as
For the latest competition you were challenged to submit an ode to Alexa or Siri. A recent study by Unesco, entitled ‘I’d Blush if I Could’ (Siri’s alarmingly coquettish response to the phrase ‘You’re a slut/bitch’), claimed that submissive female-voiced virtual assistants perpetuate negative, outdated gender stereotypes, and this assignment did seem to bring out
For anyone who isn’t following the long march of racial self-flagellation through America’s institutions, last week’s revelations about the excesses of New York City’s education tsar will come as a shock. Schools chancellor Richard Carranza has introduced mandatory ‘anti-bias and equity training’ for the city’s 75,000 teachers at a cost of $23 million a year.
Philip May seems a decent cove. He’s been stoic and loyal but I can’t help hoping that the next prime minister’s spouse will be a bit sparkier — and give us something to talk about other than Brexit. I suspect that it will be a woman. If so, who? We have Lucia, Jeremy Hunt’s wife.
Hong Kong’s freedoms, autonomy and rule of law face ever-increasing threats, but there is a twin set of legal dangers that pose the most serious risks for the city’s way of life: an old colonial law that needs reform, and a new law that should never be introduced. Last week, two Hong Kong activists, Ray
In Choosing A Leader, what remains one of the best books published on British leadership contests (although I appreciate this is a niche market), Len Stark argued that the procedures parties used when selecting their leaders rarely made much of a difference. With a handful of exceptions, he demonstrated that the same candidate would have
This weekend might provide an interesting spectacle. On Sunday the annual al-Quds Day march sets off in London from outside the Home Office. Of course al-Quds Day is the day inaugurated by the late bigot Ayatollah Khomeini, and his initiative allows peace-loving Khomeinists to stroll along the streets of London (among other capital cities) calling
This week, Julia Hartley-Brewer joined the list of right-of-centre commentators to have found themselves ‘no-platformed‘ after a Twitterstorm. The Talk Radio host had been invited to join a Question Time-style panel discussion for the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) on the ‘hot healthcare topics of the day’ – they said she was there as
Well, very obliging of Donald Trump to back Boris Johnson – ‘a very good guy…he’d be excellent…I like him very much’ – in his interesting interview in The Sun, I’m sure. That’ll go down terrifically well with the kind of woke constituency that’ll be on the streets from Monday to make clear that the president
The Boris Johnson campaign has been very quiet this week. But as I say in The Sun this morning, it will move into a higher gear next week. Liz Truss is set to become the first person who sits round the Cabinet table to endorse the former Foreign Secretary. I understand that the campaign will
Did you see the Welsh Tory MP David Davies and a pro-Brexit protester arguing outside parliament, pointing cameras at one another? Davies was being interviewed for BBC Wales about why he had taken to wearing a body camera. Having been on the receiving end of abuse from both pro- and anti-Brexit protesters, he said he
Jeremy Hunt’s approach is very odd. It is the first time I remember an aspirant for the top job saying: ‘Choose me: I’m frightened of a general election.’ He is obviously right that an election without Brexit accomplished would be very difficult for the Conservatives to win, but the way through that is not to
What the hell has got into Rory Stewart? The man’s everywhere, outstretched phone in hand, like an Instagram influencer on the edge, asking people to come and talk to him about Brexit. He’s at the Lewisham market by the stinky fish! No wait – now he’s on a train to Wigan. Now he’s talking Dari
Rarely can the saying that a week is a long time in politics have been more true than in the case of Boris Johnson. The timetable for the election of the next Conservative leader, which was announced last week, clearly favoured him, given the large lead he has over his closest rivals. But the decision
Anthropologists have speculated that one of the roles of the shaman in hunter-gatherer societies was to preserve group unity. When members of the tribe were about to set out on a hunt, they would consult the shaman who would tell them where to go by ‘consulting the ancestors’ or reading runes or whatever. The crucial
I suppose it was always going to happen eventually given my trenchant opinions on pretty much everything, but this week I have at long last joined the ranks of the ‘no-platformed’ – by no less an august body than the Royal College of General Practitioners. My crime? ‘Some of the opinions expressed on [my] social
Change UK has been holding post-mortem meetings about its failure to win any seats in last week’s European elections, I understand. Members of the newly-formed party met up this week to discuss what to do next after it only secured 3 per cent of the vote overall. Critics have suggested that it’s already all over
A full baker’s dozen is in the running to become the next Tory leader, with even more expected to declare before the deadline of June 10th. But the party will whittle them down to just two, who will then be put to the members. So who will the final two be, and what will the
The fact that the Confederation of British Industry is directly intervening in the Conservative Party leadership contest – to warn against a no-deal Brexit – should be remarkable, not least for what it says about how some business leaders now doubt the Conservative party’s instincts and sympathies. The fact that this isn’t bigger news says
Last night, there was shock across Westminster as a new poll by YouGov asking people how they would vote in the next general election showed that the Lib Dems were the most popular party in the UK. Of those asked, 24 per cent said they would vote for the Remain party, followed by 22 per
Trump and Boris; Boris and Trump – the two men have a lot more in common than funny hair, an appetite for women, and a magical ability to offend left-liberal sensibilities. But the hot question in Westminster at the moment is whether these two big beasts will meet when the American President visits London next
Throughout 2002 and 2003 I travelled the country, and further afield, interviewing wartime veterans of the Special Air Service for my book about the history of the regiment’s early years. This adventure coincided with Britain’s march to war against Iraq and, more often than not during my discussions with these old warriors, the question of
For a long time now, there’s been a Stop Boris campaign in operation in Westminster. With the Parliamentary party a lot less keen on the former foreign secretary than the eurosceptic membership, MPs have plotted ways to keep Johnson off the final two in a Tory leadership contest. MPs vote to knock out contenders in
In 2015, the problem of marine litter climbed to the very top of the list of global environmental problems after a landmark study suggested that there are 100 million tonnes of plastic in the oceans. Regrettably, the study overlooked the share of the blame that can be put on the recycling industry, which has exported
On Wednesday night, as observant Jews continued to count the Omer, the 49 days between the festivals of Passover and Shavout, observers of the rituals of Israeli politics began counting the days until the next Israeli election. Six weeks’ ago, Benjamin Netanyahu won his biggest electoral victory yet after a characteristically close and unscrupulous campaign.
Inevitably, the Tory leadership contest is developing a row about process and possible stitch-ups. Party grandees have been suggesting limiting the number of candidates to prevent ‘chaos’ (which suggests an interesting reading of the current political turmoil as not being chaotic). Iain Duncan Smith thinks there should be a higher threshold for nominations and more
Dominic Raab is not a feminist. That is the confession the Tory leadership hopeful makes in an interview in this week’s Spectator. Screams, gasps and 240 character rants have swept the internet since. Who in their right mind would reject the notion of treating men and women equally? Of course, Raab didn’t do that. He describes himself
Reforms to the funding of higher education over the past decade, although not perfect, have been broadly successful. There’s now record levels of individuals and investment in English universities. Theresa May, though, thought differently. Immediately after the last election, in response to a staggering number of young people turning their back on the Tories, she
I’ve been the victim of a robbery. In broad daylight. As an average Brit, more than 40 per cent of everything I produce is taken by the government for whatever they want to spend it on. In theory they ask my opinion on what that should be. But they ask me only every five years, and even then,
That Martin Luther King was unfaithful to his wife has long been public knowledge. But new revelations from King’s biographer David Garrow in the Times suggest that King’s sexual behaviour towards women is far more compromising than previously thought. According to Garrow, the FBI bugged King’s Washington hotel room and recorded him boasting about his sexual
Whenever I see pictures of Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe together I hear the theme music from the Neil Simon comedy The Odd Couple. For Trump and Abe are indeed the Felix and Oscar of global politics, a gently comic double act with starkly different but oddly complimentary personalities and all the appearance of a
In the analysis of last week’s European Parliament elections, a number of claims which should be categorised as ‘myths’ have emerged. Here, I’ve singled out five of them that should be challenged: 1. The ‘major development’ that the centre-right EPP and centre-left S&D lost their majority isn’t a major development For the first time