All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Who is allowed to be part of the #MeToo movement? I ask because on Friday five men were found guilty of horrific sexual crimes against eight girls and yet the case hasn’t trended on Twitter. There have been no hashtags. The girls’ suffering hasn’t been widely talked about. There have been very few declarations of
The full list of Tory MPs who rebelled against the government in tonight’s vote is here. This week is shaping up to be the ultimate battle between parliament and Number 10, as rebel MPs attempt to stop a no-deal Brexit in law before parliament is prorogued next week. On Tuesday the rebels are expected to table an
Hurricane Dorian had hardly struck the shores of the Bahamas before Twitter began to fill up with comments willing it to carry on and flatten Donald Trump’s Mar a Lago estate in Florida ‘to teach the climate change denier-in-chief’ a lesson. Others eviscerated Florida senator and former governor Rick Scott for suggesting on Fox News
The new episode of Holy Smoke is about the persecution of Christians. That’s a familiar concept, even if we don’t read much about it in the media. But here’s what it means in 2019: The rape, murder and dismemberment of pregnant Christian women in Nigeria by Islamist thugs. The use of face-recognition technology by the
The current obsession with Boris Johnson’s decision to marginally reduce Parliament’s sittings days has had the side effect of taking the spotlight off the tricky strategic decisions Jeremy Corbyn faces over the next two months. Up until now, Corbyn has been content to continue attacking the prospect of no deal largely on the basis of
As so often in the last three years, much of our political debate is ducking the central strategic questions and is obsessing, in increasingly hysterical fashion on all sides, about tactical ones. We face the most explosive political week for years, perhaps decades. But remarkably little of the debate is about our real options. We
There will be a general election on 14 October if MPs defeat the government tomorrow on no-deal Brexit legislation. Number 10 will publish a motion tomorrow which says that if MPs do take control of the Order Paper and pass legislation for an extension to the Brexit deadline, there will be a general election. Senior
I know I can’t speak for your circumstances but I hope you’re enjoying this Festival of Brexit as much as I am. The country hasn’t endured this kind of dismal government since the last one and, sweetly, the opposition is just as inspirational and attractive as it was then too. Yet again, nothing has changed.
Five weeks ago I spoke to you from these steps and said that this government was not going to hang around and that we would not wait until Brexit day – October 31 – to deliver on the priorities of the British people. And so I am proud to say that on Wednesday Chancellor Sajid
In his statement outside No. 10, Boris Johnson’s message was simple: back me or help Corbyn. Ahead of a crunch Brexit vote tomorrow in the Commons, the Prime Minister urged Tory MPs to get on side and help ensure a Brexit deal could be agreed. In order to do this, Johnson said it was vital
Boris Johnson’s message to MPs is that if they vote tomorrow for another delay, then Wednesday there will be vote on general election. MPs gone, no 14 days, no legislation on extension. Election on 14 October. Government source: ‘who does country want to sort it out on 18 Oct at EU?’ UPDATE, 6.27pm: “I hope MPs
How is the Cabinet responding to the latest Brexit developments? This evening, Boris Johnson will meet with his ministers to discuss the next steps forward – and rumours of an early election are rampant. No. 10’s decision to withdraw the whip and stop from standing at the next election any Tory MP who rebels on
There’s an assumption in Westminster that the Labour Party would have to back a snap general election if Boris Johnson called one this week. Jeremy Corbyn has said that ‘an election is the democratic way forward’, while his Shadow Brexit minister Jenny Chapman said Labour would vote against one that came after 31 October, adding
To reinforce what I said about the gravity of tomorrow’s vote, rumours are swirling that Dominic Cummings – the PM’s chief aide – wants to lose (I am not persuaded!) the vote so he can purge Grieve and any other rebel Tories and then take on Corbyn’s Labour before the next EU council on 17
Boris Johnson’s team wants to set up a binary choice between backing him on Brexit and a Jeremy Corbyn government. First, they are trying this on their own MPs—hence the decision to treat this week’s vote on an extension as if it was a confidence matter. But if this doesn’t work, and at the moment
Things are moving fast in Westminster this afternoon, with speculation mounting that Boris Johnson might be about to call an election. The Cabinet is meeting this afternoon, and there will be a reception of Tory MPs in Downing Street this evening, too. Those involved are definitely discussing an early general election as one possibility. The reason
Is Boris Johnson playing a game of chicken with anti-no-deal Tory MPs? The two sides are locked in a furious standoff over the threat from the Prime Minister that MPs will lose the Tory whip and be prevented from standing for the party at the next election if they back this week’s rebel legislation blocking
After the government confirmed James’s story that any Tory MPs who rebel in a Brexit vote this week will have the whip withdrawn and be unable to stand as a Conservative at the next election, anti-no deal MPs find themselves in a dilemma. No 10’s aim is to present them with a simple choice: Johnson
“The crypto-fascists are in charge”. So spoke one of the senior Tories planning to rebel tomorrow against Boris Johnson – which captures in its visceral anger the magnitude of the gulf between the new prime minister and those of his backbenchers who want a no-deal Brexit taken off the table. This afternoon the Tory rebels
On Saturday thousands of people across Britain demonstrated against Boris Johnson’s recently-announced prorogation of parliament. Despite the heated response it provoked, proroguing parliament is a standard device which over the years has been employed by governments of all stripes. And as parliament was to be suspended for a few weeks during September and October in
The latest challenge called for an acrostic poem about a politician in which the first letter of each line spells the name of that politician. While most of you set your sights on modern-day notables, David Silverman (as well as his poignant prizewinning haiku) submitted a nice double-dactylic portrait of Caesar Augustus. Here’s an extract:
At first, Brexit was seen in Poland as a glorious but chaotic farce. As strange as it sounds, three long, grim years after the referendum, the whole thing seemed, to them, like a glorious chaotic farce. Most of them supported Poland’s membership of the EU but the irreverent Nigel Farage was more relatable than a
In 2014, a young SNP activist called Aidan Kerr caused some consternation when he contended that Scotland was undergoing ‘Ulsterisation’. The nation’s politics, which for the past generation had pitched nationalism against social democracy, was becoming a battle between nationalism and unionism. The casus belli would be identity, not class or income. Kerr’s critics were
How many Tory MPs will vote against the government this week in a bid to stop a no deal Brexit? When MPs return to the House of Commons on Tuesday from the summer recess, a cross-party group of MPs – with the help of John Bercow – are expected to try to take control of
I am finding it hard to capture the scale of the parliamentary battle that will start on Tuesday – because what is at stake is huge, complicated and shifting. One of its more important combatants described it to me as a “once-in-a-century crisis”. Another told me it would not only decide how and whether the
Keir Starmer – Next week is our last chance to stop no deal The Andrew Marr Show returned this week after a summer break, just before Parliament is due to sit again on Tuesday. However, with the Prime Minister set to prorogue Parliament ahead of a new session, there are only 16 sitting days left
For all its ferocious momentum, Boris Johnson’s government is capable of making pretty bad mistakes – as we saw with Priti Patel’s announcement that free movement of people will end with Brexit on 31 October. A problem, when it hasn’t worked out let alone revealed what regime will replace it. As I say in this
‘Totnes? It’s hippie central.’ A friend warned me what to expect when I visited the affluent, left-leaning town in south-east Devon to assess public opinion about the local MP, Dr Sarah Wollaston. In March she left the Tories to join Change UK and she now sits as a Liberal Democrat. I equipped myself with a
Saxony is Germany’s most troublesome state. For the past four years, this former part of the communist east has been hit by riots, weekly protests and been a symbol of the stubborn economic gulf between the country’s east and west. Now, a state election in the region on Sunday brings a fresh challenge for Angela Merkel, where
What is going to happen next week in parliament? Most anti-no-deal rebels see it as their last opportunity to block Britain leaving the European Union without a deal, but what they haven’t yet agreed on is how best to do it. There are a number of likely scenarios, some of which intertwine with one another,
Parliament returns on Tuesday and it is expected that anti no-deal MPs will – with John Bercow’s help – quickly seize control of the order paper. They will then try and rush through a bill designed to stop the UK from leaving the EU without a deal. I report in the Sun this morning that
Dorothy Byrne, Channel 4’s head of news, last week told the Edinburgh television festival: ‘Here is what we all need to decide: what do we do when a known liar becomes our prime minister?’ Yet she is surprised when Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn — both of whom she calls ‘cowards’ — do not come
If Boris Johnson does call a snap election this year, his fortune will be decided in the same places that swung the referendum for Brexit. Britain’s forgotten towns, places like my home town of Consett, perched high in the hills of north-west Durham, will determine the Prime Minister’s fate. In Consett, there is little sign now
Jon Sopel has a new book out this month – A Year at the Circus. But the BBC’s North America editor hasn’t spent the last 12 months taming roaring lions in a sawdust ring or swinging on a trapeze wearing a skin-tight sparkly leotard. He’s been covering Trump’s presidency. And the ‘circus’ he refers to