All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Julian Smith used to have the unenviable task of being Theresa May’s chief whip. As the newly-appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, he now has an even harder job. Wrangling unbiddable MPs pales into insignificance when arbitrating the causes and consequences of a brutalised polity. Members of Northern Ireland’s devolved government still refuse to sit
When Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan handed the country’s army chief, general Qamar Javed Bajwa, a three-year extension on Monday, press reports didn’t tell the full story. The true picture is very revealing of Khan’s own position and shows how his views have changed dramatically. To start with, this was no simple extension for a man appointed
Boris Johnson’s critics predicted that he would be something of a disaster on the world stage, but his debut as Prime Minister in Berlin has got off to a good start. Firstly, he avoided the fate of Theresa May, who managed to get locked into her car when she arrived to meet Angela Merkel. And
When Theresa May held press conferences with European leaders over Brexit, they were often a painful affair – with her counterpart quick to suggest little progress had been made. This afternoon Boris Johnson opted for an optimistic approach in his first outing on the world stage. The Prime Minister met with Angela Merkel this afternoon
Why would French government officials brief that they think it most likely Britain will leave the European Union without a deal? Boris Johnson hasn’t even made it as far as his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, and is only just being welcomed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. So why brief that out now, before
There is arguably the most important conflict raging in the Tory party since Churchill replaced Chamberlain as PM in 1940. Although we are living through 1940 in reverse, because Johnson is already the self-defined “war-time” PM, the wannabe Churchill, when some of his colleagues want something and perhaps someone else. Forget the battle between government
Nicola Sturgeon fancies herself as something of an international stateswoman, jetting off to the United States to boost her profile and touring the capitals of Europe in search of allies against Brexit. She is fond, too, of tweeting her commentary on global affairs, in the hope that others may learn from her example so that,
Theresa May spent her first day outside of No. 10 at Lord’s cricket ground, watching the second day of the England match against Ireland. The game proved portentous, with Ireland squaring up to presumed English supremacy before the match was called off due to an imminent storm, all while May and her allies watched from
It’s not often Mr S jumps to the defence of the EU, but he is prepared to make an exception. A new handball rule in football caused controversy over the weekend after a last-minute goal by Manchester City was ruled out. The reason? City player Aymeric Laporte was judged to have lightly touched the ball
Conservative party chairman James Cleverly was at the receiving end of another motorist’s ire after a collision on the M11 on Friday evening. Twitter user Asim Khan alleged that the Tory MP clipped the side of his car with his Land Rover 4×4 while he was on his phone. Khan claims that Cleverly accepted liability
Elton John did his royal pals Harry and Meghan few favours when he revealed he’d bought carbon offsets for the couple’s recent trip to Nice in Sir Elton’s private jet. It was also a mistake. ‘Offsetting is worse than doing nothing,’ according to Manchester university professor Kevin Anderson, one of the vanishingly small number of
Across the world last weekend, pro-Beijing demonstrators took to the streets. In London, Melbourne and Calgary, people waved the five-starred red flag and belted out the Chinese national anthem. It was a display of national pride towards China. But marchers also wanted to send a message to Hong Kong: those protesting against the Chinese government
The heightened rhetoric of the past few days, from talk of collaborators, saboteurs and government of national unity, prompt me to set out what I believe are today’s risks, from one who voted to Remain in the EU, but has accepted the result and voted accordingly in Parliament to leave with a deal ever since.
One thing on which Remainers and Brexiteers can agree is that Brexit delayed is Brexit denied. The government continues to proclaim that the UK will leave the EU on 31 October with or without a deal. But No. 10 is acutely sensitive to the possibility of a parliamentary manoeuvre designed to compel the executive, through
History has a sarcastic sense of humour, just ask Francis Fukuyama. Or eminent historians and literary ornaments of India like Ramachandra Guha, Arundhati Roy, and Shashi Tharoor, who are now mourning the loss of a secular liberal India under a Hindu majoritarian quasi-imperial centre. These four and their fellow academics are the first ones to blame
What now looks like a distinct possibility in Italy after today’s resignation of Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte is a reminder of a golden rule of modern politics: the liberal left will sleep with any enemy however repulsive to stop right-wing populism. Matteo Salvini, who is by far Italy’s most popular politician, perhaps forgot this
The stand-off between Downing Street and the European Union over Boris Johnson’s latest proposal for the backstop boils down to a disagreement over whether the British government really cares about getting a Brexit deal at all. When Donald Tusk rejected Johnson’s plan today, he all but accused him of being set on a no-deal exit,
Corbynistas are out to get Jo Swinson again after the Lib Dem leader accused Jeremy Corbyn of being a Brexiteer. ‘Jeremy Corbyn didn’t fight to remain in 2016, and he won’t fight for remain now’, said Swinson. It wasn’t long before the usual suspects leapt to the Labour leader’s defence. Step forward, Owen Jones: ‘This
Rolling news anchors are known for their ability to continue chuntering on, even when there is very little actual news. But one of the few problems they can’t waffle their way through is a power cut. Earlier today, Sky News suffered what appeared to be a brief outage, made all the more amusing by the
What is Boris Johnson’s strategy for engaging with the media? Over the weekend reports emerged that the Johnson government’s media strategy would omit Radio 4’s flagship current affairs programme. No. 10 director of communications Lee Cain is said to have told aides that the Today programme is a ‘total waste of time’. He’s not alone. Johnson’s most
When was the last time you were in a Twitter mob? We know these maelstroms of anger so well now, and even remember the names of some of the people randomly caught up in them over the years too. There was Justine Sacco, who lost her job after tweeting a joke about AIDS, and Jon
Boris Johnson declaring war on anti-vaxxers is the sort of thing that no-one will disagree with unless, of course, they are the ones peddling dangerous myths about the effects of these preventative treatments on children. The Prime Minister today announced a crackdown on misleading claims about vaccinations, with plans for a summit with social media
‘Poetry makes nothing happen,’ a famous poet once said. But Mr S is still disappointed to hear that the nation’s official poet won’t be penning some lines to mark Britain’s departure from the EU. Poet Laureate Simon Armitage said he has ‘no plans’ to commemorate Brexit day on 31 October. Whatever does he do for his annual stipend of £5,750
We have to talk about the schoolgirl who was disqualified from a GCSE exam on the grounds that she had made ‘obscene racial comments’ about Islam. This bizarre incident is being chalked up to overzealous wokeness on the part of some GCSE examiners. But it’s more than that. It tells us a bigger story about
Jez he did! Jeremy Corbyn has just surprised absolutely nobody by calling Prime Minister Boris Johnson ‘Britain’s Trump.’ He labelled Boris a ‘fake populist’ and a ‘phoney outsider.’ No doubt Labour speechwriters think this is a great attack line ahead of a general election. But it might backfire – for two reasons. First, Trump is
Jeremy Corbyn has just given a speech attacking Boris Johnson as ‘Britain’s Trump’. But while the Labour leader is happy to dish out criticism, it seems his supporters don’t like it when the tables are turned. A journalist found that out the hard way when he told Corbyn: ‘It’s clear that you do not have
David Attenborough is something of a national treasure, but how has the veteran broadcaster managed to maintain his popularity? ‘It’s easy if you don’t have to do controversial things,’ according to Attenborough, who said in an interview in 2017 that if he does have controversial thoughts, he simply doesn’t share them. That strategy seems to have been
Joe Biden has led Democratic polls since day one, holding the kind of consistent lead within his party that Donald Trump held heading into the 2016 primaries. The numbers say he will be the nominee. They also say he will beat Trump. They’re wrong: you should still bet against Biden getting the nomination or getting
Much as the appalling Shami Chakrabarti has insisted, I stand ‘in solidarity’ with Owen Jones and hope he makes a swift recovery. The question, though, is whether Owen Jones stands in solidarity with Owen Jones. By which I mean, does he agree that assaulting people because they have different political opinions to you is always
Gina Miller: ‘We’ve called the government’s bluff’ Stephen Dixon filled in for Sophy Ridge this week, and began by interviewing Gina Miller. Miller and her legal team are due to bring a court case in early September to determine key questions about the government’s delivery of a no deal Brexit. This morning, Miller claimed a
Your latest challenge was to imagine William Topaz McGonagall’s poetic response to Magaluf. McGonagall was much taken with the town of Torquay, and wrote a poem singing its praises. But what would the Tayside Tragedian have made of Shagaluf? He took a dim view of alcohol, if these lines are anything to go by: Oh,
‘Great Minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.’ (Eleanor Roosevelt) The essay which follows is about ideas, not people, for people – now more than ever – no matter what office they may hold, have far less agency than they imagine. It is ideas that change the world. Accordingly, the discussion
Nothing in cricket is quite as visceral, even quite as primeval, as the confrontation between a batsmen of the highest class and a bowler of the greatest velocity. Sometimes, as with a Colin Croft or a Charlie Griffith or Lillee and Thomson at their snarling fastest, this can be streaked with nastiness. Broken bones and
We seem to be building up to a second Tiananmen Square, 30 years after the first. This time the venue is Hong Kong. As then, the Chinese government longs to kill protestors, but it hesitates because it fears global reaction. It therefore matters greatly that the ‘rules-based international order’ strongly assert that breaking the 1984