All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Is 50-year-old model Helena Christensen too old to wear a bustier to a party? The ex-editor of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, thinks so. ‘There comes that point in every woman’s life,’ Shulman wrote with finger-wagging admonishment at the start of her column in the Mail on Sunday, ‘when, however reluctantly, you have to hand over the fleshpot-at-the-party
The Europeans always held an inkling that sooner or later, a time would come when an impatient Washington would announce to the world that any country or entity buying or dealing with Iranian crude oil would be kicked out of the US financial system. The threat of US sanctions hung in the air like a
Behind the biggest recent upsets in Western politics lurk two influential advisors: one a scruffy far-right American ideologue who has become a household name; the other a clean-cut Frenchman just over 30 who has always avoided the limelight – until now. Without Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s campaign boss in the final stages of the election,
Madrid, Spain Vox, the right-wing political underdog, received 10 per cent of all votes in the Spanish general elections on Sunday. Just three years ago, they didn’t have a single seat in parliament. Now, they have 24. To understand what has made them so popular, despite the vitriol they have received from all quarters, one has
Jeremy Corbyn has again shown his power over the structures of the Labour party by winning today’s national executive committee showdown over its European elections manifesto. A faction of MPs, led by Tom Watson and backed by the GMB, Unison, Usdaw and TSSA unions, had hoped to change party policy to support for a confirmatory
Jews are familiar with the malice, prejudice and stupidity that governs the Labour Party’s complaints process when it comes to anti-Semitism. They will find no comfort in the news that other allegations of racism get short shrift too, even when the complainant is a prominent Labour politician. The party has said there is no case
Will the cross-party Brexit talks ever end? They seem to have been going on for almost as long as the negotiations to get Britain out of the European Union, and with a similar lack of anything for either side to boast about. Yesterday, David Lidington said he was ‘encouraged by the sense in the room
One of the many things that has been neglected in the Conservative Party because of all-consuming Brexit is a meaningful debate about markets and business. Confronted with a Labour leader offering a clear critique of capitalism as a “rigged” system and outflanked by Nigel Farage telling a remarkably similar story about big money financing a
Today is a key crunch point for Labour, as the party rules on whether it will fully endorse a second Brexit referendum ahead of the EU elections next month. Until now, the party has been happy to stick with its tortuously worded conference Brexit policy, which both sides on the referendum debate have said backs
Brexit is fomenting a significant split in the alliance of Labour left-wing activists that keeps Jeremy Corbyn in power, because of his and the party leadership’s reluctance to commit to hold a referendum on any Brexit deal. A senior and influential activist told me: ‘Discussions are under way between leading Momentum activists, anti-Brexit MPs and
As the Tories set expectations low for Thursday’s local elections, Labour is in campaign mode. The party has released its third and final party political broadcast ahead of this week’s votes. The theme of the short film is investment vs austerity attempting to lay out the reasoning behind the Labour slogan ‘for the many not
Jeremy Corbyn, Shami Chakrabarti and Harriet Harman all have difficulties with the idea of complainants in rape cases being asked to hand over their mobile phones as part of a police investigation. Corbyn has described it as a ‘disturbing move’. It is nothing of the sort. No change in the law has taken place. Instead,
Social media isn’t forgiving of politicians who suffer a slip of the tongue, especially when it comes to confusing a Sikh place of worship, a gurdwara, with a mosque. Only this week former John Lewis honcho turned Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, has faced the ire of angry Sikhs and wider public criticism for
James Brokenshire has been keeping a low profile since the controversial sacking of Roger Scruton three weeks ago. But now the Housing Secretary has finally been taken to task for his handling of the row. Brokenshire sacked Scruton from his unpaid government role within hours of the publication of an interview in which Scruton was
I am not a right-winger. I am ashamed to say that I discovered Sir Roger Scruton only four years ago when an argument in a Washington DC think-tank led to a search for contemporary philosophers who took a long view of civilisation, history, ideas, and implications of philosophy. It happened when I was an advisor
Why aren’t we Brits talking about the revolt just across the English Channel? Our silence on the gilets jaunes and their spectacular, sustained rebellion against the increasingly tyrannical rule of Emmanuel Macron has become pathological. There’s been barely any BBC coverage, no words of solidarity from Corbynistas, not a peep from the trade union movement.
Sources close to the Labour leader believe the emergency NEC meeting on Tuesday, which determines the Labour manifesto for the EU elections, will agree a formula that is “a restatement” of the party’s equivocal and prolix party conference resolution of last September. But a senior trade union source tells me that if Unison, GMB and
How does Theresa May plan to spend the six-month Brexit extension? Nearly one month in and there is little sign of a Brexit breakthrough. The Labour/Tory talks are ongoing yet those inside the room are pessimistic they will lead to an imminent solution. It now seems as though there won’t be much in the way
The hunt is on within government to discover which individual leaked details of a meeting of the National Security Council on allowing Huawei to help build Britain’s new 5G network to the press. With an inquiry under way, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt today announced that he would be happy to hand over his phone as part
Spain’s general election yesterday – the third in four years – revealed a deserved winner and a big loser, as well as signalling the start of a lengthy coalition-forming process. The country’s five main political parties performed more or less exactly as the polls had suggested they would. Pedro Sánchez’s centre-left Socialist party (the PSOE)
Last Tuesday evening, I tweeted the following: It was, fairly obviously, a joke. But the fallout was extraordinary. The gag split people politically. Many of those on the right thought the idea hilarious and a good way to scrutinise an activist who MPs were busy fawning over; my critics on the left suggested I should
As much as the country is divided by Brexit, there’s arguably an even more stark division. It’s the one between those directly and repeatedly affected by crime, and those who aren’t. Prison officers – more so than police, prosecutors, barristers, or probation officers – face the worst of state failure when it comes to crime.
Brandon Lewis: I hope our councillors will vote Conservative After fighting off some technical glitches this morning, the new series of the Marr Show featured an interview with the Conservative party chairman Brandon Lewis. With local elections, and potentially, European elections approaching next month, Mishal Husain (filling in for Marr) asked Lewis about the party’s
A concerted attempt by Labour MPs and MEPs to engineer that their party would campaign unambiguously for a ‘confirmatory’ Brexit referendum in the EU elections looks set to flop. Instead Jeremy Corbyn’s preferred position of characterising a new public vote only as an option is likely to prevail, because he seems to have retained the
The prompt for this challenge – to submit an elegy by a poet on another poet – was ‘Adonais’, Shelley’s celebrated 55-stanza tribute to Keats. Frank McDonald imagined Keats responding in kind: My heart aches for you, brother Percy Bysshe, Who wept for me although my name was writ In water. Dearest friend, it was
It’s not much comfort, if you like pubs, that the rate at which they’re closing across the UK has fallen from 138 per month for the past several years to 76 per month in 2018; small consolation too that this is partly the result of a rare example of government policy working — in the
The Tories have a debate on their hands about what direction they should go in. Do they return to the politics of the Cameron coalition? This delivered majority government, won over a greater percentage of AB (better off) voters, won more university towns, more professionals but fewer rural areas. Or should the Tories double down
I agree with much of Liam Halligan’s analysis of the Irish government’s approach to Brexit (‘Good Friday disagreement’, 20 April). However, I think he omits an important point. Leo Varadkar is not merely attempting to derail Brexit; he is also hoping to achieve a united Ireland. For decades politicians, officials and journalists in the south
Next week, Theresa May will sit down with Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee. He will ask her for more clarity on her departure plans. As I say in The Sun this morning, the answer that Mrs May gives will go a long way to determining her future. On Wednesday, the executive of
Until now, I haven’t been too worried about Jeremy Corbyn. True, he exceeded expectations two years ago, but that was because no one thought Labour would win. It was a protest vote, a way for Remainers to signal their disapproval of Theresa May’s approach to Brexit. If the good burghers of Kensington thought there was
For years, southern Spain has been one of the main entry points for migrants travelling to Europe from Africa or the Middle East. Yet throughout the so-called refugee crisis of 2015 – an issue that saw populist parties across the EU gain huge support – Spain proved to be one of Europe’s few exceptions. Throughout
A question has come to me from a test paper in the A-level for 21st century ethics. Read the following statement and explain what is wrong with it: ‘It’s important that we take climate issues seriously. Whether or not individuals accept the current scientific consensus on the causes of climate change, it is sensible for
One doubts very much that Donald Trump knows who Jeremy Corbyn is. So the Labour Party leader’s decision to ‘snub’ the US President on his state visit to the UK in June won’t rupture the special relationship. However, it is quite rude. ‘Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state
Next week, the Tories will face their first big electoral test since failing to deliver Brexit on time. On Thursday, the local elections take place – with 9,000 seats up for grabs. While the focus in recent weeks has been on the European elections next month – which will see Nigel Farage’s Brexit party and
