All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
We do not yet know which 100 citizens will make it to the ‘Citizens’ Assembly’ to be chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which will look at ways of preventing a no-deal Brexit. So we cannot yet judge whether the organisers have come up with a system of selection which improves on the representative powers
Boris Johnson is being widely accused of subverting the British version of democracy with his plan to suspend or prorogue parliament for four weeks – unprecedented in modern times. His apparent aim is to make it much harder for MPs to take control of the process of when and whether the UK leaves the EU.
Talking to various figures in Government today, it is clear that Boris Johnson’s team want the choice for MPs to be between their Brexit strategy and making Jeremy Corbyn prime minister. They believe that ultimately there aren’t enough MPs prepared to make Corbyn prime minister; meaning that they’ll get to carry out their Brexit strategy.
So what now for the opponents of no deal? Boris Johnson has dramatically called their bluff, and as Mr Steerpike reports, not all of them are taking this particularly well. Both proponents and opponents of Britain leaving without a deal are engaged in a political wrestling match, with all the theatrics that entails. Both are
Not content with agitating against democracy with his relentless Remainer shenanigans, now Tony Blair appears to be aiming his fire at freedom of speech. Seriously, is there no civilisational liberal value this man doesn’t want to take down? A new report for Blair’s think-tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, says hard-right groups should
Chancellor Sajid Javid’s approach to the spending review is in danger of stopping the Boris-inspired Tory revival in its tracks. The Chancellor needs to think more like an entrepreneur and less like he’s a newly-wed on a tight income. He intends to stick to the current spending rule that the annual deficit should not exceed
Dear Colleague, I hope that you had an enjoyable and productive summer recess, with the opportunity for some rest ahead of the return of the House. I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on the Government’s plans for its business in Parliament. As you know, for some time parliamentary business has been sparse.
Downing Street has just confirmed that the Prime Minister will be asking the Queen to prorogue parliament ahead of a new Queen’s Speech on 14 October. In a letter sent to MPs this morning, Boris Johnson claims that this is a move designed to put a fresh domestic programme before Parliament, writing: ‘I therefore intend
Boris Johnson announced this morning that he will attempt to schedule a Queen’s speech on 14 October, and will suspend parliament for several weeks in September to do so – cutting down the amount of time MPs have in parliament to prevent a no-deal Brexit. It’s entirely normal for a new government to schedule a
Boris Johnson’s plan to suspend Parliament is not going down well with MPs, not least among some of those on the Tory backbenchers. Dominic Grieve reacted furiously to the news. The Tory MP said the Prime Minister’s decision is ‘outrageous’ – and he threatened to help bring down the Tory Government, even if it means
The parliamentary battle of our age, and of many ages – over how and whether the UK Brexits – begins, with the signal from Downing Street that the Commons will rise some time between 10 and 13 September and will return for a Queen’s Speech on 14 October. This will leave MPs with just a
Greta Thunberg’s yacht, the Malizia II, has delivered her to the UN climate conference in New York – two weeks after she first set sail from Europe. The transatlantic trip was a masterstroke in PR, with every major media outlet broadcasting updates on the journey and detailing the hardships Thunberg has endured – no toilet, no
Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to use ‘all tactics available’ to block a no-deal Brexit. The Labour leader is meeting MPs today to try work out how to do just that. But with no deal back in the headlines, are we having the wrong discussion about what it would mean for Britain to leave the EU
So there is more than one Old Etonian hoping to ride to the nation’s rescue. My first reaction to the news that Justin Welby is involved in plans for a citizens’ assembly to find an alternative to a no-deal Brexit was sceptical. Too late for such an initiative. Give Boris a chance to get on with
Sajid Javid has this afternoon cancelled a speech he was due to give tomorrow, and brought forward the one-year spending review to early September. It was due to take place later in the autumn. A statement from the Treasury said ‘the forthcoming Spending Round will instead be brought forward in early September and will cover
Gordon Brown has broken his silence again. The former prime minister told the Edinburgh International Book Festival that the Scottish Parliament had ‘failed to deliver a fairer and more prosperous Scotland’ and had instead become a ‘battering ram for constitutional warfare’. What’s that, Lassie? Timmy’s trapped down the well? And creating a Scottish parliament to
Jeremy Corbyn’s cross-party talks to stop a no-deal Brexit have broken up, with opposition leaders and MPs releasing a statement saying they ‘agreed on the urgency to act together to find practical ways to prevent no deal, including the possibility of passing legislation and a vote of no confidence’. The Labour leader opened the meeting
Who knew the Royal Mint, of all places, had been captured by the cult of political correctness? According to the Mail, the Mint’s Advisory Committee decided not to put Enid Blyton on a 50p coin to commemorate the 50th anniversary of her death because she is ‘a racist, sexist, homophobe and not a very well-regarded
Britain’s civil service is supposed to be the envy of the world, seamlessly executing the will of whichever government happens to occupy the offices of state. But Mr S wonders whether the reality can be rather different. Disgruntled civil servants have toppled more than one over-mighty minister. Others have admitted actively trying to undermine government
The latest stage in a series of arcane gambits and cunning plans designed to frustrate Britain’s exit from the EU came in the form of Jeremy Corbyn’s recent letter to leading opponents of a no-deal Brexit, inviting them to discuss the joint coordination efforts. In his letter, Corbyn rightly predicts that during the next few
I’m on holiday with my family in Turks and Caicos, and maintaining my current weight is proving difficult. Regular readers will recall that I lost about half a stone at the beginning of 2018, after an army of offence archeologists started sifting through everything I’d written, dating back more than 30 years, looking for evidence
I’ve learned only one thing at the G7 summit of big rich countries here in Biarritz: Boris Johnson absolutely loves being Prime Minister. There’s little of the conspicuous sense of duty that weighed on the shoulders of Theresa May, Gordon Brown and Sir John Major. Nor is there that unnerving claim to embody the spirit
Sophy Ridge returned this morning after a few weeks holiday. Representing the government was the Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps. Shapps was upbeat about the UK’s prospects should it encounter a no deal Brexit, and proudly told Ridge that his department was fully equipped to tackle any challenges: 'We will be ready for no-deal, in fact,
To the G7 summit in Biarritz where Boris Johnson has held his first meeting with Donald Trump since becoming Prime Minister. The two blondes used the breakfast meet to talk up trade, with President Trump saying the UK leaving the EU will be like losing ‘an anchor round the ankle’. A more jolly affair than the
In Competition No. 3112 you were invited to submit an extract from Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Brexiteers. The title of this new addition to the G&S canon was, of course, a nod to The Gondoliers. But in an entry both serious and silly, full of wit and whimsy, you also plundered The Mikado (‘Four little
Nigel Farage: whatever happened to him? You remember, the chap in the coat who used to go on about Europe and all that. Time was, you couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing him. These days, not so much. Farage’s relative quiet in political circles says quite a lot about how easy a ride Boris
We are living through the most dramatic period in British peacetime history since the agitations leading up to the Great Reform Bill – and, irrespective of Brexit, there is more to come. The UK is about to experience a revolution in government. This will take one of three forms. There could be a chassis revolution,
I am up on the far north-west coast of Scotland, where the weather is changing every five minutes under vast skies and huge seascapes. Go to the beach and look left, and it’s a sparkling Mediterranean scene, bright white sand and opalescent turquoise water, what you might call Rossini weather. Swivel your gaze right, and vast
He looks nothing like a financial expert. Moneyweek journalist, Dominic Frisby, has a huge Santa beard and he dresses like a funeral director from a Roald Dahl fantasy: a top hat, a white shirt with wing-collars and a flowing silk cravat. As a gesture of solidarity with the gilets jaunes he sports a bright yellow
The Oval, 1902. Headingley 1981. Melbourne 1982. Edgbaston 2005. And now Headingley 2019. Move over Sir Ian Botham, you’ve got company and there’s a new king in the north. This astonishing, heart-stopping, game will forever be remembered as Stokes’s match and recalled for as long as test cricket is still played and savoured. For a
It should be obvious by now — but somehow isn’t. Whenever @realDonldTrump says something wild, you can bet the real Donald Trump is contemplating something sensible — and vice-versa. Often the Commander-in-Chief does the opposite to what his social media handle has just said. Trump the Twitterer is the yin to Trump President’s yang. One
‘France has a German policy, she has no other’, remarked the seasoned observer of international affairs and future editor of Le Monde André Fontaine in 1952. With a British withdrawal from the EU she is again confronted by an old demon dating from 1871 : management of a dominant Germany on the continent of Europe.
As was to be expected, the EU’s reaction to Boris Johnson’s offer of revisiting the Withdrawal Agreement if the backstop is removed has been to reject it out of hand. But there are still 68 days to go before the UK is due to leave the EU and if the EU’s resolve wavers between now
In the London Review of Books this month, James Meek wrote a long article about Jacob Rees-Mogg and his ‘curious duality’ in being both a high Catholic, fogey Brexiteer and a founder of Somerset Capital Management, which the author sees as globalist and ruthless. The piece is elegantly done, but entirely sneery. It makes not the slightest
