All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Tony Blair has urged Labour MPs to vote against Theresa May’s deal when it comes to the Commons. In a speech at the British Academy this afternoon, Blair described the deal as ‘pointless’ and added that it was ‘gut-wrenching’ that Labour was not doing more to get a second referendum. Blair’s views on Brexit aren’t
Today’s choice for ‘A Book At Bedtime’ is the government’s draft Brexit deal. At daybreak the masterpiece was being referred to as a 500-page tome but its estimated length has now risen to 540 pp. That explains why the PM looked so calm and unruffled and at PMQs. No MP is going to risk brain
Well, what did you expect? I appreciate this is a question the Brexiteers are manifestly incapable of answering but that says more about their preconceived notions of what Brexit could reasonably deliver. It is a reflection, too, of the manner in which there have always been two different kinds of Brexit. There has been the
Today’s PMQs ought to have been the calm before the storm. With Theresa May unable to reveal details of the proposed Brexit deal to MPs until her Cabinet signs it off – with a crunch meeting at 2pm – the specifics are not known. However, thanks to a series of leaks from the Brussels side
It’s time for Bond — Basildon Bond,’ is the joke among pro-Leave MPs as Theresa May serves up her mess of pottage as Brexit. Market research, however, shows the joke does not work on MPs under 40 because they do not know what Basildon Bond is. So perhaps I should explain to the hip Spectator
To the surprise of some Brexiteers, today’s front pages have been broadly sympathetic to Theresa May and her troubled deal. In fact, it’s today’s Evening Standard which appears to play to the Brexiteer cause most strongly. The paper’s editor George Osborne – May’s old nemesis – has tweeted out the front page which reads ‘EU
Let’s be clear. If the Cabinet supports the Prime Minister’s proposed deal today, and they somehow manage to whip Parliament into allowing it to proceed, then a whole raft of irreversible consequences will flow from it. This will begin the breakup of the United Kingdom, not just isolating Northern Ireland, but also undermining the Unionist
If Theresa May’s deal collapses today, the country could well be heading for another general election (sorry Brenda). So it will no doubt reassure readers that there is a competent opposition ready to take over if she goes. Or maybe not. The former head of the civil service Lord Kerslake, who has been advising Labour
Emmanuel Macron’s hosting of sixty world leaders in Paris last weekend to commemorate the centenary of the Armistice has turned into a public relations disaster. The president of the Republic not only infuriated Donald Trump, but he also put the Serbian president’s nose out of joint. According to reports, Aleksandar Vucic was not amused with
It’s not been a great start for the Prime Minister this morning, as the ERG and DUP have loudly voiced their concerns about her proposed Brexit deal, before she presents it to her Cabinet later today. The PM will not be reassured by an interview with DUP spokesman, Sammy Wilson, this morning though. The unionist
It’s crunch day – yes, really this time – for Theresa May. After spending the evening in one-on-one meetings with a select few cabinet ministers, this afternoon the Prime Minister will chair a special cabinet meeting – where she will seek approval for her proposed deal. The devil will be in the detail – but
Oh dear. The bulk of MPs haven’t even see Theresa May’s proposed deal yet but already suspicion is growing that it’s a stinker. In that vein, Jacob Rees-Mogg appeared on Newsnight on Tuesday evening where – in a significant change in tone – he appeared to suggest he could write a letter of ‘no confidence’
When Emma Barnett stood in for Andrew Marr eleven weeks after giving birth, her confident performance and tough interview style caused such a stir that viewers took to social media en masse to call for the 5Live radio presenter to be given a permanent slot. On his return, Marr himself even had to break it
Looking to put a foot on the housing ladder soon? This week’s best buys – of five-year fixed rate mortgages – might come on handy if so. From data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.
If you care about your local community, you can’t help but feel disheartened at the sight of a closing store. Vacant shops on a once-busy high street are, in a word, depressing. So too are the words, practically screaming at you in block capitals, ‘EVERYTHING MUST GO’. But these are increasingly familiar sights. With the
On the controversial – some would say “life or death” – question of how to keep open the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the backstop, this is what I am told has been agreed. It is what’s described in Brussels as the “swimming pool” approach – in other words it has
Right now, the government can’t try and sell the Brexit agreement as Theresa May is currently engaged in the delicate task of trying to persuade Cabinet Ministers—several of whom will have deep doubts about it—to back it. But Boris Johnson, the ERG and the DUP are trying to fill the vacuum this silence from the
In this week’s books podcast I’m talking to Nora Krug about her remarkable graphic work Heimat – in which this German born writer and artist discusses how it has felt to grow up in Germany and later the US with the shadow of her homeland’s war guilt, how that has issued in art, literature and
In all great love stories, there are several common elements. There is the exciting encounter, the whirlwind romance, a fight, and then either break-up or happily-ever-after. Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron’s relationship has charted a very similar path since they first met in April. But unfortunately for French-American relations, it is increasingly looking like their great
Many things about the politics of Brexit are mystifying. Some are minor puzzles: Why don’t people read the documents they say they’re angry about, for instance? And some are major enigmas: Why don’t politicians talk about the economic and social problems that drove the Leave vote instead of fixating on misunderstood abstractions like sovereignty? Yet
Another day, another case of Donald Trump ignorantly tweeting from the hip. Or maybe not quite so much. On Saturday, the President blamed the deadly forest fires in California, which have killed over 40 people in the town of Paradise near San Francisco and devastated celebrity-inhabited areas outside Los Angeles, on poor forest management. It
Oh God. Or maybe not. There’s a letter in the Guardian today from assorted unbelievers asserting their right to a place on Radio 4’s God slot, Thought for the Day. ‘It’s time for the BBC to open Thought for the Day to humanists. Religion doesn’t hold a monopoly on ethical worldviews. Humanists… make sense of
The government is facing a defeat on the Budget. But rather than a Brexit showdown or the DUP pulling the rug from under Theresa May’s feet over the rumoured backstop, the issue is a domestic one. After Tracey Crouch resigned from government over the decision to seemingly delay reducing the maximum stake for fixed odds
When I was working as a speech writer in the Home Office, under Theresa May, one of her special advisers told me that she wanted to give a statement to parliament on the police’s use of stop and search. Part of the motive for doing this, he explained, was political: stop and search is a policy
The German politicians who were once larger-than-life figures, dominating their political parties as easily as they dominated Germany’s political discourse, are fast becoming dinosaurs. First it was Martin Schulz, who resigned as chairman of the Social Democratic Party in February after some backbenchers opposed the party’s decision to enter into another grand coalition with Angela
Asia Bibi was accused of blasphemy after refusing the demands of her co-workers to reject her Catholic faith and embrace Islam. A mob invaded her home and attacked her and her family. The police responded to this brutal, unprovoked assault as you would expect: they arrested Asia Bibi and charged her with blasphemy. The local
The House of Lords privileges and conduct committee recommended today that the former Lib Dem peer, Lord Lester, be suspended from the chamber until 2022, after he was accused of offering ‘sexual inducements’ and sexually harassing a complainant – which he strenuously denies. If the House of Lords agrees with the recommendation (which it will
I dreamed I saw a monster advancing through a devastated town centre, mighty footsteps shaking semi-derelict buildings. I awoke in my armchair to find I had been reading a news item about Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley’s latest gambit: buying the 60-shop Evans Cycles chain out of administration for just £8 million, to follow his
With Theresa May’s government seemingly on the brink of collapse over the backstop agreement, the Prime Minister can take heart that the Opposition are also experiencing Brexit turbulence. Over the weekend, Jeremy Corbyn set the cat among the pigeons by telling a German newspaper that Brexit cannot be stopped. The Labour leader’s comments dismayed a
To anyone who knew the late and much-missed Norman Geras, the idea that the state could consider his work an incitement to terrorism would have been incomprehensible. Geras was an inspirational politics professor at Manchester University, and a polemicist and moral philosopher of exceptional insight. He devoted much of his energy to opposing the murder
Damian Hinds – May’s opponents should consider ‘what the alternatives are’ As the nation prepared to mark the centenary of the end of World War One, and to pay its respects to those who have died as a result of war, politicians from both major parties sat down for their final TV interviews before the
The spark for the latest challenge — to write a short story in the Gothic style with a topical twist — came from the recent reopening of Strawberry Hill House and Garden, the neo-Gothic creation of Horace Walpole, whose 1764 chiller The Castle of Otranto is regarded as the first Gothic novel. Russell Clifton deployed
Jo Johnson has noticed that Theresa May has managed to unite the country, in that both Leavers and Remainers worry that her deal will let the EU pass our laws and regulate our markets but leave us no say in that process. But why does he think that staying in the EU is a remedy
How on earth should one do it? How should the centenary of the end of a war be marked? Not just any war — the Great War. A war which involved almost every country and resulted in millions of deaths. As we approach the 100th eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,