All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Yesterday, Mr Steerpike reported that the founder of the left-wing campaign group Momentum, Jon Lansman, had been removed as a person of significant control from one if its two companies. But it appears that there have been even more machinations going on behind the scenes at Momentum HQ. Today, the online listing of Momentum Campaign
This Saturday, 600 million viewers are expected to tune in to watch The Grand National. Horse racing is the second biggest spectator sport in the UK, and Aintree’s most famous race – in fact, Britain’s most famous race – will be screened in every corner of the globe. £300 million of bets will be placed
For the prospective parliamentary candidates of Newport West, last night was the culmination of two months of frantic campaigning, as they fought to win a seat in parliament following the death of the Labour MP, Paul Flynn. Once the polls had closed and counting began, the candidates all headed to the Wales National Veledrome, as
After two rounds of talks with the Leader of the Opposition aimed at finding a way to break the Brexit logjam, Theresa May has written a letter to EU Council president Donald Tusk on her next steps forward. In it, the Prime Minister expresses regret that the House is yet to approve a Brexit deal.
Washington, DC is a town full of tradition. There’s the State of the Union address at the beginning of the year and the cherry blossom festival in March and April, when tourists around the world descend on the nation’s capital. There’s the ritualistic glad-handing, ego-stroking, and gossip-milling. And, of course, there’s the never-ending infatuation with
Sometimes Remainers mirror Brexiteers in not really considering the EU side of Brexit. Last night, when the Cooper bill passed with one vote, was such a moment. ‘Hurray, we ruled out a no-deal Brexit!’ seemed to be the general feeling from Remainers in the media. Similarly, those advocating for a no-deal Brexit fumed as the
Strange espionage events with a Chinese flavour are piling up at Mar-A-Lago, President Trump’s home-away-from-home. Awkward questions are now being raised about what’s really going on, including: are the White House’s real spy problems with Beijing rather than Moscow? In Goldfinger, the British spy-turned-spy-novelist Ian Fleming gave the world the classic line, ‘Once is happenstance.
I do not think I am alone in having real difficulty with the word Islamophobia and attempts to define it as “a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”. Racism of any sort is unacceptable and catered for in the existing law, but this definition is impossibly vague. The reality is
Siemens’ UK HQ happens to be in Manchester, where I was glad to find contrary evidence last week that all is far from lost on the innovation front, at the Northern Tech Awards, presented in rock’n’roll style by the investment bank GP Bullhound. Here were 100 high-growth companies, ranging from the self-explanatory (-Parcel2Go, Pharmacy2U) to
Theresa May has this evening found enough people to fill the various ministerial holes left in her government by the recent slew of resignations. Some of these holes have been gaping for rather a long time: there has been no Minister for Disabled People since 13 March, for instance. But their lack of replacements until
Oh look, there’s water coming through the roof of the House of Commons! What a gift to those starved of metaphors for the mess that has been made of Brexit. The problem is that the water coming through the roof, which the House authorities are insisting is not a sewage leak (in a blow to
Ever since Jeremy Corbyn first put himself forward to be Labour leader in 2015, the founder of Momentum, Jon Lansman, has been one of the most influential figures in Labour politics. Yet, as the far-left group has grown from a simple campaign to elect Corbyn, to a fearsome fundraising organisation at the heart of the
Would we condone teaching a child that 1+1 = 3, for the sake of increasing her interest in maths? No. Would we praise flat earth theorists for getting people talking about the health of the planet? No. So why are we giving credence to meaningless and often deceptive gender pay gap statistics, which have us focusing on
Remember when people would say things like, ‘Jeremy Corbyn might talk a lot of nonsense but at least he has principles’? We now know what rot that was. Corbyn is, in my view, the most unprincipled politician in the UK right now, and by some margin. Exhibit A: this man who was a devoted Eurosceptic
The magnitude of the gulf between the cabinet and perhaps a majority of Tory MPs over how to deliver Brexit was on display like an oozing wound on my show last night. The Chancellor was his normal phlegmatic, unsugaring self when revealing the government is reconciled to a long Brexit delay till at least the end
There is a terrible Adam Sandler movie called 50 First Dates. There are many terrible Adam Sandler movies, but this one is a right honker. Sandler falls in love with Drew Barrymore, who suffers from anterograde amnesia — an inability to retain new memories. He tries to help her remember but she keeps forgetting. Eventually,
Could Donald Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize? He would be following in the footsteps of his predecessor but unlike Barack Obama in 2009 his award could be for something significant: helping to bring an end to one of the world’s most intractable conflicts – the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians. It might sound implausible but
Brexit has had many effects – party disunity, family tensions, uncertainty, reputational damage, a weakened Prime Minister and a potential constitutional crisis. But one of its most significant casualties has been the attention of parliament, government and the media to the wider world and the challenges it faces. Last week, however, there was an exception to that.
Yvette Cooper’s bill, requiring the Prime Minister to seek an Article 50 extension to avoid no deal, has passed by 1 vote—going through all its Common stages in a single evening. The passage of this bill at such speed even though Theresa May has said she’ll ask for an extension, is another demonstration of how
Together at last. Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May are to meet, a deux, this afternoon to find a compromise on the withdrawal agreement. Hugely risky for both leaders. Last Wednesday, May called Corbyn ‘the biggest threat to our standing in the world.’ This week she wants him to help her write an international treaty. At
Theresa May’s decision to seek votes across the House and start Brexit talks with Jeremy Corbyn in a bid to pass her deal has sent ripples through the Conservative party today. Junior minister Nigel Adams this morning resigned over his discomfort with the new plan and now Brexit minister Chris Heaton-Harris has followed suit. In
There is a logic in Theresa May’s late move to Labour. It is the same logic by which both parties, at the last general election, put forward very similar policies about Brexit. They need to stay together (while feigning disagreement for party reasons) to frustrate what people voted for. Just as they both said in
There’s a terrifically sensitive, not to say odd, hearing underway this week in which social services are seeking to prevent a man from having sex with his wife. The couple have been married for more than 20 years but her deteriorating mental health means that social services aren’t confident that she’s able to give informed consent
So, finally, we have a spirit of compromise. Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May are going to sit down together and hammer out a deal on which both their respective parties can agree. Well, maybe not. There has been plenty of analysis over the past few hours predicting how it could all unwind – with further
Maybe we will go for a Norway-Double Plus. Or A Canada-Minus. Or Common Market 2.0, or a WTO-Light, an EEA-Doubled, or an Enhanced EFTA or even a Singapore Sling or a White Russian. Okay, scratch those last two. I seem to have mixed up a list of options for leaving the European Union with a
Jacob Rees-Mogg was on the Today programme this morning to discuss Theresa May’s latest pitch to work with Jeremy Corbyn on a Brexit compromise. The ERG member was on familiar ground as he railed against this potential softer Brexit and the Remainer MPs who might make it possible, but sounded far less comfortable when, at
He may be infallible in matters apostolic but the Pope continues to err on matters temporal. Francis is both an extraordinarily humble pontiff and one given to superfluous, non-doctrinal pronouncements that elevate his personal worldview. His ‘Jerusalem proclamation’, signed on Sunday with Moroccan king Mohammed VI, is another example of the slender line between pontificating
Seven years ago, The Spectator began podcasting. Why? For fun, really. Our writers were always being invited to comment on national broadcast shows, and so we thought, why not create our own? Podcasts gave us a chance to give our own writers their platform – if you don’t know what podcasts are, think radio programmes
Fixed rate ISAs are a good way of making sure you have some cash put to one side for a rainy day – but as with everything, you need to make sure you get the best possible deal. Here are the best one year fixed-rate cash ISAs on the market at the moment, from data
It is hard to overstate the magnitude of what happened in Cabinet today – because the prime minister and her senior ministers concluded over a record-breaking seven-and-a-half hours that Brexit was too hard for them to deliver on their own and they would now seek to enlist Jeremy Corbyn and Labour in finding a solution.
When Theresa May stood in 10 Downing Street earlier this evening and announced that she would try and break the Brexit logjam by liaising with Jeremy Corbyn, she gave the impression of speaking with cabinet backing. However, the full story is now emerging. In a stormy seven-hour meeting, minister after minister protested at her proposal
Theresa May’s statement in Downing Street was very different in tone to what she said a fortnight ago. She praised the best efforts of MPs and tried to strike a more conciliatory pose. May said she would request another Article 50 extension but she wanted it to be short so the UK would not have
I have just come from chairing seven hours of Cabinet meetings focused on finding a route out of the current impasse – one that will deliver the Brexit the British people voted for, and allow us to move on and begin bringing our divided country back together. I know there are some who are so