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Theresa May has made her latest Brexit deal pitch – and it isn’t going down well with Tory MPs. The Prime Minister used a speech this afternoon to say Parliament will get a vote on whether to hold a second referendum if it backs the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill. But Simon Clarke – a Tory
Theresa May has this afternoon had one last roll of the dice in the Brexit saga. In a speech entitled ‘New Brexit Deal’, the Prime Minister threw the kitchen sink at passing her deal on a fourth vote. With May expected to step down if her deal is rejected again after recess, she made an
The current Westminster consensus that Boris Johnson is the next Tory leader and prime minister raises all sorts of thoughts. Among them is to speculate about the sheer terror this consensus should strike in the man himself, given that Westminster consensus has been wrong about basically everything in the last three years. For what it’s
It’s quicker these days to list the number of Tory MPs not running to be leader than those expected to go for the top job. Last night another candidate appeared to join the list at an unofficial hustings hosted by the Telegraph. Mr Steerpike popped along to the £75 event, held next door to the Savoy,
I am not surprised that Jamie Oliver’s restaurant empire has collapsed into administration. I reviewed his flagship restaurant on Piccadilly, Barbecoa, in 2017, and damned it because the food was bad and the atmosphere non existent. (Well, it was almost empty; you cannot create joy in a void). I knew Oliver was in trouble before that
By what margin will Theresa May’s Brexit deal be defeated when it returns to the Commons after recess? The expectation in government is that it will be voted down for a fourth time – and the loss will be greater than on the third vote. The hope in Downing Street is that a bad result
It is still a few hours before Philip Hammond makes his speech to the CBI this evening but so much of it has been trailed in advance that delegates might as well just read the newspapers – and then book some entertainment from a juggler or fire-eater instead. We know he is going to attack
After coming under fire for its timid reporting of the Telford and Oxford grooming scandals, the BBC seems to have taken stock: this week, it successfully exposed the grooming of looked-after teenagers living on their own. According to Newsnight thousands of vulnerable young people are being placed in unregistered, independent accommodation from the age of
In the old days, if the Tory party was in trouble, old hands who had seen it all before would attempt to steady the buffs with a traditional rallying-cry: ‘pro bono publico – no bloody panico.’ Today, that message is needed as never before, but would the MPs take any notice? In the nineteenth century,
Thirty years ago, protests, riots and murders followed the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Three decades later, we recognise the Satanic Verses controversy as the opening act in Europe’s crisis of immigration, Islam, and identity politics. Daniel Pipes, my guest in ‘The Green Room‘ this week, is an historian, the president of the
Australian Labor leader Bill Shorten will forever have the ignominious label of the man who lost the unlosable election – Australia’s answer to Neil Kinnock. After six years of the conservative Liberal-National coalition government, and three different prime ministers, Labor were considered the clear favourite to win Saturday’s general election. The government had been wracked
For five years, Jean-Claude Juncker has been head of the European Commission. Luxembourg’s former Prime Minister is known for always being able to crack a joke, but as his term ends this year, it’s a good time to look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of his track record as president of the European Commission. The
Nigel Farage became the latest politician to be pelted by milkshake today, as he toured the centre of Newcastle ahead of the European elections on 23 May. The Brexit Party leader was talking to members of the public in the northeastern city when his assailant, carrying a Five Guys milkshake, surged forward and threw the
I have a question. How come when someone like Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez funds themselves through small donations it’s a sign of how engaged and democratic they are, but when the Brexit Party does the same thing it’s proof of how sinister and shady that party is? I think we all know the answer
As Change UK struggle for relevance, they have become a Revoke party. This is a significant shift from being a second referendum party. One might disagree with having a second referendum before the result of the first one has even been implemented; but there would be a check on the decision through the fact that
Frustrated Remainers wanted a second referendum – or what they ludicrously call a ‘people’s vote’, on the basis, presumably, they think the last referendum was decided by cloven-hoofed beasts and potted plants. Well, on Thursday, they are going to get one – by proxy. There is no point in the European Parliament elections, choosing candidates
‘I have always believed in miracles,’ Scott Morrison beamed. Australia’s first Pentecostal prime minister was addressing a victory rally after an upset in Saturday’s federal election. Throughout the campaign, pollsters and pundits had been as one: the Coalition (a centre-right alliance between Morrison’s Liberal Party and the agrarian National Party) was finished and Labor was headed
It has long been obvious to many of us outside Parliament that the government should never have attempted to negotiate our way out of the EU. We voted simply to leave and, after MPs voted to honour the result, it should have been left to the civil service to make the necessary preparations. Let us
Yes, Eurovision is political – but for 20 years now, this fact has been used as an excuse to explain why Britain bombs. Everyone hates us, runs the complaint, the system is rigged, there’s nothing we can do. But as we digest the latest embarrassment (we just finished last – again) it’s hard to escape
Jeremy Corbyn – Labour supporters voted ‘both Leave and Remain’ With the European elections taking place next Thursday, several senior political figures took to the TV studios to reiterate their case, including a handful of party leaders. One of these was Jeremy Corbyn, whose Brexit position has been criticised for its lack of clarity. Speaking to
For the latest competition you were asked to compose a poem that can be read forwards and backwards, i.e. from the top down and the bottom up. I worried, as the entries trickled in, that I had set the bar too high, especially given the anguished comments that accompanied some of them. ‘This was one
There’s a useful rule of thumb in politics. When Conservative politicians pronounce themselves to be a One Nation Tory, you can be pretty sure they’ve got nothing sensible to say. Instead of addressing voters, they’re conversing with each other in a special form of Tory code. It’s an identifier without substance, a form of ritualistic
On Thursday, voters will deliver a wake-up call to this parliament. They’ll vote in numbers for a party that was only launched last month and has no MPs. As I say in the Sun this morning, the Brexit Party’s success will be a sign of how frustrated voters are that Brexit hasn’t happened yet. But
Fourteen years ago, while studying at Yale, I spent a summer working for David Lammy. Office drudgery aside, it was a fantastic experience, nurturing an obsession with British politics, culture and journalism that continues to this day. Over dinner, I mention to David the MP my weekend spent at the home of David Starkey. He
Much has been made of the Brexit Party’s insurgency amongst people in Leave-voting communities, who have been subject to disparaging and patronising establishment contempt ever since they dared to vote the ‘wrong’ way in the EU referendum. But far less attention is given to the minority of Leave voters who work and live in the
In a small town in the Black Country last night, a political rally took place which should have the two main parties feeling extremely nervous. Willenhall, on the outskirts of Wolverhampton, doesn’t even have a train station. Yet well over a thousand supporters packed out a wedding venue to see the Brexit Party’s latest rally, filling
Australian rugby player Israel Folau has lost his AUS$4m mega-contract for an Instagram post he published in April after a disciplinary tribunal found that his comments were grievous enough to end his rugby career. The three person panel had found that Folau had committed a ‘high level breach’ of the code of conduct, and has
Jeremy Corbyn has just announced that the cross-party Brexit talks between Labour and the Conservatives have broken down. Below is the full text of his letter to the Prime Minister, Theresa May, explaining why: Dear Prime Minister, I am writing to let you know that I believe the talks between us about finding a
French president Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini don’t have much in common, but on the importance of the upcoming European elections they agree. For Macron, the vote will be “decisive for the future of our continent”. And for the leader of Italy’s right-wing populist Lega, “May 26 is a referendum between life
The mass sexual assaults around Cologne’s main railway station on New Year’s Eve 2015 rocked Germany, not just because of their scale (police believe hundreds of men were involved) but because of the sense that news of the attacks was being suppressed, and its links to the migrant crisis then at its peak, denied. In response
After weeks of dragging its feet and giving the distinct impression it would rather walk through broken glass than take part in the upcoming EU elections, the Conservative Party finally launched its campaign for the European elections this afternoon. To celebrate the launch, which the other parties began preparing for several weeks ago, Theresa May and
Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Is that man Boris? And if it is, what still stands in his way? In this week’s cover article, James Forsyth writes that Boris is the only one who can save the Tories from Jeremy Corbyn and, more pressingly, Nigel Farage (he’s backed up by the latest polling from
Alabama’s near-total abortion ban, signed into law on Wednesday by governor Kay Ivey, is a real moment of hope. The principle on which it grounds itself is simple enough; as Ivey put it: ‘Every life is precious.’ In those four words lies a remedy for the hatreds that divide humanity. True, pro-lifers have their own doubts over