All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The BBC’s flagship news and current affairs programme wasn’t in any doubt about who to blame for America’s latest bout of mass shootings. Newsnight’s report began with footage of Donald Trump addressing the faithful at a rally. ‘This is an invasion,’ he warned, referring to the refugees massing on the Mexican border. ‘When you see
‘I’ve heard he’s a great guy, this mayor,’ shouted Sadiq Khan to no one in particular as he arrived in the foyer of the Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Festival. He barged past me and headed for the auditorium. ‘Treat him gently, please. No heckling,’ he added, talking about himself. The audience moved into the
There’s been much talk this week of a so-called government of national unity (GNU) to stop Boris Johnson’s Brexit plan. The idea is that he’d be forced out in a vote of no confidence in September and replaced by a caretaker PM who would request an extension to our EU membership before resigning and calling
Is Boris Johnson the luckiest prime minister ever? This week, the Government can borrow money for ten years at 0.48 per cent and for thirty years at 1.16 per cent. At these rates, it would irresponsible not to borrow more. The age of austerity can be brought to an end at exactly the same moment
Joe Biden possesses the elixir of ordinariness, despite the appearance of having picked his hair and teeth out of a catalog. One of the traits of ordinariness is inconsistency. Another is hypocrisy. These are pardonable flaws among the ordinary, but we expect our leaders to at least remember their lines. Biden’s performance this week shows
At 16 minutes past four on Friday a press officer at National Grid put out a tweet which seemed to signal Britain’s progress towards its much-vaunted zero-carbon economy. The proportion of UK electricity generated by wind power, it boasted, had just reached a record high of 47.6 per cent. What, with the weather sunny as
The president of the United States has to wear many hats. When a crisis hits the world, it’s the president who is often called to help solve it. And when a crisis hits the home front, whether it be a mindless mass shooting, a major hurricane, or a mass-casualty terrorist attack, it’s the president who
What George Orwell said of left-wing intellectuals now applies to Boris Johnson and his ministers: so much of what they propose is a ‘playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot’. They may suspend Parliament and crash us out of the EU on 31 October or crash us out in
On the day Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, I said his most important appointment was that of Dominic Cummings – who had run the triumphant pro-Brexit, Vote Leave referendum campaign – as his most senior government adviser. It signalled Johnson was not bluffing when he pledged to extract the UK from the EU do or
The sense of excitement among some Remainers is almost palpable. Finally – after three years of waiting – a quarter of negative growth has materialised following all the grim warnings of Brexit-related economic turmoil. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) this morning released its first estimate for economic growth for the second quarter of this
This week, our writers tell us about their favourite British beaches, from Cornwall to Northern Ireland (24:15). But before then, there’s of course some Brexit chat as we ask whether parliament can stop a no deal Brexit in the autumn (00:25), and – has Desert Island Discs lost the plot (15:05)? With James Forsyth, Catherine
Try as I might, I just can’t seem to get anyone interested in discriminating against Indians. No one is tearing open packets of imported turmeric and cardamom and dumping their contents on supermarket floors. British academics aren’t severing ties with professors from Delhi University. If pension funds are divesting from Tata Motors and ICICI Bank,
John McDonnell spent a large amount of his time this week attacking the career history of the newly-promoted Chancellor, Sajid Javid. While some might take heart at the way Javid, as son of a Pakistani bus driver, worked his way up to become a banker and then the second most powerful politician in the country,
‘Imagine there’s no countries,’ John Lennon once sang. It seems that one Labour MP is taking that song literally. Paul Sweeney, who represents Glasgow North East, had this to say: Well, Mr S. has to admire the scale of Sweeney’s ambitions, but he also wonders whether this plan might not be the best way to
This week’s Holy Smoke podcast asks whether Cardinal George Pell, jailed in Australia for paedophile crimes, could have been the victim of a hoax. The possibility needs to be considered following the conviction in Britain of Carl Beech, formerly known as ‘Nick’, for inventing a non-existent Westminster sex ring in which VIPs supposedly raped and
An 18-year-old girl stabbed in the back in the West Midlands; three people stabbed at a party in Borough; a teenage boy left fighting for his life in New Cross; a police officer attacked with a machete in Leyton – and that is just in the past week alone. Over the past five years offences involving
It is three months since the former chancellor Philip Hammond backtracked and announced that the government would not, after all, abolish pennies and two pences. But then comes the news that the Royal Mint has produced no new one pence and two pence coins for the past 12 months. So much for official policy –
Who wrote ‘Our lifestyle is destroying the environment of our country… creating a massive burden for future generations. Corporations are heading the destruction of our environment by shamelessly over-harvesting resources… the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our
The argument about whether Boris Johnson would have to resign if he lost a confidence vote is continuing to rage at Westminster. There is, though, an angle to this argument that is being neglected. Right now, the Labour leadership is clear that it won’t back anyone other than Jeremy Corbyn to be prime minister. This
So that’s that, then. Just as the backers of a ‘government of national unity’ appeared to have their tails up, along comes shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey to scotch it, saying that Labour will back no such thing. It should come as no surprise. Corbyn wants to govern on his own terms – and be
As the by-election result came through from Wales last week, one Tory Leaver tweeted this: “Brecon and Radnor is a timely warning to Brexiteers. Vote for the @brexitparty_uk and you will hand another seat to Remain. How could you be so stupid?”. So stupid? The nerve, when after all, it was the the Brexit party that resuscitated
Smiley, fluent and softly spoken, John McDonnell sometimes comes across as a bit cuddly. Yesterday Labour’s shadow chancellor was interviewed by Iain Dale at the Edinburgh festival. He said he’s looking forward to a boating trip on the Norfolk Broads. ‘My wife and I sail. But we sail badly. People get off the water when
John McDonnell has caused a stir over recess with an interview he gave to Iain Dale at the Edinburgh Fringe. The shadow chancellor suggested that Westminster should not decide whether Scotland gets a second independence vote – instead it should be up to the Scottish Parliament. As Stephen writes on Coffee House, this is most
Britain has never had a better friend in the White House than Donald Trump. FDR may have bailed out Britain in its struggle against German imperialism, but the bailout carried the highest possible price: the surrender of Britain’s empire, and loans that weren’t paid off until 2006. By contrast, Trump asks for nothing that Britain
I am regularly asked whether MPs can block a no-deal Brexit, whether they will block a no-deal Brexit and whether there will be a referendum. The short answers are: 1. MPs have the power to block a no-deal Brexit 2. The likelihood of them permanently and definitively blocking a no-deal Brexit is slim-to-none 3. There
That sound you just heard was the entire Scottish Labour Party — all 12 of them — slapping their foreheads in frustrated unison. In an interview with Iain Dale at the Edinburgh Fringe, John McDonnell confirmed that Labour would not stand in the way of the SNP holding a second referendum on Scottish independence. The
Revolutions, once started, are hard to stop. The fire that David Cameron so casually lit in 2016 has burned through many things that seemed like fixtures of British national life. Judicial independence; the Civil Service and the Bank of England; the Union; the Conservative party’s faith in institutions; basic standards of journalism; and parliament itself:
Boris Johnson’s premiership is in danger of being undermined by a single loose remark. No, not one involving burqas, Liverpool, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Darius Guppy and all the other many and varied ways he has offended people over the years. The remark which risks doing the real damage is his off-the-cuff comment in a hustings on
Brussels believes that it has completed almost all the necessary no-deal planning, except it may try to organise improved communication between relevant national agencies and the EU Commission. It regards the idea being floated by many Brexiter MPs and the CBI that there will be mini deals before 31 October to lessen the shock of no
I nearly choked on my Krispy Kreme when I read that the journalist Michael Buerk had announced that fat people (I’m not going to use his word, obese; fat is perfectly serviceable and doesn’t have the same judgemental, almost parasexual feel) should be allowed to drop dead and no longer trouble the NHS with their
It was two days after the storm, or ‘extreme weather event’ as we call them now. I was trying to get into the Derbyshire town of Whaley Bridge, which sits below a reservoir with a crack in its dam wall. The reservoir had topped over during the night and the build-up of pressure meant the
Curfews, internet shutdowns, house arrest for opposition leaders. It’s the kind of list one normally hears in the world’s great authoritarian dictatorships. But today it is in fact the state of affairs in a part of India, the world’s largest democracy. Today the government of India announced that it was implementing direct rule and integrating the northwestern state
In the wake of the Lib Dems’ victory in last week’s Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, there’s been a lot of talk on the Remain side about the need for an electoral pact between the anti-Brexit parties. After all, the Lib Dem candidate only beat the Conservative incumbent by a margin of 1,425 votes, so wouldn’t