All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Trade associations are even better journalistic sources than talkative taxi drivers. If you want to know what’s happening in the economy of physical goods, consult a conclave of forklift truck operators; for a barometer of optimism among middle-class homeowners, mingle with managers of the nation’s garden centres. And if you want to feel the true
If the EU had granted the UK an extension until the end of this year or for another 12 months, there would have been a Tory leadership contest and then a general election. Yesterday, key figures in the party were discussing a timetable that would have seen a new leader in place by the summer,
Under pressure from France’s president Macron, the Brexit delay to 31 October is shorter than Donald Tusk, the EU’s president, and many government heads thought desirable – though still considerably longer than Theresa May consistently said was acceptable. Its impact may well be to turn the Tories into the no-deal Brexit party and Labour into
Following five hours of talks in Brussels that went on into the early hours of Thursday, Theresa May has been granted a second Brexit extension by EU leaders. The EU27 agreed to give the UK a ‘flexible’ extension until 31 October – also known as Halloween – with a chance to ‘take stock’ and review
I recently gave an interview to the New Statesman, on the assumption that, as the magazine’s former wine critic I would be treated with respect, and that the journalist, George Eaton, was sincere in wanting to talk to me about my intellectual life. Not for the first time I am forced to acknowledge what a
Benjamin Netanyahu has done it again, discreditably but indubitably. If Tuesday’s Israeli election was a referendum on his character as well as his competence, Netanyahu’s campaign tactics explained why. When his erstwhile allies to his right challenged him as the New Right, he manufactured an even newer set of allies from even further right, and
So the New Statesman decided to interview Sir Roger Scruton. Perhaps there are those who think that Scruton should not have agreed to be interviewed by the New Statesman, the left-wing magazine being unlikely to conduct a fair interview. But Scruton was the magazine’s wine columnist for many years, and under the editorship of Jason
Is this the end? The tragedy is that she no longer knows. The Prime Minister’s destiny is in the hands of Britain’s de facto head of state, Donald Tusk. On March 20th, Mrs May told Parliament that ‘as Prime Minister’ she couldn’t countenance delaying Brexit beyond June 30th. If Tusk refuses her request for a
In November last year, a row kicked off when the government asked the philosopher Roger Scruton to chair the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, which will investigate the beauty of architecture in the UK. The 75-year-old philosopher was criticised by opposition MPs in the Commons for remarks he had made in the past about homosexuality, Islamophobia
Gloss it as they may, if EU leaders force a Brexit delay of a year on the UK, contrary to the request from Theresa May – as the EU president Donald Tusk wants – then they will have made a momentous judgement that will cause an earthquake, for us and them. They would be sending
Every now and then there is a political moment, some event or comment, that reveals just how much society has changed. This week contained one of those moments. On Tuesday it was reported that nine pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong had been found guilty of causing a public nuisance by taking to the streets five
With 97 per cent of votes counted, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks poised to secure a remarkable record fifth term. Pundits had said Israel’s election was too close to call, and in many ways it was. Both Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party and its main rival, the centrist Blue and White alliance look set to
One could almost look on Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn and see a story of frustrated love. They could be happy, the soppy observer might think. If only they could get some time on their own, and unburden their hearts, they would find they were in perfect agreement. Alas, their inability to be honest with each
Over the past six weeks something odd has happened. Head to the culture pages of any newspaper and you can’t miss it: the increasingly frantic praise for Fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s smash-hit sitcom, has reached crisis point. What started as a collective love-in is now full-blown hysteria. After Monday’s finale, critics resembled devotees of a religious
Today’s conviction of nine leaders of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement on charges including ‘incitement to public nuisance’, ‘incitement to incite public nuisance’ and ‘conspiracy to public nuisance’ is, in itself, one of the biggest public nuisances in Hong Kong in recent years. And the verdict is yet another hammer blow to Hong Kong’s rapidly
At the end of last week the Court of Appeal explained why it had upheld the conviction of a grandfather – who can be identified only as ‘SB’ – for sexually abusing his granddaughter, even though that same granddaughter told the court, under oath, that he is innocent. The granddaughter, identified in the judgment as ‘M’,
Growing up I remember my late grandfather, a former commissioned officer in the British Indian Army, being fixated by re-runs of Richard Attenborough’s award-winning film Gandhi. One scene stood out. In the film Attenborough immortalised an event that Churchill referred to as ‘monstrous’, and David Cameron ‘a deeply shameful event in British history’ – the
Benjamin Netanyahu, facing defeat in today’s Israeli elections, has made a final pitch to his right-wing base. Over the weekend, the Likud leader said that, if re-elected, he would apply Israeli sovereignty to both the settlement blocs and isolated communities deeper inside Judea and Samaria. ‘From my perspective, each of those settlement points is Israeli,’
It’s plain to see that the Conservative party has a youth problem. Millennials are turning away from the party in their droves. But what is actually causing this dire Tory performance among young voters? There are eight reasons, any of which on their own would present a problem. Together, their combination is creating a conveyor belt
In this the 115th anniversary week of the Entente Cordiale, the French president and the British Prime Minister will meet twice, today at the Elysee Palace and tomorrow at the European Council in Brussels. But neither of those meetings will be to celebrate their countries friendship. When May goes to Paris and then to Brussels,
The Commons has voted by 420 to 110 to approve Theresa May’s decision to ask for an extension to the Article 50 process to the 30th of June. It isn’t a surprise that this motion passed, there is an anti no-deal majority in the Commons, but the 97 Tory votes against and the number of
Rumours continue to circulate that if a long extension were to be granted by the European Union, it could be flexible. This would mean that Britain could officially depart from the bloc earlier than the agreed-upon exit date if a deal were secured between the UK and the EU27. I’m unsure what about the past two-and-a-half
It makes almost no sense for the Brexit debacle to have come down to the issue of an ‘independent British trade policy’. Trade was not a central issue at the referendum and remains wildly misunderstood by public and politicians alike. But we are where we are. If we end up crashing out by accident, or
As I mentioned last night, EU President Donald Tusk’s suggestion of a Brexit delay of a year or so seems to have been torn up – notably by France’s president Emmanuel Macron. I was told by those involved in preparations for the emergency Brexit summit on Wednesday that the most likely outcome of the special summit is another
Theresa May has suffered a record number of ministerial resignations since the day she walked into Number 10, but if she was hoping the worst was over, it appears that collective responsibility may still crumble away altogether. This morning it was Huw Merriman, the PPS of Philip Hammond, who threw down the gauntlet, when he
Fixed rate business bonds can guarantee you a relatively high interest rate, as long as you are able to leave your money untouched for a certain amount of time. Here are some of the best fixed rate business bonds on the market at the moment, from data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.
It looks as if I’m the only one who wants to keep fault in divorce then. Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen so many divorces where there was actually fault, usually one of the parties running off with someone else. I can see why the adulterous party in the business should want to remove the distasteful
Over the weekend, social media and the newspapers were full of stories of Pacific walruses plunging over sea cliffs to their deaths. Heart-wrenching film of the corpses of these magnificent beasts piled up on the shore have been driving many to tears. This all came about as the result of the latest episode of Our
Today, a Government in dire need of a good news story has mooted legislation resulting in the very opposite. The Conservative manifesto from 2017 said: ‘Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet. We disagree.’ Now the Tories are delivering on their promise. But their
Struggling to understand the ways of the French, the francophile Winston Churchill reflected whimsically in 1942: ‘The Almighty in His infinite wisdom did not see fit to create Frenchmen in the image of Englishmen.’ And yet today, the Almighty would struggle to create two more similar states in international terms than Britain and France. Similar
Jeremy Corbyn has insisted that Theresa May hasn’t yet moved on her Brexit red lines in talks with the Labour Party. In a broadcast clip this evening, the Labour leader said: ‘Well, the meetings are very long. A great deal of detail is gone into by both parties. We have people who have been on
Our Brexit fate is in the hands of France’s president Macron – which is “not a wholly comfortable state of affairs,” in the euphemistic words of a minister. What this minister means is the Prime Minister and her close colleagues are a long way from being convinced Macron will underwrite EU president Donald Tusk’s proposal
As Theresa May reaffirmed her commitment to strike a softer Brexit deal with Labour over the weekend, and Yvette Cooper’s bill attempting to block no-deal Brexit passes through the Lords, leading Brexiteers stepped up their war against Theresa May. This afternoon ERG member Mark Francois, in a strongly worded letter to Graham Brady, called for
Is the de facto Brexit default now revoking Article 50 this week rather than a no-deal Brexit on 12 April? I ask because the Prime Minister is now explicitly saying the choice is a binary one between some version of her negotiated deal and not leaving at all (that is what she said in her sofa