All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Theresa May’s Hell Week 2.0 has aptly ended with a Conservative backbencher branding the current operation a ‘sh-t-show’. In an interview with The House magazine, Johnny Mercer has let rip – complaining that were he not a Conservative MP he wouldn’t vote Conservative. Mercer says the party’s values have changed since the Cameron days and
This weekend thousands of anti-Brexit protesters are expected to take to the streets in the name of the People’s Vote march – the campaign calling for a second referendum. Of all the ‘People’s Vote’ cheerleaders, Alastair Campbell is one of the loudest and he appeared on This Week to plug the event. Only Andrew Neil
Oh dear. It’s not going great for Theresa May right now what with Brexiteers calling on her removal and Remainers also tiring of her dithering. But despite the rise in blue-on-blue hostilities, an interview with Johnny Mercer still manages to surprise. The Conservative backbencher – who has been branded a rising star – has used
Recently, Fraser Nelson, Editor of the Spectator, hosted a roundtable lunch in the boardroom at 22 Old Queen Street, in association with Prudential. On the agenda was the question: ‘In our ageing society, can we afford retirement?’ In attendance were Fraser Nelson; Will Heaven, the Spectator’s Managing Editor; Elliott Mears, the company’s Head of Partnerships;
When Tamsyn Barton was summoned before MPs last month to be quizzed on her suitability to run the official aid watchdog, she was asked about priorities in the post. She insisted she planned ‘to build back public trust in the effectiveness of aid,’ admitting support for the government’s £13.4bn spending spree was waning. This rising concern
In this week’s Books Podcast I’m talking to the incomparable Sara Paretsky about her latest V. I. Warshawski novel Shell Game — which pits the original feminist gumshoe against art thieves, Russian mobsters and her fink of an ex-husband. I talk to Sara about keeping Vic young (skincare doesn’t come into it), chiming with MeToo
This week, Brexit negotiations grind to a halt again as Brussels and the UK draw mutually exclusive red lines on the Irish border problem. We talk to James Forsyth and Dan Hannan on what next for Brexit. We also look a little deeper into the methods and mission of Bellingcat, the investigators that unveiled the
With Conservative MPs across the spectrum seeing red over a mooted extension to the implementation period after the UK leaves the EU, Theresa May attempted to dial down the rhetoric in her EU Council press conference this afternoon. After a disappointing evening which saw the Prime Minister granted neither dinner nor sufficient progress by the
The news that Chuka Umunna is getting paid £451 an hour to chair a new centrist think tank will go down very well indeed with some of his Labour colleagues. It’s not so much that those MPs are just delighted for Umunna, as it is that they can use his £65,000 salary to undermine the
In a dismally competitive field, you might think Tory MP Andrew Bridgen must be the short-priced favourite for the next edition of the Deluded Brexiteer stakes. This newly-established classic always attracts a large field and the MP for North West Leicestershire’s suggestion that he, an Englishman, has the right to pop over to the Republic
We’ve all been there. Having to ask someone to repeat themselves because you couldn’t understand them is embarrassing enough. Spare a thought then for Sir Paul Beresford. In the Commons just now, the Tory MP failed to understand the Glaswegian accent of the SNP’s David Linden. Twice. Luckily for Beresford, deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle eventually stepped in
It’s fair to say that it’s been a tough couple of weeks for Theresa May. As the Brexit negotiations have stalled and her Chequers plan crumbles before her eyes, the PM could be forgiven for deciding that she’s had her fill of leading the country and packing up her bags and going. No 10 certainly
I am very sorry to do this to you, but it turns out that the incendiary extension to the UK’s period as a non-voting member of the EU – the mooted extra months in “transition” – isn’t really an extension. It is an “option” on an extension, the right to have an extension. Yes you
There is no Brexit transition period without a withdrawal agreement. There can be no withdrawal agreement without a deal on the Irish border, the trickiest issue as I say in the magazine this week, so extending the transition cannot solve this problem. Now, some say that extending the transition makes it less likely that the
With the Brexit negotiations hitting an impasse, Theresa May is under pressure from Brussels to make yet more concessions. Meanwhile, the ‘People’s Vote’ campaign is keen to tell anyone who will listen that public opinion has changed and Remain is now the mood of the country. Only as far as Mr S can tell the vast
Sir Mark Sedwill, the acting cabinet secretary, wrote to the Times on Tuesday to defend the honour of Olly Robbins, the Prime Minister’s EU adviser, who is credited, if that is the mot juste, with delivering Brexit. He was right to do so, because Mr Robbins is not allowed, by the rules, to defend himself,
The current stock-market correction has been steaming down the track since August and I claim no wisdom for having predicted it: the FTSE100 dipped below 7,000 at the start of the week, having shed all of the 10 per cent it had gained since it began to surge in April. Weaker UK growth forecasts from
How unfortunate that the person who once wrote a book called Stupid White Men now sounds an awful lot like a stupid white man. Yes, it’s Michael Moore, the dishevelled American filmmaker, who wasn’t in Britain for five minutes before he was making the most basic of factual errors. ‘You can’t leave Europe!’, he told the British
It is very hard to read the Times’s lead story today about the alleged sexual exploitation of a young autistic woman with the consent of her carers, a court and the local council. Perhaps I have an excess of sensibility, but it made me feel ill. The case, if accurately reported, strikes me as being
Broadcaster Adrian Chiles has got us all clutching our livers in alarm (if we can find them: Chiles thought his was in his back) thanks to his confessional BBC documentary Drinkers Like Me, which details his longstanding reliance on alcohol. Chiles admits candidly that he drinks anything up to 100 units of alcohol a week,
As chalices go, few are as poisoned as the one Emmanuel Macron has just handed Christophe Castaner. Minister of the interior is one of the most challenging posts in government. The former Socialist MP has cultivated an image over the years of a political tough guy, in contrast to his predecessor, the diminutive Gérard Collomb.
Ever since the Brexit referendum, it’s been a fact of British political life that the most important decisions, that will have the profoundest impact on society, will not be decided by politicians, but by the people. Therefore it made perfect sense when politicians questioned Westminster’s favourite curry house’s decision to update its menu, that the
Another question to the Prime Minister today that’s worth noting came from Labour MP Danielle Rowley on Universal Credit. She was asking not about the well-known problems with the roll-out of the benefit, but about a flaw with its very design: ‘The Work and Pensions Committee heard evidence that the lack of automatic split payments
Here we go again. It’s no big secret that these days the New York Times isn’t so fond of Blighty. The American paper frequently publishes gloomy articles about what’s gone wrong in the UK – whether it’s mistaking a newspaper sketch writer’s joke about the French for Brexit bias, factually incorrect articles about London’s once ‘mutton-filled’ culinary
In recent months, there has been speculation that John McDonnell has leadership ambitions – and a rift has formed between the shadow chancellor and his one-time comrade Jeremy Corbyn. So, it won’t have gone unnoticed by the Leader’s Office that McDonnell today embarked on a charm offensive of the MSM – also know as the
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was a little shorter than usual. This was partly because, as James says, John Bercow spoke rather less. Normally, the Speaker likes to lecture MPs about how their behaviour will appear to the public, even sometimes using the word ‘bullying’. Such lectures will have considerably less force now, given Bercow is
A strange PMQs. Usually the session is dominated by honking throats and empurpled faces. Today there were interesting facts and useful opinions. Amazing! An expertly briefed Jeremy Corbyn put Theresa May on the spot by noting that she’d omitted to say ‘Chequers’ in her conference speech or during recent performances in parliament. So is it dead? No,
The most testing half an hour of Theresa May’s day won’t be PMQs. Instead it’ll come this evening when she addresses EU leaders on Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn did, though, go on Brexit. The Labour leader rightly identified the December joint report, which Theresa May agreed to, as her biggest area of weakness. Much of what
Has Theresa May’s Mufasa just transformed into No 10’s most troublesome minister? Geoffrey Cox – the Attorney General – shot to the public consciousness this month thanks to his star turn as the warm up act for May at Conservative party conference. The seasoned QC gave a barn-storming speech (which drew Lion King comparisons) calling
Labour MPs like to see themselves on the front line when it comes to protecting women’s rights and creating safe workplaces for everyone. In fact, the slightest sign of impropriety in the Conservative Party or society at large is usually enough for them to call for sackings and public apologies. So you would expect after
When equalities minister Penny Mordaunt launched the consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act she declared that “trans women are women”. Whether anyone really believes this remains to be seen. Yet our political leaders are willing to endorse this Orwellian thinking, and when it comes to the transgender debate, objective truth plays second fiddle to political expediency.
I’ve been asking officials and ministers for the prime minister’s cunning plan to solve the seemingly impossible Brexit puzzle – of proving to her Brexiters that the Northern Ireland backstop plan would be temporary while avoiding any specified fixed termination date (because a backstop with a fixed termination date cannot, by definition, be a backstop;
It’s been a curious day in Parliament after Labour MPs en masse came to John Bercow’s defence amid a damning report into bullying in Parliament. Despite the report concluding that the Speaker is among those who should consider their position, numerous Labour MPs have said that he should stay in place. It seems that treating
John Bercow has told friends he is to step down as Speaker, according to the BBC. This follows Dame Laura Cox’s report into bullying and sexual harassment of House of Commons staff which says the existing senior leadership team in the Commons – including the Speaker – are probably incapable of changing the current ‘toxic