All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Dame Tessa Jowell has died aged 70 after suffering a haemorrhage on Friday. The former Labour cabinet minister was diagnosed with brain cancer in May last year. In a post on Alastair Campbell’s personal blog. Jowell’s close friend David Blunkett has written a tube to his former colleague:. ‘Tessa was one of my closest friends for over 40
The latest challenge asked competitors to supply an imaginary testimonial for a high-profile figure that is superficially positive but contains hidden warnings to a potential employer. This was an exercise in the artful deployment of ambiguity, as displayed in Robert J. Thornton’s L.I.A.R. The Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous Recommendations, a handbook for those who, whether
One of George Santayana’s most famous dicta is that ‘To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.’ This may be a metaphor for life, but it is also literally true. It matters in countries such as ours, where no season is so
Since its inception, cryptocurrency has been regarded as technically fascinating but fundamentally unreliable. Those who invested £10 in Bitcoin eight years ago would have £1.6 million today — a fluctuation which, while mind-boggling, further undermines the notion that digitally created currency is a stable store of value. At first, it was dismissed as a toy
The first instinct of many people towards Tendayi Achiume, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights who finished her 11 day visit to Britain yesterday by claiming that Britain is in the grip of a Brexit-related upsurge in racial intolerance and discrimination, will be to tell her to keep her nose out of our affairs.
In the Brexit inner Cabinet meeting last week, it was clear that Theresa May’s main objection to ‘max fac’, the customs arrangement favoured by Brexiteers, is that it wasn’t consistent with her aims for the Irish border. So, Karen Bradley, the Northern Ireland Secretary, has been put on the Cabinet’s max fac working group to
Paige Bond is an attractive blonde lady of a certain age – thrillingly, the Evening Standard claimed that she was both 48 and 57 in the same report. As far as one can judge from photographs, she looks lively and confident, so I imagine she was irked to say the least when after applying for
The point behind the argument about the Iran nuclear deal goes beyond precise nuclear facts. It is like the row over SALT II when Ronald Reagan succeeded Jimmy Carter as US President in 1981. SALT (the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) was not formally junked, but it did not operate because, after the Soviet invasion of
New York is as boiling as Naples. Yet walking by Central Park after dinner with friends on Fifth, several couples are heading back to their apartments in black tie. One old gent is even strolling back home in evening tails. It looks glamorous and natural in a way it no longer would in our capital.
All would-be entrepreneurs are told that ‘most start-ups fail’. A popular factoid from the US says nine out of ten new businesses don’t survive. UK statistics are more encouraging, but not spectacularly so. Here, surveys say roughly four out of ten new businesses live to celebrate their fifth birthday. Some sectors have higher survival rates
Sadiq Khan has been busy. But the mayor of London isn’t snowed under trying to deal with the capital’s knife crime epidemic. Instead, he is facing down a bigger demon: junk food. This morning, Khan has been touring the studios unveiling plans to ban adverts for unhealthy food on London’s tubes and buses. It is clear
Those dread words ‘Grammar schools’ are back in the news again. The education secretary, Damian Hinds, has today announced a new fund that will allow established academically selective schools, i.e. the 163 grammars clustered around the country, to found new ‘satellite’ schools. The proposal could increase pupil numbers at grammar schools by 16,000 over the
The Lords have lost it. They’re out of control. They have taken a wrecking-ball to the government’s plans for Brexit 14 times in recent weeks, putting themselves on a war footing with the people we actually elect. They are behaving like they did in the first decade of the 20th century when they arrogantly vetoed
The archbishop of Liverpool, Malcolm McMahon, got it right: the Government has broken its manifesto promise on church schools – can we just drop the “faith schools” bit? As he said trenchantly: “In their general election manifesto the Conservative Party made a commitment to the Catholic community that the unfair rule effectively stopping the opening
What will happen when the teenagers stabbing each other on the streets of London grow up? Some will go straight, some will go to prison and some will probably follow a similar trajectory to Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. These two evolved from being minor figures on the south-east London gang scene into two of
This is the leading article in this week’s Spectator magazine. Since its inception, cryptocurrency has been regarded as technically fascinating but fundamentally unreliable. Those who invested £10 in Bitcoin eight years ago would have £1.6 million today — a fluctuation which, while mind-boggling, further undermines the notion that digitally created currency is a stable store
Ann Maguire was a dedicated teacher, utterly devoted to the children in her care. She had worked in the teaching profession for over four decades, had a loving husband, two grown-up daughters and, after the death of her sister 30 years earlier, selflessly raised her two nephews as her own. She was a good person
It’s difficult to think of a good comparison from the thousands of public holidays, festivals, galas and pageants around the world by which to describe Victory Day celebrations in Russia. Remembrance Day is too sombre, Bastille Day too jolly. The day on which Russians remembers the nasally voice of Joseph Stalin coming over the wireless to announce the end of the war is a curious mix of solemnity and jubilation. In St.
Would it really be fairer, in an inter-generational sense, to whack an ‘NHS levy’ on pensioners while giving every 25-year-old £10,000 to help them buy a first home or start a business? These are recommendations by the Resolution Foundation, chaired by former Tory minister Lord Willetts, to address what it sees as a breakdown in
What does Tim Farron think about gay sex? Like Ken Livingstone’s repeated reluctance to discuss Hitler, the former Lib Dem leader has never really offered his views on the subject. This time a year ago, for instance, he was so busy talking about all the things his party was putting into its general election manifesto
What comes after the end of the Iran nuclear deal? Is Donald Trump an expert diplomat worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, or a maniac let loose? Why don’t ethical millennials care about the moral cost of their drug habits? And are emojis ruining children’s abilities to communicate? Find out about all this and more
Awkward scenes in the Commons just now where Conservative MP James Duddridge has called for a debate on John Bercow’s replacement as speaker. After being picked by Bercow, the Tory MP told Parliament: ‘Given your manifesto commitment to go by the 22nd June, can we have a debate…about what we want from a speaker, what
Jerusalem It’s a sunny day in Jerusalem where Israelis are waking up to fresh conflict on the country’s border with Syria. I’m in town as part of a Bicom delegation and the picturesque scenes give little indication of the events of the night before which saw 20 rockets fired by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards at
‘Na-zi scum!’ Na-zi scum!’ ‘Na-zi scum!’ Who? Me? How come? I’m on my way to a genteel picnic in St James’s Park and appear to have strayed into the path of a virtue-signalling tsunami. A wall of raggedy demonstrators clutching anti-fascist banners inch their way towards me, faces contorted with self-righteous fury. ‘Move to the
Sunday’s March for Freedom on Whitehall was peculiar, as far right protests go. It didn’t just feature the usual suspects as speakers – Milo Yiannopoulos and Tommy Robinson – but Muslims, comedians and queer people. While Milo is flamboyantly gay and For Britain party leader Anne Marie Waters defiantly lesbian, drag artist Vanity Von Glow
For the past year or so, in speaking to groups, I’ve ventured to suggest that Donald Trump will ultimately rank among the least consequential presidents in U.S. history. I did not intend that to be a laugh line. Trump, I argued, was likely to end up being to the 21st century what James Buchanan was
The parliamentary majority for keeping a free press in Britain fell to just nine votes this evening. The attempt to bring back another Leveson Report to harass the press was defeated by a dangerously thin margin. Quite something, given that the ideas under discussion would not have looked out of place in Orban’s Hungary. The point
Tory Brexiteers and Remainers might share the same benches in parliament but they don’t always see eye to eye these days. Which makes Mr S pleased to see the likes of Crispin Blunt and Ken Clarke find common cause this afternoon. So what did they finally manage to agree on? Blunt and Clarke – as
Will John Cleese now leave England? Mr S. only asks because yesterday the former funnyman tweeted this: Unfortunately for Cleese, things in the Commons haven’t gone his way, with MPs voting not to go ahead with Leveson 2. So, is he a man of his word?
More trouble for the Speaker today. It’s becoming clear that John Bercow is not just unpopular but unlucky as well. He skipped PMQs to attend the funeral of his predecessor, Michael Martin, who was ousted by a mutiny in 2009. Newer members, perhaps believing that insurrection is the correct way to eject an unwanted speaker,
Given the deep Cabinet splits over Theresa May’s plans for Britain’s customs arrangements with the EU after Brexit, there was a very clear line of attack for Jeremy Corbyn to lead with at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. The Labour leader doesn’t always take the most obvious line, but he did today, first asking May about
They may have perfected the sexy selfie and a nonchalance about internet porn but millennials are just not that into sex. The guilty secret behind today’s swipe-right hookup culture is not promiscuity but abstinence. Research out this week suggests that one in eight 26-year-olds have never had sex, up from one in 20 a generation
An unexpected downside of Donald Trump’s presidency is the rare occasion on which he makes a wise call. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran deal is wise and demonstrates a clear understanding of Tehran’s motives and tactics. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement, and it was sold
The EU referendum result was relatively narrow. 52/ 48 per cent is a very different result from 55/ 45 per cent or 60/ 40 per cent. In these circumstances, seeking some kind of compromise to try and unite the country seems sensible. But the problem is that while there is a coherent case for leaving