All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
PMQs today was a missed opportunity for Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn chose to go on the NHS, rather than Donald Trump’s border policy. But this needn’t have been a mistake. Corbyn, after a rather long preamble, started off by asking what taxes would rise to pay for this increased spending. Theresa May replied that Philip Hammond
Theresa May has said a Brexit dividend will help fund the NHS cash boost, but does it actually exist? It was left to health minister Jackie Doyle-Price to convince viewers on the Daily Politics that it does. But Mr S wasn’t entirely convinced by her explanation: Andrew Neil: It surely stands to reason that there
Obviously, one mocks little President Macron for telling a teenager to call him ‘Monsieur le President’. How long before the French will have to say ‘Vive l’Empereur!’? But I do have a sneaking sympathy for the man one must not call ‘Manu’. The presumption of modern culture that everyone is on first-name terms makes people
To the Westbourne summer party where James Bethell and Iain Anderson were celebrating the new merger between their respective companies Westbourne and Cicero. Only the speech didn’t go quite to plan. To much laughter, Bethell told partygoers that the Cabinet big beasts hadn’t been able to make the bash – but had sent their apologies.
Heterosexuality is marginalised by our liberal arts culture. Not by culture in general: it still allows boy-meets-girl to be celebrated by the masses, sort of (Love Island, Harry and Meghan). But liberal arts culture scorns the crude mechanical drudge of heterosexual coupling. Last night I saw a short monologue on BBC4, one of the series
Has there ever been a time when the leaders of France and Great Britain are so diametrically opposed in character and style? One is weak and indecisive, a Prime Minister who avoids confrontation, the other is forthright and forceful, a president who relishes a fight. Emmanuel Macron seems to take a perverse delight in upsetting his
Well, stone me. A new “populist” government in Italy actually does something to stop the NGO taxi service which ferries migrants masquerading as refugees from the Libyan coast to Sicily 350 miles away. It does what no Italian government has dared do before and refuses to allow an NGO ship with hundreds of migrants on board, nearly
All hell broke loose after I prevented several Private Members’ Bills receiving approval at Second Reading ‘on the nod’. Despite the campaigner behind one of those Bills, Gina Martin, accepting the principled reasons for my objections, many on social media chose to believe otherwise. Fortunately by Monday the Government had agreed that there should be
A 0% balance transfer credit card allows you to shift debt from expensive credit and store cards, and at the same time freeze the interest for a set period. Here are some of the best 0% balance transfer cards on the market at the moment, according to data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.
Who is taking all the big, difficult decisions in government at the moment? Not Theresa May, who seems to be caught up in a particularly bad bout of prevarication. Sajid Javid’s announcement today that there will be a review into the use of medicinal cannabis came just 24 hours after his boss said there was
Theresa May has managed to surprise absolutely no-one this afternoon with her spokesman’s confirmation that the Prime Minister has never smoked cannabis. Cue widespread jokes that May was too busy running through fields of wheat – the activity that May herself describes as the naughtiest thing she has ever done. Now not even May’s colleagues
It’s that time of the week again: crunch time for Theresa May. Tomorrow MPs will vote again on Dominic Grieve’s meaningful vote amendment along with the government’s ‘compromise’ meaningful vote amendment. The problem with that compromise is it’s already been rejected by several Remain Tory rebels – who say the Prime Minister personally misled them
Brexit must happen. Of course it must, for the people have decreed it should and, in this instance, their command cannot, as it can be in other circumstances, be countermanded. That leaves ample room for argument over the precise shape of Brexit – for it turns out there are many kinds of Brexit – but
After the prime minister’s announcement that the NHS would be given a large boost in funding only partly paid for by taxes, some backbenchers called for fiscal responsibility. For them it is paramount that a government should live within its means and avoid increasing the budget deficit. And yet they have nothing to say about
The stories are filed, the pictures are posted, and the media verdict is almost unanimous: separating children from their parents is wrong, it is unAmerican, and President Donald Trump is going to suffer for it. His administration is baby-snatching. The ‘optics’ are terrible, say the hyperventilating PR men and Washington know-alls. But if everybody stops
Time was, a US President wouldn’t dream of criticising the government of one of its Nato allies in public – but that was a long, long time ago, before the Age of Trump. ‘The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition,’ tweeted President Trump yesterday.
A promising early start that got everybody’s hopes up before getting bogged down and allowing a mediocre opposition to equalise. To many Tory MPs watching the football last night, it was all too familiar. George Freeman took to Instagram to share his own sense of déjà vu: ‘It’s a shocker. Lacking coherence. Command of the
For the Democrats, the mounting furore over forcibly separating children from their parents at the border offers a golden opportunity before the midterm elections to tar Donald Trump as a heartless autocrat, a modern-day Baron Bomburst ruling over Vulgaria with his very own Child Catcher. Do a Caratacus Potts and Truly Scrumptious lurk in the
England kick off their World Cup campaign today by putting their faith in youth as they take on Tunisia: Gareth Southgate’s squad have the lowest average age and the fewest caps won of any of the 32 teams at the tournament. Only three of the squad – Gary Cahill, Ashley Young and Jamie Vardy – had
This time a week ago, Theresa May and her whips were trying to avert a looming Commons defeat on Brexit. As if the lengthy farce of the government trying to negotiate its way out of the European Union wasn’t surreal enough, the Prime Minister now seems trapped in one of those repetitive Hades-style punishments in
Forgive me if I seem out of sorts but my country has been through a lot this past week. We have been subjected to ‘provocation’ and our imperial masters in Westminster intend to ‘exert a kind of colonial authority’ over us. Our parliament has been ‘slighted’ and we are bearing the ‘impact of such condescension on
Historians will still be asking in 100 years’ time why public outrage did not do Donald Trump more harm. How come he could keep seeming to offend three-quarters of America yet still end up with half the vote? The answer, I think, is that his opponents kept falling into the same trap: they kept over-reacting.
It has become abundantly clear in recent years that becoming a Social Justice Warrior (SJW) is bad for your health. But recent developments in north America suggest that it is also very bad for your bottom line. It is now three years since the University of Missouri underwent a prominent bout of SJW-itis. On that
Bibi Netanyahu was in London this month after meeting Angela Merkel, Emanuel Macron and Theresa May, the leaders of the three European countries which had committed most to President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Before he flew back to Israel he came to a crowded public meeting at Policy Exchange, whose director, Dean Godson, had
The left middle class is filled with anger as it sees the right, and, in its terms, the far right, triumph. Every time I write about Brexit I feel its fury pulsating around me. Brexit threatens the left’s core beliefs in international cooperation and anti-racism, while making its dream of ending austerity by reviving the
At Cabinet this morning, Sajid Javid tried to raise the Billy Caldwell case and the issue of medicinal cannabis. Theresa May replied that now was not the time to discuss this question. But Javid came back several times, pointing out that this was a fast-moving situation and that the Cabinet needed to discuss it. One
The request for sonnets inspired by a well-known contemporary figure’s characteristic feature went down a storm. Entries ranged far and wide, from Victoria Beckham’s pout via Gorbachev’s birthmark to the rise – and fall – of Anthony Weiner’s penis. But both John O’Byrne and Barrie Godwin used Sonnet 18 to hymn hairstyles – Donald Trump’s
When the contestants of ITV2’s Love Island discussed Brexit earlier this month, it led to widespread ridicule after one reality star – by the name of Hayley – suggested that Brexit could mean the UK no longer had any trees. However, should you be in the market for a slightly more informed political discussion on
Oh dear. First Meghan Markle’s father declined an offer to walk his daughter down the aisle for her wedding to Prince Harry. Now, Thomas Markle has performed a royal faux pas and given an interview to the UK press on his son-in-law’s political leanings. In an interview with Good Morning Britain, Markle is asked by
When Sir Christopher Chope stopped to a bill to ban upskirting on Friday, he was denounced in the most vicious terms, as Steerpike revealed, by his fellow Tories. They were appalled by the optics of a 71-year-old Tory who rejected the bill without saying why. Sir Christopher has now come out swinging, saying how appalled
Theresa May – NHS to be given £20 billion ‘birthday present’ Andrew Marr’s pre-recorded interview with the Prime Minister has led the day’s news coverage, featuring some notable highlights. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is the announcement that the government will be injecting £20 billion of extra cash into the National Health Service over the next
So the Tories have, as The Spectator predicted last month, announced an extra £384 million a week for the National Health Service – something Theresa May was perfectly happy to sell this morning as being the ‘Brexit dividend’ that Boris Johnson had been pressuring her for. This is an odd choice, given it is impossible
Last week, the government announced that it was going to allow onshore windfarms to once again gain access to the vast pots of money set aside for renewable energy. However, there was one very important restriction: only windfarms on remote islands would be eligible. In practice, we are therefore talking about the Inner and Outer
I was amused to read recently that supermarkets were mystified as to the sudden passion for the humble carrot sweeping the nation; more specifically, swiping the screens of supermarket self-checkouts, to the extent that Britons allegedly bought 800 million more of the orange denture-denters last year than they did in 2013. Perhaps shoppers had finally
