All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Yippee! Now I can finally take a train to Scotland without putting money into Richard Branson’s pockets. This afternoon’s announcement by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling that the franchise on the East Coast mainline is to be taken back into the government’s hands returns the railway to the position it was in between 2011 and 2015.
The stramash between Theresa May’s government in London and Nicola Sturgeon’s ministry in Edinburgh over the need for the devolved parliaments to consent to the UK government’s EU withdrawal bill is, as the wags say, the world’s most boring constitutional crisis. So much so, indeed, that many voters in Scotland – to say nothing of
Benedict Cumberbatch has a reputation as one of Britain’s finest actors. The Sherlock actor has won plaudits across the world. He is also politically engaged – previously ranting on-stage about the government’s response to the refugee crisis following a performance of Hamlet at the Barbican. According to the Daily Mail, Cumberbatch let it be known
Although the local elections saw the Conservatives do better than expected, there is a sense that the Tories are not out of the woods yet when it comes to defeating Jeremy Corbyn at the next election. In that vein, last night the Centre for Policy Studies’ ‘New Blue: Ideas for a New Generation’ launch, with Ben
Robert Tombs, professor of European history at Cambridge University, and Labour peer Andrew Adonis took part in a discussion on the following question: Should those who know their history welcome Brexit? Here is an edited transcript of their arguments in the debate hosted by ‘Our Future, Our Choice’ and Clare College, Cambridge: Andrew Adonis: Robert Tombs has
Even I’m a bit surprised by this and I’m writing it, but this is an article about lesbians. I’m writing about lesbians because some of them believe they are currently the subject of political failure. They believe that the people, organisations and institutions that are supposed to speak and stand up for them and their
Are you considering a career in Labour politics but fear you may be left behind amid all the exciting changes the party is undergoing? Maybe you want to be a part of the Jez revolution but can’t get your head around the ever-developing terminology. Perhaps you are eyeing up a safe seat but aren’t sure which paramilitary
The contrast between Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Jared Kushner and other great statesmen of our age under investigation swanking it up at the new US embassy in Jerusalem while Israeli troops shot down Hamas demonstrators, hid as much as it revealed. Not only Jews should notice how Israel has become a member of, and justification for,
If you’ve got a chunk of money that you don’t mind having locked away for a set amount of time, fixed rate bonds can often give a better rate of return than most accounts. Here are this week’s picks of the best one year fixed rate bonds on the market at the moment, from data
So the year-long squeeze on real earnings is now officially over. Figures released by the ONS this morning show that average earnings in the first three months of this year were 2.9 per cent ahead of what they were in the same period of 2018, while CPI inflation was 2.7 per cent ahead. In other
Nigel Lawson once wrote that ‘the National Health Service is the closest thing the English have to a religion’. It’s a justly celebrated line because it rings so true – though the second half of the sentence, even more uncomfortably true, is invariably left out: ‘… with those who practise in it regarding themselves as
The International Studies Association (ISA) meeting in San Francisco is a chance for academics the world over to come together. A few years back, I was voted ISA “distinguished scholar of the year.” But I’ll remember this year’s meeting for a different reason. Heading back to my hotel room in a crowded lift one day, the male
When Donald Trump pledged to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, I was sceptical. Too many presidents had given then broken their word; Trump, before he ran for the White House, was lukewarm on Israel. When President Trump issued a proclamation recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, I was
The French have an expression to describe far-left citizens who identity more with Islam than the Republic: ‘Islamo-Gauchiste’, a term coined by the French philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff, who explained in 2017 that many on the far-left regard jihadism as: “…a legitimate social revolt…they look at jihadists through a distorting lens of victimhood. This compassionate approach sees
MPs are frantically deleting casework emails after being mistakenly advised that new regulations mean they have to clear the data that they hold on constituents. The General Data Protection Regulation comes into effect on 25 May, and is the reason your own inbox will be flooded by companies who’ve been sending you unsolicited emails for
I hate to depress everybody, but the possibility of both a leadership challenge to Theresa May and a general election is suddenly mounting. I don’t believe this is the desired outcome of any of the political factions currently flying under the Conservative party flag, but if things go on like this, it is not hard
Turkey’s President Erdogan is in London this week, having tea with the Queen and praising Britain as a ‘real friend’. As Robert Ellis says in his Coffee House piece about the way the Turkish regime is becoming increasingly brutal and censorious, a clear benefit for Britain in this friendship is post-Brexit trade with the Turks.
Brexit Britain is a more racist country than before the referendum, according to the United Nations, whose inspector told us on Friday that anti-foreigner rhetoric has now become ‘normalised’. But how did Tendayi Achiume, the UN’s special rapporteur on racism, manage to make such a stark finding having spent just 11 days in Britain? After
Tory backbenchers have been briefed today by the Prime Minister on the different options for Britain’s customs arrangements with the EU after Brexit. There was a presentation on the two different plans, and a summary which one MP who attended described as ‘everything is just going terribly well’. The expression on this MP’s face suggested
Here we go. With David Miliband dipping his toe back into UK politics as part of the ‘stop Hard (any) Brexit’ campaign, there appears to be a new momentum to Remain efforts. In this vein, Mr S read the Observer‘s splash this weekend with particular interest. The paper reports ‘one million students join calls for
James Delingpole is right, of course, to extol the virtues of capitalism (‘We don’t deserve capitalism’, 5 May) but wrong to imagine that if only we stuck to strict capitalist principles we could cure problems like the allegedly system-clogging bureaucracy in the NHS. The United States probably has the most ‘capitalistic’ health service in the
Imagine referring to a whole section of society as meat. As mere flesh, bereft of sentience. It used to be hardcore racists who did that, to black people. Now it’s Corbynistas who do it, to that swarm of people they despise more than any other: lower middle-class or working-class white men, usually of middle age,
Watch out, people. Jordan Peterson is back in Britain – this time on his 12 Rules for Life speaking tour. Given the controversy he stirred up last time, it’s almost a marvel the Home Office let him back into the country. His first stop was a packed Hammersmith Apollo last night, where security was high
Not so long ago, Rachel Sylvester penned a column in the Times in which she revealed that friends of Miliband say he is still ‘attracted’ to Britain. Now it seems the UK is in luck! Labour’s prince across the water has made a brief return to British politics in a bid to stop a hard
Was it, do you reckon, a felicitous birthday present from the Eurovision judges for Israel, with Netta standing in, a bit incongruously, for a 70-year old state? If so, it’s a tribute to the way that a Middle Eastern country actually counts as European to at least the same extent as Turkey just across the
When Turkey’s President Erdogan visits Theresa May in Downing Street on Tuesday, he will no doubt be on his best behaviour and control his baser instincts. Otherwise, as he will be met by a Free Turkey Media demonstration organised by English PEN, he could do as he has done earlier – as in Washington and
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 Environment Secretary Michael Gove has defended Boris Johnson’s criticism of the Prime Minister’s proposed ‘customs partnership’ ideal in a recent Daily Mail interview, and told Nick Robinson that the proposal ‘has flaws’. Gove and Johnson are reported to be in favour of a ‘maximum facilitation’ arrangement (or ‘Max Fac’) which would make use of
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 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
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