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Pity Olly Robbins and Sabine Weyand who are as we speak negotiating a Brexit deal for their respective bosses, Theresa May and the EU27. Because following the resignation of Jo Johnson, it is now clearer than ever that the deal they will probably agree this weekend, to be put to the Cabinet on Monday (or
This weekend, of all weekends, is a moment for reflection. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month will be a real thing. One hundred years on, but remembered all the more because of that. Here, as all across Europe, the centenary of Germany’s capitulation will be marked by the customary services
Jo Johnson’s resignation, the DUP kicking off and the European Commission’s Article 50 task-force talking about a lack of progress mean that it hasn’t been a good end to the week for Theresa May. As I write in The Sun this morning, one government source says ‘if there’s no November Council, then no deal goes
When Boris Johnson declared this week that Theresa May’s new deal would be a ‘Christmas present of the finest old Brussels fudge,’ he embraced one of Brexit’s most enduring motifs: food. This week’s Spectator cover story ‘Brexit is Served‘ is full of culinary metaphors. The language of food seems to cross the Brexit divide: Remainers
Brexit has divided the country. It has divided political parties. And it has divided families too. Although I voted Remain, I have desperately wanted the Government, in which I have been proud to serve, to make a success of Brexit: to reunite our country, our party and, yes, my family too. At times, I believed
As Theresa May prepares to unveil her Brexit deal, we ask: just how bad is it, and what happened to ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’? In the American midterms, the Blue Wave didn’t happen, but Democrats did take control of the House of Representatives – what next for Trump’s presidency? And last,
Collapsing retailers. A looming far-left government threatening nationalisation. And perhaps most significantly of all, our potentially chaotic rupture with our largest, closest and most significant trade partner. It doesn’t seem to matter what you throw at it, the British economy continues to be surprisingly resilient. Figures out today showed it expanded at 0.6 per cent
The conundrum of economic growth continues. The withdrawal process from the EU is, even by the admission of the most ardent Brexiteers, going pretty badly. We have a rearguard Remain lobby trying to talk down the economy at every opportunity – something which you might think ought to be undermining confidence. And yet still there
Last week I was in the Somme, visiting the first world war battlefields before the great and the good descend on the region this week to mark the centenary of the Armistice. In one cemetery I found propped against the headstone of Captain Frank Morkill a plastic folder, left two months earlier by a relative.
There are times when you wonder whether our culture is too stupid to survive. The thought has kept occurring over recent days as I have watched the cooked-up furore over the appointment of Sir Roger Scruton to chair a British government commission looking into beauty in architecture. What are Scruton’s qualifications for this unpaid job?
Today, the BBC news channel ran a short piece on the increase of hate crime incidents against disabled children – which have tripled in four years. As part of the report, the BBC visited a school which catered for disabled children in Newcastle, which had recently been broken into and vandalised by thugs who destroyed
Asia Bibi and Sir Roger Scruton don’t have much in common. She is a lowly farm labourer from a rural part of Pakistan where she experienced great poverty, hardship and persecution, on account of the fact that she is Christian. He is an erudite professor, a knight of the realm, and not short of a few
Just when you thought identity politics couldn’t get any more confusing, along comes along Emile Ratelband. Mr Ratelband, who is described in the Guardian as a ‘motivational speaker’ and ‘positivity guru’, has appeared in a court in Arnhem in the Netherlands trying to persuade the judge to allow him to change his official birth date
As soon as Donald Trump says ‘I’ll be honest,’ which he did at his press conference today, you know he’s about to tell a lie. The media, he proclaimed, ‘really does bring disunity.’ No, it doesn’t. What it brings is coverage of his administration rather than the beatification that he craves. Trump’s performance was more
When Peter Hain used his parliamentary privilege to name Philip Green as the businessman accused of harassing and bullying several women, it’s fair to say he received a mixed reception. While initially praised for breaking the court ordered injunction, criticism began to mount that he had abused his parliamentary powers. Hain will be glad to
Midterm elections are traditionally nightmares for the party of a sitting president. Just ask former president Bill Clinton, who suffered the humiliation of seeing his Democratic Party lose 54 seats during Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Republican Revolution. Ask George W. Bush, whose blunders in Iraq cost the GOP control of both chambers of Congress in 2006.
Anthony Ekundayo Lennon, the white director who has identified as black, is on the receiving end of a backlash from black and ethnic minority actors. They are aggrieved that Lennon has taken a black person’s place on an Arts Council England-funded programme. The Independent’s Paula Akpan lambasted Lennon, “you don’t get to pick and discard which signifiers of
The leaked plan of how the Government might try to sell the Brexit deal contains a telling passage. The memo instructs the Cabinet Office to talk up the agreement by ‘comparing it to no deal but not to our current deal’. For all the claims by a government spokesman that the ‘misspelling and childish language in this document should
Here we go again. Perhaps there should be a template for journalists writing about transgender issues and the treatment of women with the “wrong” opinions. The template would look something like this: A small group of noisy, angry people, many of them male, have demanded that [Insert woman’s name] not be allowed to speak/ appear/ have
Once identified as right-wing you are beyond the pale of argument,’ wrote Sir Roger Scruton. ‘Your views are irrelevant, your character discredited, your presence in the world a mistake. You are not an opponent to be argued with, but a disease to be shunned. This has been my experience.’ Unfortunately, that experience is due to
President Donald J. Trump thinks only in terms of winning and losing. On Tuesday, he won and he lost, which might muddle his pride. But any pain Trump feels at losing the House of Representatives will be as nothing to the satisfaction he will feel at having gained seats in the Senate. The Republicans have
I feel some sympathy for the director Anthony Ekundayo Lennon. According to the Sunday Times, which broke the story last weekend, he’s the beneficiary of an Arts Council England grant intended for ‘theatre practitioners of colour’ even though he’s white. To obtain the grant, Lennon described himself as ‘mixed heritage’ but what’s interesting about this case
“Tremendous success tonight. Thank you to all!” said Trump before turning in for the night. “Tomorrow will be a new day in America,” said Nancy Pelosi, now likely to be speaker of a Democrat-controlled House. For once, both are right. Both have their victories to celebrate and defeats to mourn. Trump lost his 42-seat hold
At an election-night party hosted by a leading light in the Clinton White House, the hostess wore blue, anticipating the ‘blue wave’ that Democrats hope is about to sweep away the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. As I write, the Democrats are up 14 seats. They need to gain 23 to win the
If you have savings that you quite fancy putting away for a rainy day, but want to have access to at a moment’s notice, then an easy access account might be right for you. Here are some of the best east access savings accounts available now, from data supplied by moneyfacts.co.uk.
Jair Bolsonaro’s victory in Brazil’s presidential election has stoked fears around the world that ‘fascism’ is on the rise. In Brazil, of course, that word has a particular resonance. The former army captain sees the years of military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985 as benign ones. The only mistake the generals made, he has said,
You’ve just had a baby. Life is upside down, but in a good way. A couple of months in, you are talking to your antenatal group and someone mentions child benefit. It’s not something you’d have thought you’d be eligible for, as you and your partner earn too much to get any benefits, as a
This week on the Spectator USA Life & Arts podcast, I’m casting the pod with Heather Mac Donald. A scholar at the Manhattan Institute, Heather is the author of The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture, a scathing and accurate critique of just about everything that’s gone
At Labour conference this summer, the party’s leadership were clearly spooked when its previously loyal members demanded the party support a second Brexit referendum. With this in mind, and ever keen to ensure that the rank-and-file are in step with Jeremy Corbyn, the left-wing campaign group Momentum recently decided to survey its supporters to see
It’s been a year since I warned that the Democrats were at risk of replicating the Labour party’s lurch into extremism. As Americans go to the polls in the midterms, let’s have a look at some of the rising stars of the Democrat Party. There are some recurrent themes that chime pretty eerily with the
The rearguard Remain lobby, which has far from given up on its ambition to reverse the Brexit vote, has put much store in the alleged electoral malpractice of Aaron Banks and his Leave.EU campaign, as well as the actions of the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica. Along the way it has found the Electoral Commission and the
Is the British media transphobic? Yes, according to a writer in the Outline, a US publication, who accuses the Times and the Guardian of rampant bigotry in the row about gender. Several prominent British feminists are also singled out for alleged ‘hate-peddling’. The logic here is muddled but is worth unpicking. The author appears to claim that the
It looks like today’s Cabinet will only be the first of two meetings this week. I understand that another one, which may well make an actual decision, is now likely to be held later in the week. Today’s was significant for an intervention from Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general. Cox’s contribution was about balancing risks.
Today’s midterm election is bound to put a bit of swagger back into the steps of Democrats. If polls are anything to go by — and since when have they ever led anyone astray? — it will be a dolorous evening for Republicans as they watch state legislatures, governors, and Congress turn Democratic. CNN has