All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
School girls have a new heroine this week. Tammie Jo Shults was the pilot onboard Tuesday’s ill-fated flight from New York to Dallas. She safely negotiated an emergency landing after one of the aeroplane’s engines broke up, throwing debris into the fuselage. One passenger died after being partially sucked through a broken window. This could
This week Question Time moved to Chesterfield with a panel comprised of Liz Truss, Emily Thornberry, Vince Cable, Nesrine Malik and LBC presenter Iain Dale. However, the talk that proved the most newsworthy related to international affairs. Discussing the government’s strikes on Syria over an alleged chemical attack by the Assad regime, Thornberry suggested that the
The shipping industry contributes around 2% of all global carbon emissions – a figure comparable to the entire CO2 emissions of a country the size of Germany. In many ways that isn’t surprising: shipping powers the world economy, and carries 90% of all international trade. But although people understand the link between trade and prosperity,
A couple of weeks ago I wrote two pieces about a very rum collection of ‘academics’ who had written to The Guardian defending Jeremy Corbyn from accusations of anti-Semitism. Since then it is safe to say that the debate has not gone their way. Or to put it another way – particularly after Tuesday’s debate in
This week we ask why Theresa May is pulling up the drawbridge to Britain, exactly when she should be advertising Britain’s openness in a post-Brexit world? We also discuss why charities are working to shut down schools in Africa, and hear from Quentin Letts on his experience of being pursued by the Establishment. As Commonwealth
The Queen has done something quite extraordinary today: she has, very carefully, made an explicitly political intervention at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London. She told assembled world leaders: It is my sincere wish that the Commonwealth will continue to offer stability and continuity for future generations and will decide that one day,
After the EU referendum, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were such a dream team that the pair looked destined to take the top two jobs in government. However, some political back-stabbing on Gove’s part soon put an end to that friendship and, as history shows, paved the way for Theresa May to become Prime Minister.
The unjust treatment of the ‘Windrush children’ is a defining moment in the history of race relations in Britain. In the past, such a grave injustice against non-whites would have been exploited by groups claiming it as proof that the white majority is racist. Instead, it is being seen by all ethnic groups as a
Almost two years have passed since Sir John Chilcot produced his 12-volume report on the lessons of the Iraq war. We collectively promised to learn the lessons. Last weekend it was as if the Chilcot report never happened. Britain, cheered on by a bellicose press and a largely docile Parliament, launched airstrikes that showed the
When Liz Truss gave the keynote speech at the launch of new Conservative think tank Freer, one attendee mused to Mr S that they ‘couldn’t help but wonder whether I was actually attending Truss’s leadership launch’. But if Truss is seen to be on manoeuvres as a result, then Michael Gove must be the on steroids
Time flies when you’re being shunned! A whole five years have passed since a piece I wrote about male to female transsexuals (typically temperate sample: ‘A bunch of bed-wetters in bad wigs’) was published by the Observer – and then pulled. And what a lot of water has flown under the bridge – under the
On Wednesday, Israel marks seventy years of statehood. When David Ben Gurion declared independence on May 14th, 1948—the anniversary floats about according to the Hebrew calendar—the new state’s population was 872,000. Just over 7000,000, or 80% of the new Israelis were Jewish, and they constituted about a tenth of the global Jewish population. Today, Israel’s
And we’re back to Brexit with a bump. After a brief pause in the negotiations and legislation, the government has this afternoon been defeated on a customs union amendment in the Lords. The defeat was by no means minor either – peers voted by 348 to 225 in favour of a plan requiring ministers to
Would she resign over Windrush? Having spent nearly eight years at the heart of government, Theresa May was clearly deeply involved in the scandal, and as PMQs began she seemed nervous and ill-at-ease. Lispy almost. She started on safe ground by thanking the Windrush generation for their ‘massive contribution’ to modern Britain. Then she garbled Windrush
The government has got at least two colossal messes to deal with, and yet Theresa May managed to survive today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. This was all the more surprising given the topic of PMQs was on a mess created as a result of one of May’s own policies. Jeremy Corbyn chose, rightly, to lead on
Jeremy Corbyn has few defenders over his handling of Labour’s anti-Semitism problem. But there is one man staying loyal to the Labour leader. Step forward, Chris Williamson. The Corbynite MP has just traded blows with Nicky Morgan over the matter. During the heated Sky News row, Morgan accused Williamson of ‘chuntering away’ while he watched
Theresa May should have been on the backfoot at PMQs today as a result of the Windrush scandal. But, somehow, Jeremy Corbyn still managed to ensure the Prime Minister got the upper hand. The Labour leader started off the session by going on the attack; unfortunately, for Corbyn, it backfired spectacularly: JC: Yesterday, we learned
Yesterday, Parliament debated anti-Semitism. It is hard to get over the oddness of the situation. It is 150 years ago since the Conservatives produced their first Jewish leader: Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister on 27 February 1868. If the Tory party in the 21st century had a leader who was seen as tolerant of anti-Semitism,
Aside from the need to act swiftly and with an element of surprise when striking Syria’s chemical weapons capability, it is still fair to say that Number 10’s preferred option was not to have a vote before the strikes took place at the weekend. David Cameron’s experience in 2013 of failing to get parliamentary consent
What a dismal week this has been for British politics. And it is still only Wednesday. The distinguishing feature of this political moment is its shabbiness. The two stories dominating the news this week, Windrush and Syria, each demonstrate as much. The Windrush scandal – it ceased being a saga some time ago – is
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General, announced on Friday that the Cold War is “back with a vengeance”. Although the US and Russia are squaring off militarily in a way that has not been seen for decades, Guterres is wrong. This is not a return to the Cold War. This is something new. His error is
Summer has arrived early in Vienna and the city of Strauss and Schubert has never looked lovelier. The parks are full of students, basking in the sunshine. The elegant cafes along the Ringstrasse are full of debonair businessmen and businesswomen, making contacts, doing deals. You could almost be back in the Habsburg Empire a hundred
Labour’s anti-Semitism problem has been going on for so long now that what would once be seen as a disturbing incident can now struggle to be classed as news. However, Tuesday’s House of Commons debate on anti-Semitism still managed to surprise for several reasons – though none of them good. After Sajid Javid tabled the
Barbara Bush, who has died at the age of 92, was a feminist’s nightmare. She dropped out of Smith College, from which the women’s lib movement would later explode, to marry and raise a family. Firmly independent but a dutiful wife, she was a liberal on abortion and gay rights but learned to keep mum
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.
In ten days’ time, Ken Livingstone will have been suspended by the Labour party for two years for his comments about Hitler. For one Labour MP, enough is enough. During a debate in the Commons on anti-Semitism, Ian Austin called on Labour to finally boot Ken out of the party immediately: ‘Let’s be really clear
Recently, a rather agitated Tory MP came to me and asked why on earth his party wasn’t talking more about pensions. It was an important message to voters, he argued, managing to stay agitated about an issue that normally sends people off to sleep. This MP thought that highlighting the importance of a sound economic
OK, I admit I’m a bit of a Mumsnet groupie, but this needs to be said: Justine Roberts is great. Roberts is the founder of Mumsnet who has this week come out fighting for free speech and sensible political discussion, both of which are at risk in the debate about gender laws. Why Mumsnet? Because a website
This afternoon’s emergency debate on Syria isn’t quite working out as anyone had really planned. For Labour, it was an opportunity to undermine the government by complaining about the lack of parliamentary consent for the weekend strikes on the Assad regime’s chemical weapons capability. For the Tories, it was an opportunity to show that there
We are now just two months away from the second anniversary of the Brexit vote and therefore in a position to judge the apocalyptic forecast made by the Treasury in May 2016 in the run-up to the vote. In a paper signed off by George Osborne, which neither the former chancellor nor anyone else who
Tony Gilkes is a very English hero. The Middlesborough pensioner wanted nothing more than what all hungry Englishmen want: a hearty meat pie. Yet when he tried to procure pastries from his local Morrisons at 8.45am he was rebuffed; staff at the supermarket refused to serve him before 9am. So what did Gilkes do? He
The government is currently busying itself trying to win retrospective Commons votes on Theresa May’s Syria intervention and clearing up the Home Office’s Windrush mess. But should they have time for some morning reading, today’s Resolution Foundation research on millenials’ property prospects ought to give cause for alarm. The think tank predicts that one in
There’s a curiously two-faced aspect to the British take on the Commonwealth, wouldn’t you say? On the one hand, there’s justifiable contrition about the treatment of the elderly Windrush generation and a general feeling that the Commonwealth leaders assembled for this week’s summit might be justified in taking Britain to task for its cavalier approach
To see the cruelty of bureaucracy, the injustice that can spring from reducing public life to mere process and human beings to paperwork, look no further than the Windrush scandal. Scandal is an overused word these days. Everything from a politician’s ill-advised tweet to a celeb’s extramarital affair gets chalked up as scandal. But if