Loyalty, it used to be said, was the Tories’ secret weapon. No longer. Self-discipline has been discarded — along with commitments to lowering taxes, being strong on defence and keeping the streets safe. The Conservatives appear to have abandoned all of their beliefs and transformed into the party of Brexit. But, it seems, they can’t
Home Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, was said to want to throw a lifeline to Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, but he insisted: ‘It is not possible to get freedom for goods without freedom for services, in particular for the movement of people.’ Up to 80 Tory MPs would vote against the
People are still asking ‘So, how was your summer’ and mine was nice as far as it went: I didn’t ‘go away’ but spent long weeks rambling on Exmoor in the drizzle, baking scones and making and remaking beds for the various guests who came and went, supplying them with endless free hot meals. Then
Boris the rhetorician is in full voice at the moment, delighting his followers and infuriating his enemies. But is this the purpose of rhetoric? It was the ancients who invented, or rather deduced, the rules. As the Roman professor of rhetoric Quintilian said: ‘Just as men discovered the art of medicine by observing that some
The first suicide bomber Boris Johnson was criticised for likening Theresa May’s Chequers deal to a ‘suicide vest’ around the British constitution. — While the suicide vest is most associated with Middle Eastern terrorism, it was effectively invented by a Chinese soldier during the defence of the Chinese military HQ at the Sihang Warehouse during
No debt without credit Sir: Liam Halligan and William Galston set out, convincingly, all the causes and effects of the 2008 crash, painting a doom-laden picture of the future of the world (‘The world the crash made’, 8 September). Not once do they mention China, which has to be the beneficiary of the consequential increase
