David cameron

Boris Johnson is nodding along as he reads Karl Marx. To be more precise, he is standing in the Spectator boardroom reading a letter that Marx and Engels wrote to this magazine in 1850 complaining about being pursued by Prussian government spies in London. He then admires a picture of the youthful Taki chatting up Joan Collins at a New York nightclub in 1957. When he was editor of this magazine, he called it ‘the best job in London’. But now he says that being mayor of London was even better. Less fun, perhaps, but more fulfilling. After eight years at City Hall, he is turning his mind to what

The ugly mug of international sleaze reared up at PMQs today. Mike Kane got things going by calling Nigeria ‘fantastically corrupt’. This was his diplomatic welcome to the West Africans arriving for tomorrow’s ‘Anti-Corruption Summit 2016.’ The purpose of the jamboree is to confirm London’s position as the epicentre of dirty money by holding an honesty seminar for the world’s most dishonest people. The knees-up will take place in the soup-kitchen surroundings of Lancaster House just behind the Ritz. After breakfast, participants will collect their passes from the near-derelict Duke’s Hotel, St James’s Place. Anyone eager to avoid the queue will have pre-bought their ID on the black market. With Piccadilly

David Cameron was today caught describing Nigeria to the Queen as ‘fantastically corrupt’. But after the Panama Papers leak, the Prime Minister may want to choose his words more carefully: after all, that accolade could easily belong closer to home. Your average dodgy Nigerian oil baron and big-time British fraudster have much in common; a shared love of champagne, a doctor in Harley Street and… a little company based off-shore in a tax haven whose sole purpose is to hide stolen fortunes. And in most cases, that tax haven is one of ‘ours’ – either a British Overseas Territory or a Crown Dependency. Half of the companies featured in the Panama Papers were

With the May elections over, the EU referendum campaign is now in full swing. David Cameron started the day warning that Brexit could put peace in Europe at risk. In his speech at the British Museum this morning, the PM also asked whether leaving the EU was a risk worth taking. Here’s what he said: Boris hit back by making his case for voting out, saying that negotiating on behalf of the EU is like ‘trying to ride a vast 28-man pantomime horse’: He also sung ‘Ode to Joy’ in German: And Boris even appeared to forget the name of the city which, until a few days ago, he was

Update: Since this article was published Ahmet Davutoglu has resigned as Turkey’s Prime Minister. Reports suggest this comes as a result of a rift with President Erdogan caused by the increasingly ‘Presidential’ nature of Turkey’s politics. Is Turkey part of Europe? For most of our civilisation’s history, to have even asked such a question would have been to invite derision. The Ottomans were kept out of Europe not by some early-onset prejudice, but by the armies of Europe having to beat back their repeated invasions. The question became slightly more plausible a century ago with the rise of Ataturk and the modern Turkish state (one of the only successful efforts

Cameron hi-jacked today’s PMQs with a show of calculated brutality masked as high dudgeon. Feeble, whey-haired Corbyn obeyed the commands of his unwanted passenger and meekly drove him wherever he wished to go. Cameron’s destination was ‘extremist Labour’. Corbyn strives constantly to outdo himself in uselessness and today’s rambling, ill-structured assault was typical. Early on Cameron inverted the terms of the session and invited Corbyn to clarify his attitude to Hamas and Hezbollah. Years ago Corbyn had referred to Hamas as ‘friends’ at a seminar in parliament . Corbyn declined to re-express himself. Cameron repeated the demand and reminded us that the Hamas handbook calls for Jews to be killed

Strange as it may seem, there are still people around David Cameron who regard the Scottish referendum campaign as a great success. Yes, they say, the nationalists didn’t like the original ‘Project Fear’ — the attempt to frighten Scotland into voting no — but it worked. Alex Salmond was defeated by a 10 per cent margin — proof, it’s argued, that relentless negativity works. Those who complain about it are either losers, or too squeamish to win. Andrew Cooper, chief of the Scottish ‘in’ campaign, said afterwards that the only criticism he would accept is that it was not negative enough. This attitude is a poison in the bloodstream of