Eu

Tuesday

Steerpike

In-campaign reveal their secret weapon: iPlayer, abroad

Although David Cameron is said to be planning to scare the nation into staying in the EU, others in the in-camp think they can win voters over with the good. Britain Stronger in Europe have today sent out an optimistic press release revealing a key reason Britons ought to choose to remain in the EU: they can now watch BBC iPlayer abroad! ‘Brits are to gain access to UK streaming services while travelling in Europe following a decision by MEPs today,’ the email reads. To celebrate European Parliament approving a proposal which allows UK holidaymakers in the EU to access shows like EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing abroad, Stronger In spokesman James McGrory — who is Nick Clegg’s

Saturday

James Forsyth

What’s the hold up with the British Bill of Rights?

Before the election, the Tories talked about introducing a British Bill of Rights in their first 100 days in office. But eight months on from the election, the government hasn’t even started consulting on it yet. Some of this delay is understandable. When Michael Gove was made Justice Secretary, he wanted to work out his own solution to this problem. But the timetable has just kept slipping. After the election, we were told proposals would come in the autumn. Then, it was before the end of the year. Then in December, in the New Year. Yet, we still haven’t seen these proposals—and won’t in the next few weeks either. But,

Friday

Gavin Mortimer

France has become a religious battleground

The new year has not started well for France. On the last day of 2015 – the most traumatic year for the French in decades because of the twin attacks in Paris – president Francois Hollande warned the nation in his traditional New Year’s Eve address: ‘France is not done with terrorism… these tragic events will remain for ever etched in our memories, they shall never disappear. But despite the tragedy, France has not given in. Despite the tears, the country has remained upright.’ Hollande’s warning was borne out within 24 hours. On the first day of 2016 a lone motorist – inspired by Islamic State – drove at a

Thursday

Taki

High life | 14 January 2016

Gstaad War and Peace has been in the news lately, so what was it that Leo wrote about all happy families being alike? Tolstoy came to mind last week right here in Gstaad, when I encountered probably the worst-looking family I’ve had the bad luck to run into in the past 79 years. I wonder if Count Tolstoy ever considered writing a saga about how ugly families are all different in their ugliness. It was early evening and I walked into the Posthotel, where Papa Hemingway once stayed while researching A Farewell to Arms. (He climbed daily on skins and schussed down after fortifying himself with glühwein.) Hemingway, alas, was

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How many EU referendums we will end up having?

The pre EU referendum skirmishing stepped up a notch today. Chris Grayling became the first member of the Cabinet to start making the case for Out. While Vote Leave and Stronger In tangled over the question of a second referendum. As I write in the magazine this week, Vote Leave is increasingly keen on the idea of promising a second referendum on the terms of exit if Britain votes Out. The idea is that this would ‘de-risk’ voting Out and protect the campaign against claims from IN that Britain would get an awful deal from the rest of the EU if it voted to leave. I understand that George Osborne

Dan Hitchens

Taharrush Gamea: has a new form of sexual harassment arrived in Europe?

The Swedish and German authorities say they have never encountered anything like it: groups of men encircling then molesting women in large public gatherings. It happened in Cologne and Stockholm, but is it really unprecedented? Ivar Arpi argues in the new Spectator that it may well be connected to a phenomenon called ‘taharrush gamea’, a form of group harassment previously seen in Egypt. So what is taharrush gamea, and should Western police be worried? Here’s what we know. ‘Taharrush’ means sexual harassment – it’s a relatively modern word, which political scholar As’ad Abukhalil says dates back to at least the 1950s. ‘Gamea’ just means ‘collective’. Taharrush gamea came to attention in Egypt in 2005, when

The Spectator

The Spectator Podcast: Cameron’s ‘Project Fear’, David Bowie’s politics and Brighton’s Brideshead set

In this week’s issue, James Forsyth reveals the strategy that David Cameron will use to campaign for Britain to stay in the EU. He’ll campaign not just on the economics, but on security – arguing that Britain is safer as part of the EU collective: safer from the Russians, safer from terrorism. Isabel Hardman, the new presenter of the Spectator podcast, is joined by James and Fraser Nelson to discuss the implications of such a strategy. Much of the week’s news has been overshadowed by the death of David Bowie. But what exactly made Bowie such an important figure? In his column this week, Rod Liddle argues that it’s simply because he was a terrific

Wednesday

James Forsyth

PMQs: It seems that David Cameron has no desire to expand Heathrow

Will the Tory party be able to come back together again after the EU referendum? Well, today’s PMQs suggested the reason why it should be able to. The Cameron/Corbyn clash was a classic left/right affair and by the end of it, Eurosceptics were cheering Cameron as loudly as anyone else on the Tory benches as he thundered that Labour have a leader ‘who doesn’t believe in Britain’. I suspect that we will also hear again Cameron’s line that Corbyn is a ‘small c’ conservative who just wants to leave the poor to stew on sink estates while the Tories are the party of home ownership and aspiration. In the theme

Tuesday

Rod Liddle

I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but something fishy is going on in Europe

Having taken the piss out of Guardian columnists for their laughably painful paroxysms over the appalling attacks upon women at Cologne railway station, credit where it’s due. The paper at least broke this story about the Swedish police being accused of covering up sex attacks by refugees at a music festival. I dare say that Deborah Orr and Gaby Hinsliff et al will still have some fatuous explanation. Some circuitous route which exculpates the adherents of a primitive, brutal and deeply misogynist creed and perhaps blames western colonialism instead. Well, sure, ok; stick to your guns you babes, no matter how much evidence stacks up to suggest that you are deluded idiots. I

Saturday

Rod Liddle

Nine days on, why is the left still in denial about the Cologne attacks?

Still in denial, then. The liberal left, having first tried to ignore the massed sex attacks in Cologne (and in many other places across Europe), in the hope that the rest of us might not have noticed, are now attempting to explain it away. Prize for the most stupid contribution so far goes to the reliable Deborah Orr: “how could anyone possibly imagine that among a million people from anywhere there wouldn’t be some proportion of nasty, sleazy misogynists? A British legal history that includes the withholding of all manner of basic rights from women suggests that there’s nothing racially or religiously inherent in chauvinism. People tend to believe what

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Which way will Boris and Gove go on Europe?

David Cameron might have announced this week that Cabinet Ministers will be allowed to campaign for Out come the EU referendum. But Downing Street is doing what it can to limit how many ministers take up this offer. At the moment, the consensus view around the Cabinet table is that four Cabinet Ministers are going to be for Out—Chris Grayling, Theresa Villiers, John Whittingdale and IDS—with another—Priti Patel—highly likely to. As I say in The Sun today, if Cameron can keep the number of Cabinet Outers down to four or five, Number 10 will be delighted. Cameron will be able to say that the vast majority of the Cabinet support

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 7 January 2016

The outsiders Did the seven members of Harold Wilson’s cabinet who campaigned to leave the Common Market in the 1975 referendum damage their careers? Michael Foot, Employment Secretary. Made deputy leader by Jim Callaghan in 1976. Elected leader in 1980. Tony Benn, Industry Secretary. Challenged Denis Healey unsuccessfully for Labour deputy leadership in 1981. Barbara Castle, Social Services Secretary. Sacked from cabinet by Jim Callaghan when he became prime minister in 1976. Eric Varley, Energy Secretary. Swapped jobs with Tony Benn after referendum. Fifth in shadow cabinet elections in 1979. John Silkin, Planning and Local Government Secretary. Became agriculture secretary in 1976. Stood for Labour leadership in 1980 but was

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 7 January 2016

At the end of next week, a judge will decide whether the ‘trial of the facts’ can proceed now that its subject, Lord Janner, is dead. Janner was accused, on various occasions, of child abuse, though the Crown Prosecution Service, on three occasions, over more than 20 years, decided that there was no case to prosecute. The amazing Simon Danczuk, now himself accused of rape, used parliamentary privilege to accuse Janner of the same crime (plus torture). Last year, Janner was forced to appear in court, though senile. When his senility was upheld, his accusers resorted to a trial of the facts to get their day in court. They were

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 7 January 2016

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, decided to allow ministers to campaign for either side in the referendum on membership of the European Union, once his negotiations had been concluded on Britain’s relationship with the EU. The government said it was commissioning 13,000 houses to be built by small builders on public land made available with planning permission. Junior doctors decided to go on strike after all, starting with a day next week, after talks between the government and the British Medical Association broke down. In an extraordinarily drawn-out reshuffle, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour party, replaced Michael Dugher as shadow culture secretary with Maria Eagle, who was

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron hints EU renegotiation timetable could slip again if necessary

Could David Cameron have to delay his European renegotiation still further? In his press conference today with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the Tory leader said that ‘if it takes longer to make an agreement then obviously what matters to me is the substance rather than the timing’. Cameron and his senior colleagues had been confident of reaching an agreement on Britain’s new relationship with Europe at February’s European Council summit, but it may be that it is not finally signed off before the March meeting of EU leaders. This would push the referendum back to at least July, which is a difficult month because of Scottish school holidays. The

Stephen Bayley

Eurovision

Before cheap flights, trains were the economical way to discover Europe and its foibles. Personally, I enjoyed the old fuss at border crossings. By the time I was 18, I had memorised those warning notices in the carriages: Nicht hinauslehnen; Defense de se pencher au-dehors; E pericoloso sporgersi. Those three different ways of saying ‘don’t stick your head out the window’, one bossy, the other pedantic, another gently pleading, summarised the nice subtleties of national borders that were philosophical as well as political. Europe is a marvel. Its busy inhabitants discovered private property, social mobility, romantic love, democracy, secularism, antiquarianism, nationhood, industry, capitalism, technology, domesticity, privacy, vanity, revolution, modernism, exploration

Saturday

Rod Liddle

A German politician points out the obvious about refugees and the terror threat

Happy New Year. Sorry about my absence. I’ve been away for a couple of weeks and then, when I returned, there was no internet access and those hardworking people from BT spent ten days mulling over the problem before they tried to put it right. What a wonderful organisation. So, anyway, well done Lutz Bachmann – a German politician from the Pegida party. He tweeted that all those Germans who had said ‘refugees welcome here’ should make their way down to Munich station – closed on New Year’s Eve because of bomb threats. He has been criticised for linking the arrival of refugees – described by the increasingly deranged Angela

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Voters will be offered two deeply imperfect options in the EU referendum

By this time next year Britain will, if the government has its way, have voted on whether or not this country should stay in the European Union. This referendum has the potential to reshape British politics. It will not only determine whether we remain in the EU, but it will also play a huge role in determining who will be the next Prime Minister. It will present David Cameron with the most difficult party-management challenge that he has faced in more than a decade as Tory leader. Downing Street has given up trying to secure a deal at the European Council later this month. The new target is early in

Thursday

Steerpike

Watch: John Redwood’s Brexit-themed Christmas fairytale

It’s nearly Christmas. That means it’s the time for carols, goodwill to all men and… leaving the EU — that’s according to the Bow Group anyway. The conservative think tank have released their traditional ‘Bow Group Christmas Fairytale’ read by John Redwood, the MP for Wokingham. This year it has a Brexit theme: ‘Red Riding Hood — a very modern fairytale of life in the European woods.’ And who takes on the role of the big bad wolf? Well, Mr EU of course.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Boris for Foreign Secretary?

David Cameron is warming to the idea of making Boris Johnson Foreign Secretary. As I write in The Sun this morning, Cameron is drawn to the idea of sending Boris to the Foreign Office in a post-May reshuffle. But a Cabinet ally of the Prime Minister stresses that Boris will have to be ‘unequivocally yes’ come the EU referendum if he is to be Foreign Secretary. It is easy to see why the idea of doing what it take to bind Boris in before the referendum is gaining traction in Number 10. Polling shows that Cameron backing Britain staying part of the EU gives the In campaign a big boost.