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So I am feeling a bit better about my lack of radio experience. These are exciting times for free movement of labour and with Westminster under the control of Tory and Labour cabals, lovely jobs outside Parliament are tempting. George Osborne is no more qualified to edit the London Evening Standard than Tristram Hunt to run the V&A, but now art and antiquities scholars have dried their tears, that is turning out splendidly. The late Nick Tomalin pointed out that success in journalism requires only ‘ratlike cunning, a plausible manner, and a little literary ability’. The trade is temperament as much as technical skill and Osborne has a journalistic love

A key part of Theresa May’s strategy for wooing Donald Trump was making it clear that Britain was pulling its weight with funding Nato, with the PM calling on other countries to match the two per cent of GDP that Britain spent on defence so ‘that the burden is more fairly shared’. The report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies that the UK had, in fact, missed this target was potentially explosive then – and it’s no surprise the MoD stepped in quickly to bat away the claims. But whether too much or too little, the amount of money spent on military matters is the talking point in many

A few weeks ago I discovered that while he should have been focused on the fight of his life during the referendum campaign, David Cameron was instead obsessing over whether or not his justice secretary, Michael Gove, had had an affair with my husband, Dom Cummings, campaign director of Vote Leave. The story was in the Mail on Sunday, who eked it out across two consecutive issues. On week one it kept Dom and Michael’s names under wraps (for ethical reasons, it said) but revealed the source of the thrilling bit of gossip to be an aide of Cameron’s called Gavin Williamson (now Chief Whip). Williamson had, said the MoS,

This morning’s newspapers were never going to make enjoyable reading for the Prime Minister following his admission yesterday that he owned shares in an offshore trust. But David Cameron may still not have been quite prepared for the focus with which the headlines go after him. He has experienced bad newspaper headlines before, of course, but this is the first time the attacks have focused so specifically on him, rather than on a policy introduced by the Government. It’s hard to feel sorry for Cameron, though. By dragging the story out with statements that raised more questions than they answered, he only has himself to blame for whipping this up into

It’s clear that Vladimir Putin has had a facelift, which might explain why Wendi Deng would take an interest in him. But a friend who met him was surprised enough to ask his translator why it was so obvious. ‘Surely he has enough money to get a better one done?’ he said. ‘Oh yes,’ she replied. ‘But here in Russia, a facelift is a status symbol so everyone has to be aware that it’s been done.’ I wonder if the reason American women continue to go for the wind-tunnel effect favoured by Joan Rivers isn’t based on the same social pressure. Wealth and power have their own looks. After nearly 50

For David Cameron, the only upside to such a late agreement on his deal is that news didn’t break in time for most of the first editions of the newspapers – do they cannot dump on him from quite such a height as they did last time (see picture at the bottom). But still, they’re pretty discouraging. The Daily Mail is as unimpressed as ever. Its first edition led on 5,000 jihadis amongst EU immigrants: its later editions heaped further derision on Cameron’s deal. Inside, its editorial is blistering. “All that lost sleep, and for what?… Gone are his commitments to ‘full-on treaty change’, war on bureaucracy, sovereignty for Westminster… Mr Cameron and George Osborne