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Wednesday

Brendan O’Neill

A great day for British democracy

Today is a great day for British democracy. One of the greatest ever, in fact. Tune out Project Fear, with its overblown claims that Brexit will cause economic collapse and possibly revive fascism, and just think about what is happening today. The largest democratic mandate in the history of this nation, the loudest, clearest, most populous democratic cry Britons have ever made, is finally being acted upon. The political class is starting the process of severing Britain’s ties with the EU not because it wants to — it desperately doesn’t want to — but because a great swarm of its people have told it that it must. This is amazing.

Tuesday

Brendan O’Neill

The golden rule for Daily Mail hysteria

Here’s a cast-iron law of the media in 21st-century Britain: the hysteria about a Daily Mail article will always be worse than the Daily Mail article itself. It will be more silly, shrill, over-the-top, reactionary and potentially harmful to public life than the polemic or editorial or sidebar shot of a half-dressed celeb it is raging and spluttering against. You can hold me to this. Go through the archives of Twitterstorms about the Daily Mail — they number in the gazillions — and you will see it’s the same every time: every bad thing the Mail has said or done has paled into insignificance in comparison with the hot, mad

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

Ed Miliband’s sassy Twitter reinvention is bad news for Labour

I really liked Ed Miliband. I thought he would make a great Prime Minister. He was wide-eyed and striving, the less hip or handsome of the Miliband brothers, but undeniably a fine man. In recent months, however, he has tried to shed that image. He now wants to seem cool. This morning, for example, Miliband responded to the Daily Mail’s controversial ‘Legs-it’ cover by tweeting ‘The 1950s called and asked for their headline back’. He then proceeded to engage in a back-and-forth with James Blunt (another of Twitter’s surprise rehabilitations) who wrote ‘It’s been such a pleasure guest-editing @Ed_Miliband’s Twitter page these last couple of weeks.’ Miliband then delivered the exchange’s coup de grace, slaying

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The Daily Mail is pulling your leg

The top half of the front cover of the Daily Mail today is of course trivial: the big story of the meeting between Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon is, obviously, the plummeting relations between Westminster and Holyrood and whether we will still have a United Kingdom in five years’ time. The big story is not the quality of two middle-aged women’s legs. But it is also really rather brilliant in how it has worked as a bait for the Left – which by reacting in an absurdly overblown way has merely revealed its own obsession with trivia. In a country where millions are struggling to afford a decent home, where

Pádraig Belton

James Brokenshire is out of his depth as Northern Ireland Secretary

There is a saying that whoever the Prime Minister hates, they appoint as Northern Ireland Secretary. James Brokenshire, Theresa May’s unlucky pick for the job, had three options yesterday: a new election, direct rule, or a fudge. When the clock struck 4pm, three weeks after Northern Ireland’s election, there was only one option: it was always going to be the Irish fudge.  James Brokenshire had tried valiantly to maintain the fiction, which no one believed, that at 4:01pm yesterday he was prepared to fire the starting pistol of Northern Ireland’s third assembly election in a year. It wasn’t a credible threat, and people in Northern Ireland have a way of telling the one

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: The perks – and pitfalls – of Brexit

The clock is ticking. At 12.30pm tomorrow, Theresa May will be on her feet in the Commons declaring that Article 50 has been triggered. Finally, nine months after the referendum, Britain will be heading out of the EU. The moment itself is likely to be underwhelming and we’re unlikely to find out much more of the Government’s actual Brexit plan. But already the Daily Telegraph has some suggestions. This is the perfect moment for asking: ‘What type of country do we wish to be at the end of that journey?’, the paper says. Yes, Brexit is about ‘reclaiming sovereignty’. It is also about ‘reforming the state’, the Telegraph says, and it’s

Monday

Melanie McDonagh

Could the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement help end Stormont’s stasis?

You’d think, with Brexit talks starting sometime after Wednesday, that Northern Irish politicians would have something better to do than engage in the amusing party politics that leave everyone else in Ireland and Britain stone cold. But nope, given the possibility that the EU could insist on the imposition of a land border between the north and south of Ireland, and at the very least the challenge of sorting out how to stem the free flow of booze and fags from a UK outside the EU to a Republic within it, the parties are locked on the following issues: the status of the Irish language (Sinn Fein); the extent to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

James Brokenshire plays for time in Northern Ireland. Will it work?

The Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire is playing for time. In a statement made after the 4pm deadline for forming an executive in Northern Ireland was missed, Brokenshire said that he was giving the parties a few more weeks to try and reach a deal. He justified this on the basis that there is no enthusiasm for either early elections or direct rule from Westminster. But even with more time, it is hard to see how an agreement can be reached. Sinn Fein, post Martin McGuinness, is far more determined to cause mischief and senses a Brexit moment of opportunity. This means that it is not keen on joining a

Steerpike Steerpike

David Cameron’s larynx joins the Labour party

Given that Owen Jones, Glenda Jackson and Derek Hatton are just a handful of the figures to recently turn on Jeremy Corbyn, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Labour leader is turning people off Labour. So, Mr S was surprised to learn of Labour’s latest recruit, in today’s issue of the Times. Step forward Clare Foges. Yes, David Cameron’s former SpAd and speechwriter — who earned the affectionate nickname ‘the Prime Minister’s Larynx’ — has joined… the Labour party. Writing in the Times, Foges says that she is as surprised as anyone by her decision: ‘I tapped out the words somewhat guiltily, late at night. This was entering a corner of

William Cook

The reports of Angela Merkel’s political demise have been greatly exaggerated

Once again, the pollsters got it wrong. Yesterday’s election in Saarland was supposed to be the beginning of the end for Angela Merkel, and the start of the SPD revival under their new leader Martin Schulz. And yet, against the odds, Merkel’s conservative CDU has beaten the left-leaning SPD by more than ten per cent, a result which bodes well for her election campaign this autumn, and her bid to win a record-breaking fourth term as Chancellor. Last week, the signs for Merkel’s CDU seemed pretty bleak. Saarland’s CDU leader, so-called ‘Mini Merkel’ Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, went into this election with just one more seat than the resurgent SPD. With two

Steerpike Steerpike

No 10’s Scotland gaffe

Today Theresa May travelled to Scotland to give a speech in which she claimed that Brexit will make the UK more united. In an attempt to counter calls from the SNP for ‘IndyRef2’, May said Britain’s exit from the EU creates an opportunity to strengthen the ties between the nations of the United Kingdom. All very well. Only there’s a problem. According to the press release of the event, May gave the speech in ‘East Kilbridge’: In truth, no such place exists. Instead May was speaking from East Kilbride. Mr S recommends that No 10 endeavour to make sure they spell Scottish place-names correctly in future — otherwise the Prime Minister could be accused of being

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Of course we’re not cowed by terrorism – what other choice do we have?

Stay safe, London. Stay safe, everyone. It’s nice, isn’t it, as a sentiment, which is just as well because it is the motto du jour of every celebrity who has added his or her mite to what passes as debate on the terrorist attack last Wednesday. And, my goodness, they all piled in: JK Rowling, Katy Perry, James Corden, Neil Gaiman; every man and woman of them, you’ll be pleased to hear, against this sort of thing, and urging us all – especially those not actually resident in London – to ‘stay safe’. The other trope is that ‘nothing will divide us’, that this is what terrorists want – Stella

Sunday

Steerpike

‘Unite for Europe’ march turns sour

With Theresa May on track to trigger Article 50 on Wednesday and thereby begin Britain’s formal exit from the European Union, Remainers took to the streets of London on Saturday for one final hurrah. Tens of thousands of people joined the Unite for Europe march — calling on Britain to remain in the EU. Leading the protests was Tim Farron, who said it was important Leavers and Remainers unite for a final say on the Brexit deal. The Lib Dem leader received applause as he claimed that neither Theresa May not David Davis have a clue what the final Brexit deal will look like: ‘We do not believe for one minute they

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Could Health and Safety kill off home cooking?

If Health and Safety is (are?) your thing, you must always be dreaming, like Alexander the Great, of new worlds to conquer. The next one, I predict, will be cooking at home. Recently I have noticed talk about the bad effect of ‘particles’ produced by hot food cooked in or on ovens. The sequence will go thus: a study will prove that people who cook at home inhale more particles than others, reducing their life expectancy. A woman seeking divorce will win a higher settlement because, she says, she was forced to spend hours of each day in such dangerous culinary conditions, suffering various ‘harms’. Then it will be shown

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

The Brexit bellwether will be the health of our car industry

As I’ve said before, the bellwether of post-Brexit prosperity will be the health of the UK car industry, rather than that of the far larger financial sector. The City is nimble enough to look after itself come what may; it requires little more than plug sockets and clever lawyers to outmanoeuvre barriers to its trade. Car-makers, by contrast, require massive investment in research, robotics and logistics to keep them at the cutting edge of a globalised manufacturing system operating on the tightest of margins. So every indicator is worth tracking. Peugeot-Vauxhall was a mixed signal, and a cloud hangs over the Ford engine plant at Bridgend. But there’s positive news

Matthew Walther

Why I’m falling in love with Sean Spicer

Washington, DC I hate to admit it, but I think I’m falling in love with Sean Spicer. No doubt Donald Trump’s stocky, gum-chewing, sartorially challenged press secretary will strike many readers as an unlikely object of passion. But it’s hard not to get red-hot for a man capable of inspiring so much outrage among the most boring, self-important people in America. As press secretary, Spicer’s only real job is to run the President’s daily press briefing, one of those bizarre, quasi-official American institutions — like the State of the Union address or the Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn — whose utility no one ever seems to question.

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Why is Nicola Sturgeon so cagey about Scotland’s EU future?

It’s important to keep an ear out for the rhetoric of Britain’s remaining Remain parties, because they are changing, too. Having announced plans for a second Scottish referendum entirely because of Brexit, Nicola Sturgeon is now incredibly cagey about whether her independent nation would even be part of the EU, or perhaps more like Norway. The same is true of the Lib Dems. Last weekend, Tim Farron managed to give a whole speech to his party’s spring conference railing against only a ‘hard Brexit’ and thus never quite saying whether a Lib Dem government (humour me) would leave the EU or not. These people need to get off the fence. Mind

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How both Britain and the EU might claim victory in the Brexit talks

Theresa May doesn’t do drama. She regards order as both a political and personal virtue. And this goes a long way towards explaining why she is Prime Minister. After the Brexit vote last June and David Cameron’s resignation, the Tories had had enough excitement. They turned to the leadership contender who was best able to project a reassuring sense of calm. It is in keeping with May’s approach that she has drained the drama from the triggering of Article 50, the start of the two-year process for leaving the EU. Other prime ministers might have been tempted to do it with a flourish — to feel the hand of history

The Spectator

Europe should follow Britain’s lead on refugees

When a humanitarian tragedy disappears from our newspapers, there are two possibilities: that the crisis is over and life for survivors is gradually returning to normal — or that the human toll has become so routine as to no longer be considered newsworthy. Sadly, the deaths of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean to seek a new life in Europe fall into the latter category. Eighteen months after the photographs of little Alan Kurdi’s body on a Turkish beach generated a huge swell of public emotion, entire families are still dying on a regular basis. In the first ten weeks of

Saturday

Roland Elliott Brown

How Lenin manipulated the Russian Revolution to his own ends

The centenary of the Russian Revolution has arrived right on time, just as the liberal democratic world is getting a taste of what it’s like to feel political gravity give way. In 2017, Lenin lives. ‘In many ways he was a thoroughly modern phenomenon,’ writes Victor Sebestyen in Lenin the Dictator, the kind of demagogue familiar to us in western democracies, as well as in dictatorships. In his quest for power, he promised people anything and everything. He offered simple solutions to complex problems. He lied unashamedly. He identified a scapegoat he could later label ‘enemies of the people’. He justified himself on the basis that winning meant everything…. Lenin