Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator
Badda Bing. Chris Christie has just endorsed Donald Trump for president, and suddenly Republican politics looks like a particularly nasty episode of the Sopranos. As he paid homage to the new capo di tutti capi, Chris Christie called Trump ‘the person who will do exactly what needs to be done to make America a leader around
Ah, Marco Rubio sold the media a dummy yesterday. Ahead of the CNN debate last night, his press team briefed out that their man would go after Ted Cruz, the rival for second place, rather than the frontrunner Donald Trump. This seemed stupid. It turns out it was part of a cunning plan. We should
Tonight’s Republican CNN debate should be, to use the Donald Trump word, yuuge. I don’t mean to sound like a boxing promoter; I know that TV debates, especially Republican ones, are overhyped. They often turn out to be little more than soundbites and fury, signifying nothing. But anybody who thinks a bad debate can’t harm a political
It was obvious that Donald Trump would win the South Carolina Republican Primary tonight. Polls are never that far off. Still, it’s a shocking result. In the build-up to the vote, Trump did almost everything a Republican candidate is not meant to do: he blamed George W. Bush for 9/11, he spoke well of Planned
Bernie Sanders’s quixotic tilt at the White House needed an upset in the Nevada Caucuses tonight. But Hillary Clinton won. Now the Former First Lady, after a wobbly few weeks, is very much back in what Americans call the catbird seat. Sanders’s populist success has been staggering, but he has never quite threatened to destroy
It’s pretty extraordinary that a leading contender for the American presidency has just effectively threatened the Pope with terrorism. But then, Donald J. Trump is no ordinary Republican frontrunner. Everything about his campaign is outrageous — and that’s why he is winning. Today, the Pope, returning home from Mexico, told reporters that he thought Trump’s intention to
Remember when Tony Blair begged Labour supporters not to go for Jeremy Corbyn? Remember how well that turned out? Yesterday in South Carolina, USA, George W. Bush did something not too dissimilar. He didn’t copy Blair’s ‘even if you hate me’ line. Instead, Dubya urged his party, which is seemingly hellbent on destroying itself, to
If Jeb Bush is to have any chance of winning the Republican nomination in 2016, he needs a ‘media moment’. He needs an exchange of arguments or insults with Donald J. Trump in which he indisputably comes out on top. If you listen to Team Bush’s boosters, that moment happened last night. But they would
What sad news that the Independent is closing. In September last year, I did an investigation into the strange, celebrity-orientated world of the paper’s young owner, Evgeny Lebedev. What was intriguing was that, although Indie journalists were willing to talk — off the record — about Lebedev’s eccentricity, almost everybody I spoke to was keen to stress that,
‘Anybody here got any student debt?’ asks Bernie Sanders halfway through his speech at a rally in a small university on Monday. He then starts conducting a fake auction. ‘What are some of the numbers you got? You? 35,000. You? 55,000? Who else? A young lady here… 100,000 dollars. You win! I don’t know what
Manchester, New Hampshire ‘Anybody here got any student debt?’ asks Bernie Sanders halfway through his speech at a rally in a small university on Monday. He then starts conducting a fake auction. ‘What are some of the numbers you got? You? 35,000. You? 55,000? Who else? A young lady here… 100,000 dollars. You win! I
Manchester, New Hampshire Populism won tonight in New Hampshire. Rage against the elite won tonight in New Hampshire. Class warfare came out on top. Bernie Sanders, who wants a ‘political revolution’ to tackle ‘the billionaire class’, thrashed the former First Lady, Hillary Clinton. Donald J. Trump, the billionaire who tells everyone that only he can stop the elite buying Washington,
New Hampshire The Spectator’s deputy editor Freddy Gray is currently in New Hampshire. Here’s his report from the evening as the results of the primary came in. 3.13am Things slowing down now, folks. Thanks for reading. Story of the night is Bernie Sanders, just, and the Donald’s mind-blowing win a close second. A goofy 74 year old socialist
Poor Marco Rubio. At the vital moment, he seems to fluff his lines. In the final months of 2015, America’s lumpencommentariat kept predicting ‘Marco’s moment’. For months, such talk sounded like nothing but hype. Then the Iowa caucuses happened, and Rubio finished a much-stronger-expected third. Finally, his time seemed to have come. Rubio emerged as the pragmatic choice; the man to prick
Washington, DC The Bush family hates to lose. Yet Jeb Bush — child of one president; brother of another — must know that, barring a miracle, his bid for the White House has failed. In fact, it has been a disaster. Bush started out as overwhelming favourite. He had the Grand Old Party top brass
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray and the Republican Party Overseas’ Kate Andrews discuss what’s next for the GOP” startat=695] Listen [/audioplayer]If Donald Trump had won in Iowa on Monday night, everybody would still be saying what a brilliant candidate he is. His decision to shun that Fox News debate, just four days before the caucuses, would
If Donald Trump had won in Iowa on Monday night, everybody would still be saying what a brilliant candidate he is. His decision to shun that Fox News debate, just four days before the caucuses, would be seen as a tactical masterstroke. Looking at his poll lead ahead of the New Hampshire primary next week,
What now for Hillary Clinton? The rumour in Washington last week was that, given her weak position in New Hampshire and the never-ending saga of her emails, if she lost in Iowa, Vice-President Joe Biden would enter the race and spare the blushes of the Democratic establishment. Well, Hillary didn’t lose. But she didn’t win either. She
The experts knew all along: Donald Trump was never going to win. You can’t trust those caucus and primary polls. Calm down, everybody. The great winner is actually a loser. He couldn’t even beat someone as unattractive as Ted Cruz. If only things were that simple. The truth is that Trump, with no serious ‘ground game’ to
Marco Rubio wins tonight in Iowa — by coming third. That, I suspect, will be the on dit among the commentariat this evening in America. And it might not be wrong. According to the latest polls, Rubio is the only candidate to have gained momentum in the run up to today’s caucuses. If the polls aren’t off —