Ross Clark is a leader writer and columnist who has written for The Spectator for three decades. His books include Not Zero, The Road to Southend Pier, and Far From EUtopia: Why Europe is failing and Britain could do better
Today has been so bigged-up as a day of destiny for Britain that it can only deliver disappointment. Even if we do have white smoke rising from the chimneys of Chequers by the end of the day, together with a photo full of strained smiles as the Chancellor and Foreign Secretary apparently agree on a
At Chequers over the next couple of days Theresa May, along with her chief Brexit-sceptic ministers Philip Hammond and Greg Clark, will attempt to convince others to agree to a soft Brexit. The latest thinking, according to reports today, is that the UK would more or less remain in the single market for goods but
There is one form of female under-representation which no-one seems concerned about – the fact that a mere 4.5 per cent of the prison population is made up of women. No one says we must rebalance that so as to make it 50-50 by 2025, or whatever. It just seems to be accepted that men
I can think of many people who deserve to be in jail but perhaps not Stanislaw Skupien. The homeless Pole was watching the London Marathon in April when he suddenly fancied a go himself. He clambered over a barrier and started running. When 300 yards form the finish, he picked up a race number which had
Was there ever a more fatuous contribution to a political debate than Lord Hague following up the case of 12-year-old Billy Caldwell — the boy whose mother says he needs cannabis oil to control his epilepsy — with a demand for recreational cannabis to be legalised? But the former foreign secretary has done us a
Historians will still be asking in 100 years’ time why public outrage did not do Donald Trump more harm. How come he could keep seeming to offend three-quarters of America yet still end up with half the vote? The answer, I think, is that his opponents kept falling into the same trap: they kept over-reacting.
I am sure there must have been a time when feminism was concerned with the interests of the low-paid and disadvantaged – before, that is, it became almost wholly concerned with powerful, well-paid women demanding even higher money. Nicky Morgan and her Treasury Select Committee have found an injustice which puts into the shade the
In Donald Trump’s dealings with Kim Jong-un it is possible to decipher a strategy of creative destruction: stir things up, so that relations cannot seem to get any worse – and then get down to doing business. Might the same process also be in operation in Trump’s trade war with his G7 allies? The President’s
I am all for taking ethical stands, but if you are going to do so it does help to show a little bit of consistency. Today, Argentina cancelled its World Cup warm-up game against Israel in protest, it seems, at Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. According to striker Gonzalo Higuain, the players ‘have done
Whatever happened to the political squall that was Heathrow’s third runway? For several years it looked as if the issue could deeply harm the Conservatives. After all, hadn’t David Cameron ruled out a third runway – “no ifs, no buts” – in 2010. It was deeply embarrassing for him to do an about turn two
I am all for taking ethical stands, but if you are going to do so it does help to show a little bit of consistency. Today, Argentina cancelled its World Cup warm-up game against Israel in protest, it seems, at Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. According to striker Gonzalo Higuain, the players ‘have done the
Whatever happened to the political squall that was Heathrow’s third runway? For several years it looked as if the issue could deeply harm the Conservatives. After all, hadn’t David Cameron ruled out a third runway – “no ifs, no buts” – in 2010. It was deeply embarrassing for him to do an about turn two
David Lammy is upset again, as he is every week. This time it is thanks to data released by Ucas, which reveals that while black applicants make up nine per cent of the total, they account for 52 per cent of those whose applications have been flagged up for possible cheating – either because they
Yippee! Now I can finally take a train to Scotland without putting money into Richard Branson’s pockets. This afternoon’s announcement by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling that the franchise on the East Coast mainline is to be taken back into the government’s hands returns the railway to the position it was in between 2011 and 2015.
So the year-long squeeze on real earnings is now officially over. Figures released by the ONS this morning show that average earnings in the first three months of this year were 2.9 per cent ahead of what they were in the same period of 2018, while CPI inflation was 2.7 per cent ahead. In other
The first instinct of many people towards Tendayi Achiume, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights who finished her 11 day visit to Britain yesterday by claiming that Britain is in the grip of a Brexit-related upsurge in racial intolerance and discrimination, will be to tell her to keep her nose out of our affairs.
The Resolution Foundation has called for 25-year-olds to be paid £10,000 to help them afford homes, saying the ‘generational contract’ between young and old has broken down. But is it really harder for young people to buy a home now than it was 30 years ago? House prices were booming in the first half of
Surprisingly though it may be to some of my readers I have never been that bothered about Brexit. I even voted Remain – not on the strength of the economic arguments, which I thought fairly evenly balanced – but because I could see the danger in precipitating the break-up of the European Union: that it
How easy it would be to be goaded by the visit of Tendayi Achiume, the UN’s “Special Rapporteur on Racism” to Britain. “My mission…will focus on explicit incidents of racism and related intolerance as well as attention to structural forms of discrimination and exclusion that have been exacerbated by Brexit,” she says, as well as
The government’s opponents were not slow, as usual, to blame today’s disappointing data on economic growth on Brexit (the IOD) or ‘austerity’ (John McDonnell) – while the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, chose to fall back on that old chestnut used by corporate spokesmen when announcing dismal results: the weather. None of these will really do as
