Stephen Daisley is a Spectator regular and a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail
Ian Austin has become the ninth MP to quit Labour, blaming the party’s culture of anti-Semitism. He tells the Express and Star: ‘The Labour Party has been my life, so this has been the hardest decision I have ever had to take, but I have to be honest and the truth is that I have become
And then there were eleven. The Independent Group has been enlarged today by the defection of moderate Tories Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen, who gave as their reason the Brexification of the Conservative Party. ConservativeHome’s executive editor Mark Wallace and others might dispute many of the charges, but the splitters describe a mood in
Manny Shinwell knew how to deal with anti-Semites. Born in London’s East End, reared in Glasgow, and once jailed for inciting a riot on Red Clydeside, the pipe-smoking pugilist was a tough, proud Jew. During a debate in parliament in 1938, Shinwell (then Labour MP for Seaham) was jabbing at the government when Tory MP Robert Bower
The thousands of children across the UK on ‘strike’ from school today to protest climate change are admirable. They’re part of a movement, Fridays for Future, which wants more aggressive measures to reduce emissions. It seems clear to me that climate change is real, man-made and requires action. If these kids can do their bit
It’s been a busy old week in Scottish politics. The SNP government is suffering a public backlash over plans to allow councils to levy a tax on workplace car parks. There has been a fatal infection outbreak at another hospital. MSPs are angry that the nationalists have installed one of their own as chair of
Is there a name for the moment something objectionable becomes so mainstream that those responsible can solemnly lament it as a fact of life? I propose that we call it the Formby Point. This week, Labour’s general secretary Jennie Formby reportedly told a parliamentary party meeting that it was ‘impossible to eradicate anti-Semitism and it
Writing for The Spectator, I am already at grave risk of being expelled from the liberal elite, doubly so as a Remainer who (wearily, sceptically, fearfully) accepts the democratic mandate for Brexit. Soon I won’t be able to pick up breakfast at my local vegan food truck without the guy shrieking, ‘OH, DOES ROD LIDDLE
I recently rewatched The Birdcage, Mike Nichols’ pleasing farce of clashing values, a Hollywood adaption of Jean Poiret’s lighter, sharper 1973 play La Cage aux Folles. The son of drag club owner Armand Goldman (a dialled-up Robin Williams) has proposed to the daughter of Republican Senator Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman, almost camper than Williams) and
If hell is other people, Twitter is the Devil’s noticeboard. Occasionally, though, its asteroid-inviting awfulness unearths a little insight into human nature, specifically when our instincts clash with our ideology. Take J.K. Rowling, author of the Cormoran Strike series who has also dabbled a little in children’s fiction. The Scottish novelist is a well-kent supporter
When the media falls in love, it falls hard. Its latest crush is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat congressgirl from New York. With Obama gone, she’s their new idol and how they gasp every time she flutters her Bambi eyes from behind those Deirdre Barlow-grade glasses. Brits find the deference US journalists show their president unseemly —
Brenda from Bristol, look away now. Jeremy Corbyn is pressing Theresa May to call a general election, saying: ‘To break the deadlock, an election is not only the most practical option, it is also the most democratic option. It would give the winning party a renewed mandate to negotiate a better deal for Britain and
When the media falls in love, it falls hard. Its latest crush is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat congressgirl from New York. With Obama gone, she’s their new idol and how they gasp every time she flutters her Bambi eyes from behind those Deirdre Barlow-grade glasses. Brits find the deference US journalists show their president unseemly —
This is a story about two people going to jail and the countries sending them there. Both are Palestinians and were sentenced on Monday in courts separated by an hour’s drive. Jamil Tamimi was sent down for 18 years at Jerusalem district court, in Israel, for the murder of British student Hannah Bladon. Bladon, a
Of what is happening on the Channel, we know this for certain: it is not a crisis. Only 239 foreign nationals have crossed unauthorised since November, a rounding error in the 625,000 legal migrants and 15,170 asylum seekers and other protectees granted leave in the UK in the year to June 2018. We know this
Of what is happening on the Channel, we know this for certain: it is not a crisis. Only 239 foreign nationals have crossed unauthorised since November, a rounding error in the 625,000 legal migrants and 15,170 asylum seekers and other protectees granted leave in the UK in the year to June 2018. We know this
It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of Elon Musk, it was the age of Mark Zuckerberg. It was the season of Novichok, it was the season of the backstop. We had WTO terms before us, we had our hoard of food and medicine before us.
It seems only fitting, living as we do in the Banter Timeline, that Theresa May won an indecisive vote decisively and Jacob Rees-Mogg refused to accept the will of the electorate. The Prime Minister did not secure the confidence of her party last week; she confirmed their lack of confidence that there is any alternative.
It’s the lowest point in British espionage since Pierce Brosnan. A top secret cyber hit squad has been busted trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn through the medium of Twitter. At least that’s the claim from the Sunday Mail, a left-leaning Scottish tabloid, which has exposed the Institute for Statecraft as ‘a secret UK Government-funded infowars
‘Obsessed with Islam and Tommy Robinson.’ This is how Nigel Farage describes a cohort of Ukip activists he encountered at the party’s Birmingham conference earlier this year. Gerard Batten, the tenth leader of Ukip, has openly courted such elements in his calculated lurch to the farther-right. He has recruited as an adviser Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better
A rare joy of living through the forging of a new orthodoxy is watching as the old orthodoxy becomes daring and scandalous. Assumptions once axiomatic grow beguiling, then bemusing, and eventually base, and a delicious tang of danger is lent to the stalest of views. What was mainstream now finds itself in dissent and on
