There was a time when the terms ‘Britain’ and ‘trade’ would have been almost synonymous. For over two centuries we were the trading nation. From the intellectual pioneers such as Adam Smith, whose book ‘the Wealth of Nations’ made the case for free trade, to the Royal Navy’s patrol of the world’s trade routes to
It’s great to be back in Birmingham – and a privilege to address this conference as Chancellor of the Exchequer. I don’t think I am giving away any state secrets in admitting that I just might have hoped to have been a Treasury Minister a little bit earlier in my political career! In fact, having
I was at the UN general assembly in NY the other day and talking to the foreign minister of another country. I won’t say which one, since I must preserve my reputation for diplomacy, but let’s just say they have an economy about the size of Australia (though getting smaller, alas). Plenty of snow, nuclear
Ladies and gentlemen, on the 23rd of June the British people voted for change. And this is going to be the biggest change for a generation: we are going to leave the European Union. It was we, the Conservative Party, who promised the British people a referendum. It was David Cameron, a Conservative Prime Minister,
81 days ago, I stood in front of Ten Downing Street for the first time as Prime Minister, and I made a promise to the country. I said that the Government I lead will be driven not by the interests of a privileged few, but by the interests of ordinary, working-class families. People who have
Ground zero Sir: James Forsyth looks for hope for moderates within the Labour party and finds none (‘The party’s over’, 24 September). That is because the most promising source of hope for them is not a change of position by Labour, but one by the Conservatives. The history of British politics since 1990 has been
Lynch lore John McDonnell refused to apologise for a 2014 interview in which he called for former employment minister Esther McVey to be ‘lynched’. — Several Lynches have been credited for giving the term to the language. One was Charles Lynch (1736-96), a farmer, community leader and, remarkably, a Quaker from Lynchburg, Virginia (a town
There was a time when the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo would have featured strongly in political debate in Britain. Just two weeks after a negotiated ceasefire appeared to have provided some respite, a war of attrition in Syria’s second largest city is escalating into a vast human tragedy. Last Saturday, a bomb dropped by Syrian
Home Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, said that Britain would oppose attempts to create an EU army, as it would ‘undermine’ Nato. Forecasts for British economic growth in 2016 collated by the Treasury were revised from 1.5 to 1.8 per cent, the level expected in June, before the EU referendum. Mathias Döpfner, the chief
From ‘The fall of Combles and Thiepval’, The Spectator, 30 September 1916: The trench — ugly, dirty, dull, untidy serpent of mud and sandbags — will always have the advantage of the most artful fortress. In the last resort, the reason for this seeming miracle is the fact that the trench has something of mobility in it,
Thank you for that introduction. And how brilliant it is to see the hall here in Liverpool, absolutely packed for the Labour conference, well I say it’s packed but Virgin Trains assure me there are 800 empty seats. Either way Conference, it’s a huge pleasure to be holding our party’s annual gathering here in this
Hello, Conference. Thank you for being here in this great city, at this historic gathering of the greatest movement for social change our great country has ever known. It’s a privilege to address you. Thank you. I’d better get the difficult stuff out of the way: Saturday’s result, whatever you think of the man, whatever
Labour in power. Not just talking the talk, but walking the walk too. Never sacrificing or selling out on our ideals, but putting them in action every single day. Not a revolution overnight, but real and meaningful change that makes life easier for the people who need it most. Conference, after the election this summer
Now the leadership election is over, I tell you, we have to become a government in waiting. An election could come at any time. Theresa May has said that she will not be calling an early election, but when could anyone trust a Tory leader? We have to prepare ourselves not just for fighting an
Remote control Sir: Rachel Wolf argues that in education policy ‘the trend, from Kenneth Baker onwards, has been towards giving schools autonomy and promoting a system where parents choose schools’ (‘Bad grammar’, 17 September). Unfortunately, freedom from local authority control has been replaced with unprecedented central interference and control. For teachers, the burdens created by Ofsted
Only now does Angela Merkel concede that her admitting a million refugees last year was a mistake. It was obvious to most people in Europe at the time that her warm-hearted gesture would lead to catastrophic results. In declaring that all Syrian refugees would be welcome if they made it to Germany, she doubled the
Home Theresa May was ‘quite likely’ to invoke Article 50 in January or February 2017, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said she had told him. A Brexit agreement limiting EU people’s right to work in Britain would be vetoed by Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, according to Robert Fico, the
Underbooked David Cameron is said to be struggling to get a good price for his memoirs, with talk of a £5 million advance shrinking to just £1.5 million. How does that compare with the advances for previous political memoirs? Greenland’s former prime minister said he had no regrets about the country’s vote to leave the
From ‘The Battle of the Somme’, The Spectator, 23 September 1916: It may prove to be the fact that the battle of last week was, indeed, the most important fought by British troops in the whole war. For it is possible that just as our men advanced on to the forward slope of the ridge the