A new face at PMQs becomes samey after a few months. Corbo reached that point some time ago and Cameron can now contain him without breaking a sweat. He’s not threatened by the Labour leader for the simple reason that Corbyn lacks any forensic guile. To prepare, mount or press home an attack is beyond
Lobengula was the second king of the Matabele people in what is now Zimbabwe. He was also the last. Cecil John Rhodes smashed his authority, and broke his tribe. The Matabele (a breakaway people from the Zulu kingdom to the south) had been making their way north, and by the time Rhodes arrived on the
On Monday MPs gathered in Westminster Hall to debate whether or not Donald Trump should be allowed to visit Britain, after over 500,000 Brits signed a petition calling for Trump to be banned from the UK. Ahead of the debate, the SNP’s Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh argued that Trump ought to be banned as otherwise ‘what we’re saying
I am far abroad at the moment but have just learnt the sad news from home of the death of George (Lord) Weidenfeld, at the age of 96. As a publisher, philanthropist, convener, guru and friend he was one of the most extraordinary people in 20th and 21st-century Britain. Born in Vienna in 1919, he
David Cameron didn’t have a particularly good PMQs today. He struggled to make sense at some points, ending up telling the House that ‘two out of three people who want to become a nurse can’t become a nurse because of the bursary system’ and rambling about ‘two out of three Vickys’ being turned away from
The unemployment rate fell to 5.1 per cent in the three months to November, putting it at the lowest level since 2006 – and back to its average over the six years before the crisis. Back to what the Bank of England regards as the “equilibrium” rate. [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/DUFV6/index.html”] The other side of the coin is
My last contact with George Weidenfeld was when I asked him to review a book for The Spectator: a life of Stefan Zweig, who has been enjoying a bit of a moment lately. George didn’t fancy it, but I received – very courteous and friendly, as his communications always were – a postcard declining. You could
Given how apocalyptic the predictions were, Anglicanism’s make-or-break meeting about issues of human sexuality last week proved something of a damp squib. The Anglican Communion was supposed to be rent asunder. Upheaval was imminent. Schism was certain. Conservative African Archbishops were going to be tripping over their cassocks in the rush for the door. In
Today the Electoral Commission have released the campaign expenditure returns of the six political parties that spent £250,000 or more on campaigning in the General Election. While the Conservative’s £15,587,956 campaign bill could be argued to be money well spent given their majority win, Labour have a bit more explaining to do it when it comes to
The shamelessly censorious MPs and petition-signers who want Donald Trump banned from Britain are basically saying: ‘Oh my God, he wants to ban people from entering America! This is so outrageous we must ban him from entering Britain.’ Can these people hear themselves? The thing they claim to find repulsive in Trump — that he
MPs are debating the report stage and third reading of the psychoactive substances bill today, with a series of amendments from MPs on exempting poppers from the ban on legal highs (more on why the Tories might want to do that here), and one intriguing one from a group of Tory MPs on supplying drugs
David Cameron is today expected to urge leaders to ease trade rules between Jordan and the EU to help with the Syrian refugee crisis. During his trip to Davos, Cameron will call for changes to spur economic growth and employment in neighbouring countries to Syria. Where might he have got this idea from? In August, Paul Collier –
With Jeremy Corbyn’s approval rating currently at minus 39 according to yesterday’s YouGov poll, one could argue that there is little reason for cheer within Team Corbyn. However, the Labour leader can at least take heart that he has managed to prove more popular than one Labour heavyweight when it comes to football. While Corbyn is a regular at
Few Labour MPs had expected Margaret Beckett’s report into the 2015 election loss to be the thing that saved the party. But they had hoped that it might give the current leadership pause for thought with a reasonable distance before the next election. Instead, much like an IMF report, the document contained something for everyone,
I’m bemused by the outburst of claims that female choreographers are under-represented, held back, or discouraged by ‘institutionalised sexism’ from unveiling their contributions to the richness of British dance. Only a fortnight ago I was thinking about what to write for my first 2016 piece, and this was the very question on my lips. Why
The world’s tennis elite is up in arms. Roger Federer wants to see proof, demanding that the people behind “allegations that match-fixing is rife” should name names. Andy Murray has criticised the practice of betting companies sponsoring tournaments. And Murray’s former coach Mark Petchey thinks that betting on lower-grade tournaments should be outlawed – although it isn’t clear how
Labour’s report on its election defeat is finally out, and it says there are four reasons for its defeat: Failure to shake off the myth that we were responsible for the financial crash and therefore failure to build trust in the economy. Inability to deal with the issues of ‘connection’ and, in particular, failing to
Although David Cameron is said to be planning to scare the nation into staying in the EU, others in the in-camp think they can win voters over with the good. Britain Stronger in Europe have today sent out an optimistic press release revealing a key reason Britons ought to choose to remain in the EU: they can now
It’s just as well that Mark Carney is Bank of England governor: he’d have made a lousy forecaster. In August 2013 he said he’d raise interest rates when unemployment fell below 7 per cent, expecting that to take three years. It took five months. Then last summer, Carney informed us that the decision on when to make the first rate
This evening, if you have time and are around central London, there is an interesting lecture at the British Academy by the admirable sociologist of religion, Linda Woodhead, whose book with Andrew Brown on the CofE, The Church We Left Behind, is as depressing as it is largely to the point. The title is ‘Why