From the dreaming spires of Oxford this afternoon comes a potent combination of student censorship and fake news. A group of geographers had claimed victory on Twitter in a campaign to remove the portrait of Theresa May from the School of Geography and the Environment. May is an alumnus of that school, but the Not
It ought to be a statement of the obvious that Labour is fighting a civil war between revolutionary socialists and social democrats, which goes back to the Russian revolution 100 years ago. The armies may have changed, but the battle line remains as static as ever. Instead of seeing what is in front of our
Poor old Theresa May. Last week, a portrait of the Prime Minister was unveiled at Oxford University as part of their ‘wall of geography women’. But the PM’s time on the wall at her former university has been short-lived. A group calling themselves ‘Not all Geographers’ is claiming success after May’s portrait was taken down
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
Boris Johnson’s rather bold move on the customs partnership hasn’t yet landed him in trouble, even though it has enraged some of his pro-Remain colleagues. At the Number 10 lobby briefing today, the Prime Minister’s spokesman avoided giving the Foreign Secretary a slap down when asked whether Theresa May was happy that he had told
David Willetts, one time minister of state for universities and science turned chief spokesperson for baby boomer self-flagellation, is clearly troubled by the year of his birth. Since his 2010 book, The Pinch: How the baby boomers took their children’s future and why they should give it back, he’s been desperately seeking atonement for the
The march of the Labour moderates away from Westminster continues, with Heidi Alexander the latest to quit parliament. The Labour MP announced this morning that she will stand down from her seat and take up a job working with Sadiq Khan at City Hall. Her departure is no real surprise: speculation has been rife for
Cabinet is certain to be tetchy this morning after Boris Johnson called the PM’s preferred customs arrangement ‘crazy’. Things were no different on Sky News just now when Iain Duncan Smith popped up to discuss Brexit. IDS clashed repeatedly with Adam Boulton as the pair discussed borders, Brexit and whether Boris would do a better
The local election results have raised questions about both Labour and the Conservatives’ viable route to a majority at the next general election. In that vein, Paul Mason – the Corbynista former broadcaster – has written a piece for the i paper explaining why Labour must win former Ukip votes: Alas Mr S suspects Mason
This never-ending circular discussion on customs unions is painful, particularly because the question should have been settled during the referendum. It’s now nearly two years since the vote to Leave the EU in June 2016. But we’ve spent months and months rehashing endlessly the exact same points. That’s profoundly damaging. Rewind back to this time
I have never much liked cars. I am aware that they serve a purpose, much as do security measures at international airports – but then I don’t like them very much either. Cars are horribly noisy, arrogant, dangerous, foul-smelling and claustrophobic and bring out the worst in us. The noisy thing bothers me most –
The latest challenge asked you to compose a poem beginning with the last line of any well-known poem and ending with its first line, the new poem being on a different subject from the original. This was a wildly popular comp, which elicited a witty and wide-ranging entry. The effort of extracting six winners from
There is a divide in Britain, one that cleaves us apart more sharply than Leave vs Remain, north vs south, or moody Owen Jones vs needy Owen Jones. Our real national fault-line is Kay Burley. The Sky News presenter is everywhere right now. She was named Broadcast Journalist of the Year by the London Press
The Business Secretary joined Andrew Marr this morning to keep alive the Prime Minister’s aspiration for a customs partnership with the EU after Brexit. On Wednesday, the Brexit inner cabinet voted down Theresa May’s proposal, which would see the UK government collect tariffs on behalf of the EU in return for greater access to the
After winning the ‘broadcast journalist of the year’ gong on Tuesday at the London Press Club awards, Kay Burley topped off a busy week with a debut on the Andrew Marr show. The Sky broadcaster joined Amanda Platell and Ayesha Hazarika for the paper review segment of the early morning current affairs show, Only while discussing the
The Conservatives better-than-expected election result has been dampened somewhat by CCHQ’s decision to reinstate a councillor suspended for comparing an Asian man with a dog last June in order to take control of Pendle council. Labour have been quick to go on the attack – accusing the Tories of abandoning decency in favour of a power
Fifty years ago, ‘les événements’ kicked off in Paris. The students’ complaints were fascinatingly trivial. They were bored stiff at their hideous new university in Nanterre. In a move which would now get them trolled by Time’s Up, the left-wing male students organised a ‘sexual riot’ and marched on the girls’ hall of residence, demanding
I dislike the attacks on Theresa May’s Brexit adviser Olly Robbins. Mr Robbins is a capable and patriotic official charged with the exceptionally demanding task of extricating Britain from the European Union. This job is as difficult and complicated as taking Arizona out of the United States. I detect no evidence to support claims that
To tackle London’s murder problem, Sarah Jones, Labour Party and Croydon Central MP, told the BBC that a ‘public health approach’ is needed. This, she says, involves going into schools and teaching ‘what it is to be a man.’ Quite so. Masculinity can and ought to be taught. But is this really a job for
It is easy enough for a remorseless liberal like Matthew Parris (‘They say Enoch Powell had a fine mind. Hmm’, which appeared in the magazine on 28 April) to denigrate Enoch Powell on the strength of his widely execrated speech on immigration and some tortured comments on homosexuality. Powell should be remembered as the man