All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Is there anything quite so ponderous as the German political process? It certainly provides a useful illustration of the gulf between the British and German way of doing things. Theresa May took only a few days to hatch a deal with the DUP to stay in power. By contrast, Angela Merkel has been trying to
There is no doubt about it, getting a divorce is an expensive business. The average cost, according to Aviva’s Family Finances report, is £14,500 – which includes legal fees, child custody costs and changing homes. The report highlights how the cost of divorce has spiralled a further 17% since 2014 when divorces in the UK
Suppose you were a white supremacist who wanted to keep Muslim children down. Or suppose you were a Machiavellian middle-class parent, who wanted to handicap the competition your child would face when the race for university places began. In either case, you would be delighted by what is happening at St Stephen’s primary school in Newham.
A woman and a man had a conversation. Other people watched and listened. The woman asked the man some questions. The man answered them. Some people liked his answers. Some people didn’t. Some people liked the woman’s questions. Some people didn’t. So some of them called her a bitch and a whore and talked about
Are young women stupid? Apparently, 15 per cent of them would miss a cervical smear appointment for a gym class or waxing appointment. These strange upside-down priorities are outlined in a study of 2,017 women published by charity Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, which also found that two thirds of those surveyed weren’t aware they were
Suppose you were a white supremacist who wanted to keep Muslim children down. Or suppose you were a Machiavellian middle-class parent, who wanted to handicap the competition your child would face when the race for university places began. In either case, you would be delighted by what is happening at St Stephen’s primary school in Newham.
Here we go again. The stand out moment of the latest Question Time saw a young woman accuse a Tory minister of purposefully underfunding the NHS in order to make the argument for privatisation. The exchange left Margot James, a DCMS minister, insisting that she was ‘not a liar’ and calling out the accusations as
During his visit to Britain to discuss defence and the future of Anglo-French border security, the French President Emmanuel Macron gave an interview with Andrew Marr at Sandhurst. Macron told Marr that a bespoke deal for the UK was on the negotiating table, though he insisted that there must be ‘no cherry picking’, as doing
Although John McDonnell is supposed to play a key part in Jeremy Corbyn’s drive for a kinder, gentler politics, remarks he made about ‘lynching’ Esther McVey, at a Remembrance Sunday event back in 2014, continue to distract from the message. McDonnell’s defence is that he was quoting someone else who (he claims) wanted to lynch
I was listening to Thought for The Day on Radio 4 the other morning. Well, I say listening, as most parents will know, that is something you can do only in an empty house. What I mean is: the radio was on, a religious man was speaking and I caught probably every fourth or fifth
Another one bites the dust. Ukip’s ruling national executive committee has unanimously backed a vote of no confidence in their leader, Henry Bolton. But Bolton – whose reputation has been battered by the revelations about his 25-year-old ex-girlfriend Jo Marney’s text messages – has resolved to stay in post and under Ukip’s rules there is
Last week I wrote in this space about Cathy Newman’s catastrophic interview with the Canadian academic Jordan Peterson. Since then a number of things have happened. One is that millions of people around the world have watched Newman’s undisguisedly partisan interview. The other is that Channel 4 has tried to turn the tables by claiming
John Humphrys doesn’t do Twitter. Which, let’s face it, is wise. If it weren’t for Twitter I would have written an Important Novel. Instead, I find myself constructing rapier-sharp put-downs to online attacks. Which can take hours. And I never post them anyway because: BBC and all that. Anyway, I am quite fond of several
Building a physical bridge between the UK and France is, apparently, ridiculous. I know that because, ever since Boris Johnson raised the prospect at the Anglo-French summit, my Twitter feed has been full of comments from various bien pensants ridiculing the idea. ‘If you like the Boris bridge idea, wait ‘til you hear about Liam’s
For people who love the natural world, each new season brings new excitements. We are a nation of nature lovers. We feed the birds in our gardens and we revere David Attenborough. Which makes it surprising that – until now – governments have not cottoned on to how much of a vote-winner concerted action to
As a Yorkshire lass living in London I’m struck by the difference in transport provision between the north and south of the UK. Put simply, they feel like different countries. Taking a train from my home in west London into town, I ride on shiny, modern trains (if they aren’t cancelled that is, or on
Martin Vander Weyer says, unhelpfully and inaccurately, that subsidies ‘absurdly’ favour bigger farms. As we look towards life after Brexit, instead of debating the merits of small vs large, the government should incentivise good rather than bad. My family’s farming business, Beeswax Dyson Farming, farms 33,000 acres directly and has invested £75 million in technology,
The latest challenge was to provide a review by a restaurant critic that is tediously loaded with sexual language. I have had this comp up my sleeve since reading a piece by Steven Poole in the Observer in which he laid into the relentless sexualisation of food in our culture: ‘Everyone revels in the “filthiness”
On Tuesday, the Cabinet will discuss the NHS and how it is coping with the winter crisis. But, as I say in the Sun today, the Tories need more than update on what’s going on, they need a proper plan for the NHS. It is one of the issues that could cost them the next
After one year in office, Donald Trump is winning bigly. The stock market is up. North Korea and South Korea are talking. Regulations are being swept away. Apple is bringing back hundreds of billions, thanks to corporate tax reform, and promising the creation of 20,000 new jobs. Conservative judges are being appointed to federal courts
For Jeremy Corbyn and his allies, there has been no far-left takeover of the Labour party or its governing National Executive Committee. It’s true that, this week, Corbyn supporters came to control the majority of the NEC, completing their command of the party apparatus. But they see this as getting rid of the last of
I don’t know where people get the idea the SNP is intolerant of criticism. Scotland’s most open-minded party has released a new video that appears to be an attack on one of its critics dressed up as a party political broadcast. The video depicts a group of thirtysomethings gathered for a house party. They are Scottish but
This post first appeared in the Spectator’s Evening Blend email, a free round-up and analysis of each day’s politics. Sign up for free here. Why is Boris Johnson quite so keen on improbable-sounding bridges? The Foreign Secretary became obsessed with the idea of a ‘garden bridge’ across the river Thames when he was Mayor, a
It’s the end of the week and it’s hard to say what the government has actually achieved. Whether it’s deciding not to launch a judicial inquiry in the John Worboys case or not to tackle the growing pressures on the NHS, the government appears to be in a state of drift. Unfortunately for Theresa May
Here we go again. For some time now Labour’s Brexit confusion can be described as ‘complicated’ at best. Matters aren’t helped by the fact that Labour shadow cabinet members often go on the airwaves and contradict each others – sometimes even themselves. This was evidenced last month took to the Andrew Marr show to claim
Emmanuel Macron capped off his trip to Britain by taking a selfie with the Prime Minister last night. His charm offensive has paid off, says the Daily Telegraph, which suggests the visit shows what a post-Brexit relationship with Britain’s neighbours could look like. The progress in co-operation during the visit – on the migration problem
This is an extract from Martin Vander Weyer’s ‘Any other business’ column in this week’s Spectator. Carillion is a disaster on all fronts, but my sympathies go first to the fallen contracting giant’s sub–contractors. Upwards of 30,000 smaller firms were already facing 120-day payment delays and may now have to fight court battles to get
Some very clever people are rallying around the idea of a specific NHS tax partly because of what has been called a ‘winter crisis’ in hospitals. It’s an idea that has been around for yonks, but Nick Boles’s book, Square Deal, has kick-started the debate again. He argues for National Insurance to be repackaged as
Ever willing to exploit my children, I asked them yesterday just how many actual English children there were in their class at school – one’s at primary, the other, secondary. What, English-English, they said reasonably? You mean, both parents, plus born here? Yes, I said, which meant they couldn’t count themselves – they were born
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Almost 50 years before Brexit, there was a ‘Frexit’: France shocked her allies in March 1966 by giving notice of her withdrawal from an international community of largely European states (plus the USA and Canada), of which she had been a member for 17 years, on the grounds that she wished to regain her national
One upshot of last week’s reshuffle is that Number 10 will get its review of higher education. But a lengthy look at tuition fees would be a mistake in both policy and political terms, I argue in the magazine this week. Tuition fees have all but killed the Liberal Democrats. The breach of their manifesto
With the new Tory vice-chairman for youth, Ben Bradley, currently making headlines for ill-judged blog posts from 2012, it’s safe to say that Theresa May’s plan to revamp CCHQ by appointing 13 MPs as vice-chairs, hasn’t gone entirely to plan. However, one vice chairman is determined to make a success of her brief – no
Oh dear. Although Karen Bradley has only been in her new job as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for just over a week, she has already managed to ruffle a few feathers. Unfortunately for her, those feathers belong to the all-powerful DUP. It’s been reported that in a sit down with written press this morning,
