All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Since Jeremy Corbyn’s surprisingly good election defeat, his MPs who previously plotted to get rid of him have been queuing up to pledge their allegiance to the Labour leader. They have been doing this partly because they did make some rather dire predictions about the impossibility of holding their own seats, or indeed of Labour
Dear Sebastian, Thank you for your reply to my letter. Your words are a reality check. I have spent decades closely following economics and politics in various parts of the world and reading a lot of history. You, as you say, are not particularly political. You have pursued your career, played in a rock band
On this week’s episode, we talk about the myth of the British decline, theTwelfth of July parades in Northern Ireland, and the regrettable rise of the man hug. First, Britain seems to be relapsing into another bout of ‘declinism’, writes Professor Robert Tombs in his Spectator cover piece this week. From terror attacks to the Grenfell
Step One: Businessman criticises independence. In this case, Les Montgomery, chief executive of the Highland Spring mineral water brand. On Sunday, he told PA: ‘Businesses are fed up. The Scottish Government should be getting on with the job they are there to do. Focusing on employment, investment, those kinds of things. Independence isn’t the job
Investors are increasingly turning to shareholder activism to make their views heard, and their campaigns are working. As public trust in large businesses and politicians is at an all-time low, many argue that, in the right hands, activism is more effective than political intervention in curbing corporate excess and poor governance. According to research by
In this week’s books podcast, we’re talking about the lumbering hordes of the living dead. Yup: it’s Zombie Apocalypse time, as I sit down with Greg Garrett, author of the erudite and absorbing Living With The Living Dead: The Wisdom of the Zombie Apocalypse. More than just a survival guide, this book considers the literary, cinematic
On Tuesday, Steerpike revealed that the hunt was on to find a new No 10 director of communications, with the BBC’s James Landale pipped against his Beeb comrade Robbie Gibb for the top job. After Landale dropped out of the race, the plum job has gone to Gibb, the head of live political programming at
It was better from Theresa May today. She was combative, prickly and forceful at PMQs. The ship is moving on a steadier course. And two toxic enemies have returned to the fold. In the days following the election, both Anna Soubry and Nicky Morgan were ‘helpfully’ suggesting a possible timetable for Mrs May’s departure. Today
Now that Labour councils have been shown to be as much up to their eyeballs in the tower block cladding scandal as Conservatives ones the Left has subtly shifted onto a different target: the ‘neoliberalist’ war on red tape. Writing in the Guardian today, George Monbiot accuses the Government’s Red Tape Initiative – set up
Ken Loach is no fan of Brexit. The veteran filmmaker and Corbynista luvvie warned last year that the referendum was a ‘dangerous, dangerous moment’ for the country. Now, Loach is dishing out even more doom and gloom, saying that leaving the EU could mean bad news for the British film industry. Loach said that a messy Brexit deal
During the general election campaign, Theresa May was strikingly reluctant to defend the Tories’ economic record. But today at PMQs, Theresa May sounded like the man she sacked as Chancellor as soon as she became PM. She defended the Tories economic record with vigour, pointing out how much progress the party had made in reducing
The NHS is one year older, yet none the wiser. Having spiralled into perpetual crisis years ago, no one can pretend the gargantuan system is looking great for its age. Its fragile condition has all of us worried – not least because of the millions of lives that are forced to depend on our monopoly
Oh dear. Although Theresa May managed to get through today’s PMQs with a solid performance, she did fall short when it came to Scottish matters. The newly-elected Conservative MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine used a question to thank the Prime Minister for ‘taking time during the General Election to come up to Banchory and campaign
Much excitement from Labour this morning over the new IFS report on tuition fees. With research finding that students from disadvantaged backgrounds will graduate with debts in excess of £57,000, Labour’s shadow education minister has said it’s time to ‘deliver a debt-free education system run for the many not the few’. Conveniently, the party has not
While the Cabinet bicker among themselves – in meetings, media briefings and the FT letters’ page – about policy, behind the scenes chatter remains over who will be the next Tory leader. Handily, Conservative Home has today released its Cabinet League Table which shows where the various ministers lie when it comes to the party membership.
It is a mark of Britain’s estrangement from the European Union – and, at least for now, the country’s diminished standing on the international stage – that although Theresa May attended a memorial service to Helmut Kohl at the weekend, she was not invited to speak. Of course there are hierarchies of closeness on such
Although attributed to Milton Friedman, the assertion that ‘there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch’ had been around long before he took it for the title of an economics book in 1975. It has been used since by many who have never given monetarism a second’s thought. Physicists say the universe is a
Talks to form a new power sharing executive in Belfast have broken down again. Largely this is because James Brokenshire, the Northern Ireland Secretary, has been unable to impose a believable deadline after which he would enforce direct rule. This is a particular shame, because shaking the magic money tree in the direction of Northern
Almost everything which is said officially about student finances is obfuscatory and contradictory, starting with Damian Green’s assertion at the weekend that we need ‘a national debate’ on tuition fees, only for former education secretary Michael Gove to say the opposite the following day. A week before the General Election was called, the Student Loan
After days of ministers calling on Theresa May to scrap the public sector pay cap, the fightback has begun. But it’s not coming from the Prime Minister. Instead, it’s been left to May’s predecessor to make the case for fiscal discipline. After the Chancellor put his foot down in a speech to the CBI last
I suppose it says something about me, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything funnier than this video – this brief video – of a man travelling to his target on a hoverboard.
Oh to be a fly-on-the-wall at today’s Cabinet meeting. After growing calls from ministers for Theresa May to ditch the public sector pay cap, last night the Chancellor put his foot down. In a speech to the CBI, Philip Hammond said that while the public are naturally ‘weary’ after seven years of austerity, now is not
‘Spare a thought for Philip Hammond,’ says the Times. The Chancellor once looked certain to lose his job – and yet while he might now be safe in his position, his role is only getting tougher. His Cabinet colleagues are queuing up to tell him that now is the time to lift the cap on public sector pay. In
It is 10 years since smoking in public places was banned in England. Ten years since officials decreed that we could no longer light up at work, in restaurants, in pubs and even at bus-stops. Ten years since you could follow your Tiramisu with the satisfying throat hit of a drag of nicotine. Ten years
Theresa May spent her first few months as Prime Minister reversing many of her predecessor’s policies. But there is one which she may well end up regretting that she failed to reverse: going ahead with the contract for French state electricity company EDF to build the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Yesterday, EDF announced
To say that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove’s relationship is a complex one would be an understatement. The Vote Leave comrades fell out spectacularly when the former education secretary turned on BoJo during the last Tory leadership campaign – opting to launch his own (doomed) bid for No 10 at the expense of his so-called
One of the consequences of Theresa May’s disastrous election campaign is that the balance of power has swung firmly away from the PM towards her Cabinet. This change of fortunes means that ministers can now speak their minds freely in a way that would have been foolhardy just a few weeks ago. Boris Johnson is
‘The unexpected appeal of Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto has thrown the Tories into panic’, says the Sun. With Damian Green suggesting a ‘debate’ may be needed over tuition fees and other ministers ‘piling in every day with demands for more spending’, the Conservative party seems to be making the assumption that the best way to tackle
Over the weekend, the Conservatives appeared to suffer a crisis of confidence. As calls for Theresa May to scrap the public sector pay cap grew, many Tories appeared to give up on the long term economic plan altogether. Damian Green called for a ‘public debate’ on tuition fees and Justine Greening ‘demanded’ £1bn to protect school
Financial scams are big business in the UK. A report from Experian last year suggested that fraud could cost the UK economy as much as £193 billion a year – though these scams come in many shapes and sizes. Analysis from Which suggests there were around 264,000 reported cases of fraud last year. This, however,
A certain sort of person likes to show how relaxed he or she is about sex. The current vehicle for such displays is Love Island, a reality show in which supposedly attractive young people are nudged to pair up, swap partners and so on. These people claim to find it refreshingly frank, anthropologically fascinating, harmless fun, a
Sometimes, on Sundays, I visit Richard, a friend who’s 95 and lives alone. The idea originally was that I’d be doing Richard a favour, but the truth is he cheers me up far more than I do him. I visit because I like him, but as the weeks go by, I’m afraid I’ve also developed
Of all the mistakes in the Conservative election campaign, possibly most grievous of all was the promise to maintain a public sector pay cap of 1 per cent until 2020. It was one thing to maintain such a policy in the 2015 election campaign – when the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) stood at 0.4 per
Although the weekend papers were filled with stories of MPs plotting to loosen the Treasury’s purse strings, there were some whisperings of who ought to succeed Theresa May. While Boris Johnson is still widely regarded as the frontrunner, it is actually his brother Jo who is destined for No 10? Mr S only asks after Sir
