All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The invitation to submit an obituary for planet Earth drew a smallish but varied and heartfelt entry. The usual culprits were in the frame — asteroids, global warming, hubris, Trump, Brexit… But Basil Ransome-Davies reckons the Martians have got it in for us, which struck me as altogether plausible given how Elon Musk and co.
I must protest at the Sun’s sacking of Kelvin MacKenzie. As shop steward for the small trade union of columnists who were once editors, I can state categorically that the editor, not the writer, is ultimately responsible for what is printed. In no way, shape or form will my members be scapegoated by the boss
An eagle-eyed Twitter user has spotted something that could be a metaphor for the last 12 months of British politics. Theresa May’s 2017 general election battle bus is – wait for it – last year’s Remain bus, spray-painted with new ‘strong and stable’ slogans. It looks like the number plate checks out: 1/2 Theresa May's presidential
It’s that time of the year when politicians start posting pictures of groups of people smiling eerily while holding party placards and claiming that they’ve just had a ‘great response’ on the doorstep. For the uninitiated, this sounds as though the people opening their doors in each street are just thrilled to see said eerily
Chatham House has been at the forefront of thinking on Britain’s role in the world. So with the General Election less than a month away, it’s a great place to set out my approach: on how a Labour Government I lead will keep Britain safe, reshape relationships with partners around the world, work to strengthen
‘I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and I intend to spend it’. That was how George W Bush put it after winning his second presidential election in 2004. He’s possibly not the best model for good governance, but the sentiment is worth pondering as Theresa May rolls on relentlessly towards victory. Mrs May
When it comes to voices, the words of the apocryphal Times headline come to mind: ‘Fog in the Channel; Continent cut off’. It’s one sign of the deep cultural differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’, which maybe made Brexit inevitable. You might not think a taste in voices would have any connection with this cultural divide. But
Labour had a day to forget yesterday: the party’s leaked manifesto was plastered all over the newspapers, its leader was a no show at Labour’s poster launch and Corbyn’s car collided with a BBC cameraman. On the plus side, the party has succeeded in snatching the headlines away from the Tories. But is this wall-to-wall
Labour’s leaked manifesto is, predictably enough, a fiscal fantasy land with lots of spending pledges and rather few tax rises to pay for them – higher taxes for the top five per cent of earners would not necessarily earn an extra penny in revenue if they encouraged more avoidance or flight to tax havens. But
All publicity is good publicity, right? Wrong. The United Airlines controversy last month showed just how quickly poor crisis management can decimate company shares. And we financial journalists know as soon as we mention our job titles when making a customer complaint, we usually receive a positive outcome, such is the corporate terror triggered by
Are there any words which have such an affinity as ‘NHS’, ‘IT’ and ‘cock-up’? Older readers might remember how the Department of Health blew £10 billion of taxpayers’ money on a computer system which was eventually abandoned. Today comes news that two dozen hospitals have been affected by a massive hack of computer systems. Patients
This week’s Best Buys, provided by Moneyfacts, are Five-Year Fixed Rate Buy-to-Let Mortgages.
Think of the Parliamentary Labour Party as a regiment ordered over the top in the First World War. The soldiers know the generals haven’t a clue. They know the battle was lost before it began. The only question in their minds is who makes it back from the slaughter. The projected casualty rates vary. Corbyn’s
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for Labour, Noam Chomsky goes and endorses Jeremy Corbyn. ‘If I were a voter in Britain, I would vote for him…He’s quiet, reserved, serious, he’s not a performer,’ Chomsky told the Guardian. But the more you read of Chomsky’s endorsement, the more you wonder if he was
With Labour’s draft manifesto out in the open today, politicos and pundits are beginning to cast judgment on whether it offers an innovative set of policies that could transform Britain or if it’s really a socialist disaster just waiting to happen. Alas, Tony Blair’s former director of political operations falls into the latter category. Speaking
Jeremy Corbyn’s day is going from bad to disastrous. Labour’s draft manifesto has been leaked and is splashed all over the newspapers. And the Labour leader was a no show at the party’s poster launch. So you might be forgiven for thinking that things couldn’t possibly get any worse for Corbyn. Not so. When the
Big hikes in corporation tax. A sweeping programme of nationalisation. Large increases in the minimum wages, a 20-1 cap on executive pay, and, just in case it gets lost in that blizzard of promises, hefty tax increases on anyone earning more than £80,000 a year. Even in a normal year, the leaked Labour party manifesto has
Today’s front pages are emblazoned with details of the policies in Labour’s manifesto. Usually, this level of policy coverage would be good news for a party in the midst of a general election campaign. However, the manifesto isn’t due for a week. Instead, someone has leaked the draft version. It certainly makes for an intriguing read.
Labour’s draft manifesto for the general election has been leaked; here’s the full text: Manifesto: For the many not the few Creating an economy that works for all Our economic strategy is about delivering a fairer, more prosperous society for the many, not just the few. We will measure our economic success not by the
Labour is meeting today to finalise its manifesto. The only sticking point? A draft manifesto has already been leaked. The party’s plans to woo voters are splashed across the Daily Telegraph and the Mirror. They’ve also been leaked to the BBC. Make no mistake: this is a huge embarrassment for the party and does nothing
The broadly welcomed admission recently by Prince Harry that he had sought counselling to help him to deal with his grief over the death of his mother, Princess Diana, when he was 12, presents a striking contrast with the stiff upper lip always favoured by his soon-to-retire grandfather, Prince Philip. Nevertheless, the Duke of Edinburgh
On this week’s edition of The Spectator Podcast, we tackle a number of the most contentious issues around: whether the young royals are becoming too open with the press, if wind power will ever be an effective source of energy, and the question of whether Arsène Wenger should stay or go. First, in recent weeks,
I am immensely cheered by the news that one of the worst perpetrators of cold calling has been fined a record amount for making almost 100 million nuisance calls. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued its highest ever penalty of £400,000 to Keurboom Communications after more than 1,000 people complained about recorded – also known
How much money do you have in your current account right now? What date do you pay your electricity bill? What was your most recent purchase? Can you remember exactly how much you spent? What do you spend more on each month – food or drink? Not many people can answer these questions correctly without
Oh dear. Does anyone in the Labour party have a head for numbers? Mr S only asks after Jack Dromey became the third Labour politician in recent days to come up short on being asked about basic Labour policy figures. In an interview on the Daily Politics, Dromey came up short as he attempted to explain
Anyone with a trip on the horizon is likely to make a checklist of essentials to pack, but what about spending money? Holiday cash is often last on the list even though leaving it to the last minute can be a costly mistake. Not only could you miss out on a decent exchange rate, but
I didn’t see a ferret, reverse or otherwise, during Labour’s campaign launch or after. I heard some quite silly, grandstanding, questions from Laura Kuenssberg. And I heard a Labour leader who sounded a bit like…..well, a decent Labour leader. None of this is to deny the patent catastrophe of Corbyn’s leadership of the party hitherto,
Last week it was Diane Abbott who was caught on the hoof by Nick Ferrari when she took to the airwaves to unveil Labour’s policing policy. Unable to give the correct figures regarding how much her party’s plan to put more police on the beat would cost, the shadow home secretary seemed woefully unprepared for office. Today
The golden girl of the National Front has gone and with her go the grassroot hopes for an alternative to Marine Le Pen. The decision of Marion Maréchal-Le Pen to withdraw from political life wasn’t entirely unexpected, rumours first emerged earlier in the year, but it is nonetheless a heavy blow for the party rank
How was last night’s TV squirm-athon? The sacrificial victims handled it pretty well, at first. Theresa May and her unknown husband, Philip, were roasted live on a BBC sofa. The idea, presumably, was to make them seem relaxed, normal, unexciting, not too posh, at ease with themselves and, above all, genuine. Dull Phil sported a
The day of a party’s election campaign launch ought to generate some pretty straightforward policy coverage. Instead, Labour yesterday managed to cause confusion once again as Jeremy Corbyn tried to set out Labour’s position on Europe. In a speech in Manchester, the Labour leader asserted that the question of whether the UK would leave the
Listed below are the notable parliamentary contests that we can look forward to in the 2017 general election: England Conservatives: Returning: Richmond Park – Zac Goldsmith, who lost this seat in a by-election he triggered in opposition to the government’s stance on building a third runway at Heathrow, has rejoined the fold to try and win it back.
The original EdStone may have been broken up and discarded soon after Ed Miliband’s 2015 defeat, but its memory lives on. In fact, the Conservatives have even managed to spin a tidy profit from it — auctioning replica versions to party donors. So, last night at the Ivy Chelsea Garden’s champagne-fuelled summer party, Mr S was
As I watched the water creep across the kitchen floor, powerless to prevent a mini tsunami, I had an inkling of how it must feel to be the victim of flooding or burst pipes. By the third time the water invaded my kitchen, I was at the end of my tether. It later transpired that