All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
There is a saying that whoever the Prime Minister hates, they appoint as Northern Ireland Secretary. James Brokenshire, Theresa May’s unlucky pick for the job, had three options yesterday: a new election, direct rule, or a fudge. When the clock struck 4pm, three weeks after Northern Ireland’s election, there was only one option: it was always going to
The clock is ticking. At 12.30pm tomorrow, Theresa May will be on her feet in the Commons declaring that Article 50 has been triggered. Finally, nine months after the referendum, Britain will be heading out of the EU. The moment itself is likely to be underwhelming and we’re unlikely to find out much more of
This afternoon Scottish Parliament will vote on Nicola Sturgeon’s call for a second independence referendum. With MSPs expected to vote in favour of the motion, Theresa May’s line that ‘now is not the time’ for a referendum looks set to come under increased pressure. ‘IndyRef2’ could still be pushed back as far as 2020/21 but behind the scenes Unionists are
For a long time, the energy market has been dominated by six giants: British Gas, EDF, E.ON, npower, SSE and Scottish Power. According to the latest figures from regulator Ofgem, between them the so-called ‘big six’ have a market share of 85 per cent. The trouble is, they are often the most expensive. Recent years
Here’s a cast-iron law of the media in 21st-century Britain: the hysteria about a Daily Mail article will always be worse than the Daily Mail article itself. It will be more silly, shrill, over-the-top, reactionary and potentially harmful to public life than the polemic or editorial or sidebar shot of a half-dressed celeb it is
The whole purpose of changing the grading structure for GCSE exams was supposed to be to guard against the curse of grade inflation – whereby, over time, it becomes easier and easier to gain a good grade. How unfortunate, then, that the government has inflated the grades before the first exam results using the new
The top half of the front cover of the Daily Mail today is of course trivial: the big story of the meeting between Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon is, obviously, the plummeting relations between Westminster and Holyrood and whether we will still have a United Kingdom in five years’ time. The big story is not
In yesterday’s Guardian, David Shariatmadari confronts the claim that Islam is an especially violent religion. The claim, he says, is undermined by the fact that jihadi terrorism is a very recent phenomenon. Yes, there is also the violence of empire-building in its history, but you could say this of Christianity too. ‘Aspects of Islamic teaching do
I’ve had just about enough of being told how to feel about what happened last Wednesday. I feel angry. I still feel shock. I feel a keen ache for the families of those murdered, especially the loved-ones of PC Keith Palmer. I feel that cold spite that works its way into your heart at times
You’d think, with Brexit talks starting sometime after Wednesday, that Northern Irish politicians would have something better to do than engage in the amusing party politics that leave everyone else in Ireland and Britain stone cold. But nope, given the possibility that the EU could insist on the imposition of a land border between the
The Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire is playing for time. In a statement made after the 4pm deadline for forming an executive in Northern Ireland was missed, Brokenshire said that he was giving the parties a few more weeks to try and reach a deal. He justified this on the basis that there is no
Given that Owen Jones, Glenda Jackson and Derek Hatton are just a handful of the figures to recently turn on Jeremy Corbyn, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Labour leader is turning people off Labour. So, Mr S was surprised to learn of Labour’s latest recruit, in today’s issue of the Times. Step forward
Once again, the pollsters got it wrong. Yesterday’s election in Saarland was supposed to be the beginning of the end for Angela Merkel, and the start of the SPD revival under their new leader Martin Schulz. And yet, against the odds, Merkel’s conservative CDU has beaten the left-leaning SPD by more than ten per cent,
Today Theresa May travelled to Scotland to give a speech in which she claimed that Brexit will make the UK more united. In an attempt to counter calls from the SNP for ‘IndyRef2’, May said Britain’s exit from the EU creates an opportunity to strengthen the ties between the nations of the United Kingdom. All very well. Only
It is very good to be with you here with you today, and particularly to be able to thank you all for the work you do on behalf of the Government and on behalf of the British people. Vital work that helps millions around the world and speaks strongly to the values that we share
One of the 12 ‘principles’ of the government’s National Planning Policy Framework is that planning should be ‘genuinely plan-led, empowering local people to shape their surroundings.’ This is how that empowerment works in reality. Stephanie and Adam Sutton live on the Montagu Estate in Newcastle upon Tyne. Stephanie grew up on the estate, is 37 years old and works
Once, after a few too many sherbets, I tipped the pizza delivery man with my supermarket trolley token instead of a pound coin. It was a genuine mistake but I still feel guilty. Tomorrow sees the introduction of the new 12-sided pound coin, forcing a root-and-branch overhaul of supermarket trolleys, vending machines, parking meters and anything
When my sister had a little girl, my aunt told her: ‘You’re vulnerable for the rest of your life.’ She meant, of course, that my sister’s overwhelming love for her daughter would mean a lifetime of worry – as well as all the incredible new experiences that motherhood would bring. She should have added financial vulnerability
Stay safe, London. Stay safe, everyone. It’s nice, isn’t it, as a sentiment, which is just as well because it is the motto du jour of every celebrity who has added his or her mite to what passes as debate on the terrorist attack last Wednesday. And, my goodness, they all piled in: JK Rowling,
Amber Rudd has vowed to ‘call time’ on tech companies who are giving terrorists ‘a place to hide’. The Home Secretary’s comments come after it emerged that Westminster attacker Khalid Masood was sending encrypted message on WhatsApp in the lead-up to the attack; Rudd is ‘right to read them the Riot Act’, says the Sun, which ups the
Douglas Carswell: Why I won’t call a by-election On the Sunday Politics, the Clacton MP said: ‘I’m not submitting myself to the authority, to the whip of a new party. If I was doing so then quite rightly, as I did previously, I would feel obliged to trigger a by-election.’ And anyway, he said, he’d
With Theresa May on track to trigger Article 50 on Wednesday and thereby begin Britain’s formal exit from the European Union, Remainers took to the streets of London on Saturday for one final hurrah. Tens of thousands of people joined the Unite for Europe march — calling on Britain to remain in the EU. Leading the protests
So poisonous were the relations between Nigel Farage and Douglas Carswell that no-one will have been surprised at the latter’s resignation from Ukip, nor the pleasure it generated among Farage and his supporters. It takes something to cheer the departure of your only MP; along with the funding that goes with it. Yet the irony
As I’ve said before, the bellwether of post-Brexit prosperity will be the health of the UK car industry, rather than that of the far larger financial sector. The City is nimble enough to look after itself come what may; it requires little more than plug sockets and clever lawyers to outmanoeuvre barriers to its trade.
It’s important to keep an ear out for the rhetoric of Britain’s remaining Remain parties, because they are changing, too. Having announced plans for a second Scottish referendum entirely because of Brexit, Nicola Sturgeon is now incredibly cagey about whether her independent nation would even be part of the EU, or perhaps more like Norway. The
The argument over the recently-abandoned Dubs scheme for refugees encapsulates what is wrong with the debate about what is, perhaps, the worst humanitarian crisis of recent years. The actor David Morrissey was on the Peston show this morning saying he was “devastated” when Theresa May decided to stop plans to take a limited number child refugees from Europe and instead focus
If Health and Safety is (are?) your thing, you must always be dreaming, like Alexander the Great, of new worlds to conquer. The next one, I predict, will be cooking at home. Recently I have noticed talk about the bad effect of ‘particles’ produced by hot food cooked in or on ovens. The sequence will
Washington, DC I hate to admit it, but I think I’m falling in love with Sean Spicer. No doubt Donald Trump’s stocky, gum-chewing, sartorially challenged press secretary will strike many readers as an unlikely object of passion. But it’s hard not to get red-hot for a man capable of inspiring so much outrage among the
Theresa May doesn’t do drama. She regards order as both a political and personal virtue. And this goes a long way towards explaining why she is Prime Minister. After the Brexit vote last June and David Cameron’s resignation, the Tories had had enough excitement. They turned to the leadership contender who was best able to
When a humanitarian tragedy disappears from our newspapers, there are two possibilities: that the crisis is over and life for survivors is gradually returning to normal — or that the human toll has become so routine as to no longer be considered newsworthy. Sadly, the deaths of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East
Today Ukip went from a political party with one MP, to a political party with no MPs. Douglas Carswell has quit the party to sit as an independent. In a statement on his website, the MP for Clacton said he left Ukip on amicable terms ‘in the knowledge that we won’: ‘Like many of you,
Jean-Claude Juncker could have been invented by Nigel Farage’s spin doctors. He is sneering one-man advert for Brexit, Frexit and any other kind of EU-exit. As Hugo Rifkind argues in this week’s magazine, he is a caricature of the arrogant Eurocrat: “smug, lazy, unelected and utterly impervious to anything.” He is a notorious boozer, and managed
Ever since the 56 SNP MPs descended on Westminster following the 2015 general election, they have been criticised for failing to master Westminster etiquette — from clapping in the Chamber to taking shortcuts through the Chancellor’s office. However, is it really the Conservative MPs that are the ones in need of a lesson in good manners?
George Osborne has been a good friend to London. He sees the point of infrastructure and I hope he’ll fight hard for Crossrail 2, which has been shunted into the sidings by this government. London business rates are a huge issue, close to Osborne’s heart. He’s a supporter of the arts, with a streak of
