The Budget and the spending review gave the clearest indication yet of what the post-Covid government might look like. During the height of the pandemic, government spending exceeded 50 per cent of the economy for the first time since 1945-46. Even this year, public spending will be higher than when Denis Healey had to seek
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is giving local residents £25,000 grants to enable them to change the names of the roads in which they live. Some Londoners, I believe, find it uncomfortable to live in a street which has a name redolent of colonialism. Fair enough. I hope, though, that Sadiq will also give
What if Bill Clinton had told the truth? Would America’s sexual and political history be different? The thought occurs because of the new TV drama Impeachment (being shown in Britain on BBC2) about the Monica Lewinsky affair. Somewhat unfairly to both main parties, it is part of the American Crime Story series. Previous subjects have
The second thing I learned about football, after moving to London, is that you can never, ever switch your allegiance. That was unfortunate, because the first thing I discovered was that I liked Newcastle United and had already chosen them as my team. It’s been fairly relentless pain ever since. In 2016, I watched Newcastle
When I went to Poland not long before Covid, I found a country more bitterly divided by a culture war even than we are. So I would not rule out EU leaders being right that the current government there has intruded on the independence of the judiciary for its own political ends. This is the
Climate emergency demands action, not rhetoric. So, on the eve of COP26, which UK news item promises to deliver the most positive impact for the future of the planet? Not, I suggest, Sadiq Khan’s extension of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone to the North and South Circulars, imposing stinging costs on owners of older diesels
