Eu

Friday

Louise Gray

The government can’t be relied on to rear happy farm animals

Yesterday, the government abandoned its plans to scrap farm animal welfare codes, but if you think that means the cheap chicken you buy is ethical, you’re a bird brain. The embarrassing u-turn was made after animal rights charities pointed out that asking the industry to come up with its own guidelines wasn’t going to work. The poultry industry is hardly going to introduce new rules that ensure chickens have more space to roam in if it might impact on profits. Pardon the pun, but it’s a bit like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas – they simply won’t. But can you really trust the government to ensure high standards of farm animal welfare?

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron defends £9m spend on EU leaflets

David Cameron has defended the £9m government leaflet promoting the EU as ‘money well spent’ and ‘necessary’, as the Tory party erupts into fury once again. What’s interesting about this new row – over a leaflet sent to all homes which sets out ‘why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK’ – is that it has incensed not just those usual suspects who are annoyed that the Remain side already has a natural advantage in the referendum campaign in that it can wheel out the Prime Minister for guaranteed media attention whenever it likes. MPs who are on the

Steerpike Steerpike

Boris Johnson blasts government’s £9m EU leaflets: ‘it’s a complete waste of money’

The news today that the government are to spend over £9m of taxpayers’ money on leaflets for the pro-EU campaign has gone down like a lead balloon in the Brexit camp. In an interview with ITV News, Boris Johnson has blasted the leaflets as ‘a complete waste of money’: ‘I think it’s a complete waste of money. It’s crazy to use quite so much taxpayers’ money on stuff that is basically intended to scare people and to stampede people in one direction.’ .@BorisJohnson: Government is 'crazy' to spend £9.3m 'scaring people' with pro-EU campaign https://t.co/5XSonrxEZnhttps://t.co/0g2uYLLM8J — ITV News (@itvnews) April 6, 2016 Another nail in the coffin when it comes to Johnson’s

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Whoever invented referendums needs a kicking

My favourite quote of the year so far comes from the author Fay Weldon. ‘If this were an all-woman society,’ she said, ‘we wouldn’t have television. We’d just have lots of nice cushions.’ Fay was making the point that it’s men who do all the -inventing and most of the work. She has since profusely apologised for this remark and others made during the same ‘off the cuff’ interview — almost certain proof, then, that what she said is largely true. But only largely, Fay. Without women we might not have discovered either of the unpleasant radioactive elements polonium and radium — both stumbled upon by Marie Curie, who was habituated (unwisely)

Thursday

Taki

High life | 31 March 2016

My old friend and one-time doubles partner Ray Moore has stepped down as chief executive of the Indian Wells Tennis Tournament for telling the truth. As Rod Liddle wrote in these here pages a couple of weeks ago, ‘There is nothing more damaging to a career than telling an unfortunate truth.’ Ray Moore was a very good South African tennis player and is a very nice guy. He once partnered me to a final in a major tournament and we have stayed friends for 40 years and more. The man who owns the Indian Wells tournament, multi-billionaire Larry Ellison, is a pretty disgusting individual, who among many other horrors has

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The government would not do more for the steel industry, even if the EU allowed them to

Sajid Javid is the driest and most Thatcherite member of the government. So, it is no surprise that he is — rightly, to my mind — rejecting calls for the nationalisation of the steel industry following Tata’s announcement that it plans to sell its UK steel-making business. But the steel issue has now got caught up in the EU referendum, with the Out side pointing out that EU state aid rules limit what the UK government can actually do to help the steel industry. Now, personally, I doubt that the government would want to do more even if it was allowed to. Yet, some ministers keep suggesting that the government

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why is Gus O’Donnell misleading the public about the EU rules on Brexit?

When Sir Gus O’Donnell was head of the civil service, those who worked under him would have prided themselves in the code that he was supposed to uphold: to be impartial, avoid politics and do their best to make sure the public is not misled. This morning, Sir Gus was involved in what can only be described as a systematic attempt to mislead the public about the EU and the terms in which Britain would leave. His point: that it would take more than two years to negotiate the terms of UK’s exit, and this deadline could only be prolonged with hard bargaining from hostile partners. “Obviously at the end of

Tuesday

Nick Cohen

Are Boris’s admirers prepared to have their hearts broken?

When I was 18, I had my first tutorial on Anglo-Saxon history. I cannot remember the details but the don talked of the king of Mercia, or some such, marrying his daughter to the son of the king of Northumbria, or somewhere or other, because of the political advantages the union would bring the two crowns. The teenage Cohen listened appalled. ‘You mean,’ I cried, ‘they didn’t love each other?’ In a voice so acid, it might have burnt through the hull of a battleship, the don hissed: ‘I do not subscribe to the Mills & Boon school of British history.’ After that encounter, I stopped subscribing too. Views of

Sunday

Steerpike

Vote Leave exec accuses Alan Duncan of asking for a board position before backing Remain

This week Sir Alan Duncan penned a piece for the Telegraph entitled ‘why this lifelong Eurosceptic is now voting to stay in’. In this, the Conservative MP explained the reasons he is backing Remain. To show how torn he had been over the decision, Duncan revealed that he had even met with Vote Leave ahead of opting to join the In camp: ‘I am one of those who many expected in the referendum campaign to be a fervent advocate of leaving. Until recently I also expected it of myself – even going so far as to speak to the Leave organisers at their HQ.’ However, Vote Leave’s Matthew Elliott has put forward

Ross Clark Ross Clark

In defence of Boris Johnson

It is good that Matthew Parris has taken on Boris. The Mayor has had too easy a press in many quarters. There is a good reason for this: he is one of us. There is a bit of the Bullingdon in Fleet Street: we are often too disinclined to attack our own. Matthew Parris acknowledges this, and the vitriolic nature of his Times column on Saturday is an attempt to redress the balance. But for me, my objection is not that Matthew has gone over the top in his attack on Boris – it is that his line of attack is fundamentally wrong. The same is true of Nick Cohen’s

Thursday

Camilla Swift

Can the ‘leave’ campaign convince British farmers that they’d be better off out?

As Nigel Farndale wrote in this magazine in February, leaving the EU would have a dramatic effect on British farmers and the agricultural industry. When it comes to British agriculture, the EU very much sets the rules – with regards to both regulations and funding – so a vote for Brexit would mean change, in a big way.   But what makes the EU debate even more interesting when it comes to farming is that the farming minister – George Eustice – has placed himself firmly in the ‘out’ camp. Eustice, after all, was once a Ukip candidate in the European Parliament Elections, and was Campaign Director for the No

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Viva Obama! Viva Fidel! Viva Jean-Claude Juncker!

In Cuba, they are shouting: ‘¡Viva Obama! Viva Fidel!’ What a slogan. The FT headline ignorantly described this as a ‘Nixon in China’ moment: implying that Obama had previously been opposed to Castro’s Cuba. The US President is expected to come to Britain next month to order us to stay in the EU. Let us strew his way with palms. Let all of us — workers, peasants and soldiers — shout with one voice ‘¡Viva Obama! Viva Jean-Claude Juncker!’ This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes. The full article can be found here. 

Steerpike Steerpike

Listen: Justin Webb takes Amber Rudd to task on Today over her ‘plague of frogs’ Brexit claims

Today Amber Rudd is doing her bit for the In campaign with a speech in which she will warn the nation that UK energy costs could ‘rocket’ by £500 million a year if Britain were to vote to leave the European Union. The Energy and Climate Change Secretary will also claim that leaving the EU would mean that President Putin could raise the price of Russian gas and in turn cause energy chaos for Britain. To discuss the claims, Rudd — whose brother Roland is the treasurer of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign — appeared on the Today show with Justin Webb. Unfortunately for Rudd, Webb had done his research when it came

Wednesday

The Spectator

Letters | 23 March 2016

PC and abortion Sir: It is heartwarming that Simon Barnes’s son should not suffer the stigma experienced by those with Down’s syndrome in earlier generations (‘In praise of PC’, 19 March). But is it not ironic that in this kinder, more generous and respectful age, over 90 per cent of fetuses diagnosed with Down’s are aborted? Rather than hiding the children away, we now ensure that most of them are not even born. If political correctness had really become sane, surely our kindness, generosity and respect would extend to the womb as well? Matthew Hosier Poole, Dorset Naming conditions Sir: Simon Barnes, makes a couple of assumptions which do not

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Feminists for Brexit

For decades — even before it had its name, which sounds thrilling, as words with an X in them tend to — I’ve been a Brexiter. I even mistrusted the Common Market, as we called the mild-mannered Dr Jekyll before it showed us the deformed, power-crazed face of the EU’s Mr Hyde. The adored MP of my childhood, Tony Benn, preached against it in any shape or form. ‘When I saw how the European Union was developing,’ he said, ‘it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don’t

Theodore Dalrymple

Why we need migrants

This is perhaps not the best moment in history to extol migrants from the developing world or Eastern Europe, but the fact remains that without them my life, and I suspect the life of many other people in the West, would be much poorer and more constricted than it is. A migrant is not just a migrant, of course. Indeed, to speak of migrants in general is to deny them agency or even characteristics of their own, to assume that they are just units and that their fate depends only on how the receiving country receives them and not at all on their own motives, efforts or attributes, including their

Saturday

James Forsyth

George Osborne should have gone to the Foreign Office after the election

Imagine how different politics would be now if George Osborne had moved to the Foreign Office after the election. He would have left the Treasury with his economic and political strategy vindicated by the election result and wouldn’t be involved in this deeply damaging row with Iain Duncan Smith. For Osborne to have a former leader, and one of the most respected figures among the party activists, attacking his whole approach to deficit reduction and his conception of fairness is politically disastrous, to put it mildly. The problem for Osborne is that with no fiscal wriggle room and his opponents on the Tory benches determined to cause him trouble at every

Friday

Camilla Swift

Are Anders Breivik’s human rights really being contravened, or is it simply attention seeking?

Anders Behring Breivik – the Norwegian extremist who killed 77 people in 2011 – has for the last few days been involved in a human rights trial in his prison in the south of Norway. Many would argue that, for a person in jail, he has a fairly cushy life – particularly given his crime. He is allowed to play video games, read newspapers and have access to a computer, and also has access to three cells, as well as an outside area. He has also been allowed to take university courses at the country’s main university, the University of Oslo, and took part in the prison’s Christmas gingerbread-baking competition.

Steerpike Steerpike

Jo Johnson on the debate dividing the nation: ‘it’s brother against brother’

While Boris Johnson is firmly behind the Out campaign in the EU referendum, his father Stanley, sister Rachel and brother Jo are all backing Remain. So, has the difference in opinion led to any family conflict? Last night at a French embassy Jo — the minister for science and universities —  appeared at first to hint at such problems. He gave a speech, which he began in French, on the great row now gripping the nation and tearing families apart: ‘Everybody must declare their position. Families are divided; brother against brother… I speak of course of the crucial debate for the French language; whether or not to abandon the circumflex.’ Johnson went on

Thursday

James Forsyth

The Amber express

Amber Rudd isn’t a flashy politician; her office at the Department for Energy and Climate Change has almost no personal touches. She has a poster on the wall for the new Edinburgh tram (she was a student there). Her one concession to vanity is a framed ‘Minister of the Year’ award from this magazine: awarded for uprooting the legacy of the Liberal Democrat energy policy and being (in the words of the commendation) the ‘slayer of windmills’. It was, perhaps, an exaggeration: she hasn’t brought down any of Britain’s 5,215 onshore wind turbines. But she has been busy pruning back the green subsidies that her department had become used to