Stephen Daisley is a Spectator regular and a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail
When I was fresh out of university, I applied for a job as a parliamentary aide to Jo Swinson. The MP for East Dunbartonshire was full of promise and more to my political tastes then than the clunky managerialism of new PM Gordon Brown. She rejected me. If nothing else, this shows Swinson has sound
There are little in the way of festivities but today is nonetheless a landmark in Israeli history: Benjamin Netanyahu becomes the country’s longest-serving prime minister, displacing beloved founding leader David Ben-Gurion. Netanyahu has been in charge for 4,876 days, governing for a three-year term in the late 1990s then continuously since 2009. His Israel would
Darren Grimes has won his appeal against a £20,000 fine imposed by the Electoral Commission. Grimes, the 25-year-old who ran the BeLeave campaign group, was accused by the watchdog of breaching expenditure rules during the EU referendum. Following proceedings which saw Grimes crowdfund his legal campaign, Judge Marc Dight has ruled that the fine be
The Democratic Party faces a test of character. Most mainstream institutions have failed such tests in recent years but, in the spirit of Samuel Beckett, let’s try again and fail better this time. The trial confronting the electoral vehicle of American liberalism is whether liberals still have a firm grip on the wheel or the
The Final Showdown, as the Sun/Talkradio’s debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt was billed, clarified some important points for Tory members still deciding how to cast their vote. Both candidates ruled out a general election before the UK leaves the EU, though Hunt warned that setting a deadline as Johnson has means we could
Nicola Sturgeon is expert at laying traps for her opponents but this time she may have ensnared herself. During the May 2016 Holyrood elections, the SNP leader and occasional First Minister said a Leave vote in the upcoming EU referendum should be grounds for a second ballot on independence. This, of course, was when Remain
In the run-up to Wednesday night’s Panorama on Labour anti-Semitism, one whistleblower received a lawyer’s letter, the party demanded the BBC director-general ‘suspend and reconsider the planned broadcast’, and Momentum did a pre-emptive hit job on presenter John Ware. Now we know why. Panorama: Is Labour Anti-Semitic? levelled serious charges, chief amongst them that senior
In less turbulent times, the disappearance of the Home Secretary would lead the television news bulletins and clear the next morning’s front pages. Yet Sajid Javid went missing on Monday with barely an eyebrow raised. The former Conservative leadership candidate travelled to Jerusalem and visited the Western Wall, the second-holiest site in Judaism and buttressing
This evening in Britain, the Jewish Shabbat dinner will follow the traditional order: blessing the candles and the wine, washing hands, giving thanks for the bread and trying to get through the first serving of noodle kugel before someone brings up the Labour party. The decision by the national executive committee to restore the whip
A revolution stopped in its tracks is an uncanny sight. After impatiently pursuing reforms to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), the Scottish Government has suddenly hit the brakes. Shirley-Anne Somerville, SNP social security minister, announced the halt in a statement to the Scottish Parliament on Thursday. Although Nicola Sturgeon, at her minister’s side for support,
‘Rorymania is over,’ Isabel Hardman pops into my inbox to tell me, in last night’s Evening Blend. Rory Stewart’s elimination from the Conservative leadership race cuts short a seductive insurgency that began with pseudo-selfies and flirted with the opportunity, however wishful, of a political realignment. One place Rorymania never took off was inside the Conservative
One of the most awkward moments of Tuesday night’s Conservative leadership debate was when a Muslim voter challenged the candidates on anti-Muslim prejudice within their party. The BBC identified the man as ‘Abdullah Patel from Gloucester, speaking from a studio in Bristol’, and described him as an imam. His question stood out because it left
If you’ve ever been in group therapy, you will have recognised many of the behaviour types in the BBC’s Tory leadership debate. There was Mr Avoidance (Boris Johnson), who kept his head down and let the clock run out, and Mr Calculating (Jeremy Hunt), who kept his interjections to a minimum and studiously ignored his
If you’ve glanced at a photograph of Nicola Sturgeon in the past year or two, you won’t have failed to spot a recurring theme. The SNP leader surrounds herself at every opportunity with young people who have been in care. It is Sturgeon’s current cause – with education and social justice having fallen by the wayside.
When good men who did great things pass into the next life, they leave an example for this one. Tom Derek Bowden was 17 when he first set foot in the land that once was – and would again be – Israel. It was 1938 and he was stationed in Palestine under the mercurial British
I have celebrated John Bercow, eulogised Martin McGuinness and urged Spectator readers to vote Labour. So I appreciate I’m on thin ice with a defence of Jo Brand, and since the hefty lefty and I are of similar girth, that metaphor could end badly. Yet the news she is being investigated by police over a joke ought
You might not have realised from his lack of appearances but Boris Johnson is standing to be Tory leader. There are MPs on the left of the party, and so he’s told them he’s a One Nationer. There are MPs on the right of the party, and so he’s told them he’s a tax-cutter. And
Nigel Lawson said the NHS was the closest thing the English had to a religion but for progressives it now forms the basis of a viral conspiracy theory. Namely, that a shadowy nexus of Tory ministers, private insurance giants, Big Pharma and the United States government is working to abolish the NHS before our eyes.
The Conservative Party was founded 185 years ago and may not survive the next five. YouGov and Opinium both put the Tories in third place and on less than 20 per cent of the vote. They managed just 8.8 per cent in the European election, coming fifth behind the Greens and losing all but four of their MEPs. The
Brexit may yet kill the Conservative party but it is exacting a cruel psychological torture on liberalism. Liberals are supposed to be the measured voice of reason – earnest, insufferable but reliably level-headed. Not anymore. Liberals – or at least some of them – have gone quite mad over Brexit. There is almost no intrigue they
