Tom Goodenough is online editor of The Spectator.
Is Keir Starmer Labour’s great hope? That’s what some longing for the day that Jeremy Corbyn calls it a day have said. The shadow Brexit secretary was centre stage yesterday as he spelled out the party’s plan for leaving the EU. But for those pinning their hopes on Starmer, today’s newspaper editorials make miserable reading. Labour’s
Brexit comes in all shapes and sizes: hard, soft, clean. Today, Labour added a new type: a ‘reckless Tory Brexit’. That’s what Keir Starmer accused the Government of trying to drive through as he detailed Labour’s plan for waving goodbye to the EU. The main purpose of Starmer’s tour of the airwaves was to clear
Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the first round of the French presidential election is the good news the EU was waiting for. After Brexit and Trump, Brussels is delighted – so much so in fact that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker ditched the convention of staying out of ongoing elections by calling Macron a ‘pretty obvious choice’. But
Britain’s universities are finding it hard to look on the bright side of Brexit. One of their big gripes is that they feel that foreign students could be put off from coming to the UK. This fits into the narrative that Brexit is an exercise in hauling up the drawbridge. But in reality, the result of
Len McCluskey has been re-elected as General Secretary of Unite. It was something of a messy fight: his rival Gerard Coyne was suspended yesterday – we still don’t know why – and the contest was much narrower than had been expected, with McCluskey winning by just 5,000 votes. The dismal turnout of 12 per cent also
Theresa May is riding high in the polls and there’s much talk of a Tory landslide – but that doesn’t mean the Government should rest on its laurels, says the Daily Telegraph. It’s vital, the paper says, that the PM does her best to ‘create a sense of urgency among the voters’; ‘They have to
Douglas Carswell has just announced that he will not stand for re-election as the MP for Clacton. The independent MP, who quit Ukip last month, said that he was planning ‘to move on to other things’ and was looking ‘forward to being able to read newspapers without appearing in them’. In a statement on his website,
What does it mean to be rich? That’s the question already getting the Labour party into a tangle as it struggles to get its act together ahead of the snap general election. Yesterday, John McDonnell said a Labour government would send a higher tax bill the way of all workers earning over £70,000. The shadow
The General Election campaign is officially underway – and the newspapers have wasted no time in compiling their wish lists. Here are the policies the papers want to see put into practise: Theresa May’s plan for Brexit – leaving the single market and being ‘free from EU courts’ – gets the wholehearted backing from the Sun. But
Who’d be a Labour MP? Despite the best efforts of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Corbyn is going nowhere and, if the polls are to be believed, he’s leading Labour to electoral oblivion. A general election landslide is on the cards for the Tories, with some estimates suggesting the Government could boost its majority by more
Exactly a year ago today, George Osborne was busy unveiling the Treasury’s famously doom-laden analysis about Brexit. Now with his six jobs and bulging bank balance the former chancellor is busier than ever. But the worries he spoke of about economic uncertainty have failed to materialise, and the prophecies of misery foretold by Project Fear
What does a spike in hate crime, a slump in sterling, supermarket price hikes, rising inflation and a squeeze on living standards have in common? The answer is simple, according to some: Brexit is to blame. But it’s time to stop pointing the finger at Brexit, says the Sun, which argues in its editorial that
Boris Johnson fell flat on his face at yesterday’s G7 summit. Having called for tougher sanctions against Russia to punish the Kremlin for its support for the Assad regime in Syria, Boris laid the ground for the G7 to announce a firm crackdown. In the end, the G7 steered clear of any new sanctions, saying
Theresa May’s £150,000 pay packet is dwarfed by that of many council employees up and down the country. Nearly 600 council staff now earn more money than the Prime Minister each year, and a report from the Taxpayers Alliance reveals that thousands of local authority employees earn six-figure sums. With many councils talking up fears about
Mark Reckless infuriated many Tories when he defected to Ukip. Now, he’s defected again – and made few people happy in the process. The Ukip AM has announced that he is joining the Conservative Group in the Welsh Assembly, where he sits as a regional representative. Not for the first time, he is following in
Ken Livingstone’s Labour membership card remains valid – but for how long? The former Mayor of London avoided being booted out of the party following his comments about Hitler. But he was told by Jeremy Corbyn yesterday that he faces another investigation into remarks he has made since the party’s decision to suspend him. The
The sorry saga of what Labour decides to do about Ken Livingstone isn’t over yet. In the last few moments, Jeremy Corbyn has released a statement saying Livingstone will now face a fresh probe into comments that he made about Hitler since yesterday – when he avoided being booted out of the party for doing exactly
Is Theresa May’s media honeymoon over? The bungled Budget might have led to a raft of bad headlines for the Government, but these were mostly aimed in Philip Hammond’s direction. Today, the Sun turns its fire on the Prime Minister. The paper says May has ‘shown she understands what most Brits want’ from Brexit. But
Theresa May says the way to deal with the row over Gibraltar is ‘jaw-jaw’ rather than war. And there is plenty of chatter on the subject in today’s newspapers: Of course we don’t want a war with Spain, says the Sun. But ‘nor will we sit quietly’ and let Madrid ‘launch its latest ridiculous attempt
Ten people have been killed and dozens injured in an explosion on the St Petersburg metro. The blast happened onboard a train travelling between the Sennaya Ploshchad and Tekhnologichesky Institut stations in the city centre. Russian news agency Interfax said that at least 50 people were hurt. There are reports that the device which exploded was a nail bomb
