Tom Goodenough

Ukip has defied predictions about its death before. Yet even the party’s most ardent supporters would find it hard not to feel gloomy about recent events and the party’s downward spiral. Ukip’s leader Henry Bolton clings on, despite losing a vote of no confidence and suffering a raft of resignations among his top team. ‘Is

Ukip’s leader Henry Bolton is under mounting pressure to step down following the scandal over his model girlfriend’s racist text messages. Bolton – the party’s sixth leader in 16 months – lost a vote of no confidence yesterday. He has vowed to stick it out, insisting that he will not resign as party leader. But

Emmanuel Macron capped off his trip to Britain by taking a selfie with the Prime Minister last night. His charm offensive has paid off, says the Daily Telegraph, which suggests the visit shows what a post-Brexit relationship with Britain’s neighbours could look like. The progress in co-operation during the visit – on the migration problem

Theresa May’s reshuffle has been somewhat underwhelming so far, but with a raft of junior ministerial appointments set to be announced today the Prime Minister still has an opportunity to shake things up. Here are all the movers – and non-movers – announced so far. We’ll keep this updated throughout the day as more appointments

Time is running out to halt Brexit. That was Tony Blair’s dire warning on the airwaves yesterday, as the former prime minister once again waded into the referendum debate to say that: ‘2018 will be the year when the fate of Brexit and thus of Britain will be decided’. Unsurprisingly, his warnings have not gone

Tony Blair’s message for voters on Brexit is becoming more and more shrill. His latest stark warning is that: ‘2018 will be the year when the fate of Brexit and thus of Britain will be decided. 2017 was too early in the negotiation. By 2019, it will be too late.’ The point Blair misses is

The anger that greeted the hike in rail fares yesterday once again caught the Tories on the back foot. Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, eventually popped up from Qatar to say that he too was annoyed at the rise in ticket prices. But it was too late: Labour had spent much of the day making

Rail fares are up again, with the latest rise – of an average of 3.4 per cent – the biggest in five years. Labour are clear about who is to blame: it’s the government’s fault, according to the shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald. But whether that’s right or not, it’s inevitable that anger at this

Damian Green was Theresa May’s closest ally in government and his departure makes life even trickier for the embattled Prime Minister. Yet while Green’s sacking caps off a dreadful 2017 for the PM, still May survives. ‘In an otherwise traumatic year’, says the Guardian, ‘that probably counts as a success.’ So how has May managed

Ever since the referendum, the reality has hit home for the British government as to ‘the weakness of (its) bargaining position’, says the Financial Times. This ‘dawning’ of reality has led ministers to realise that ‘they are accepting Brussels’ demands rather than genuinely negotiating’ during discussions with the EU. When talk turns to trade in

Theresa May’s Brexit statement in the Commons yesterday ‘told us a great deal about what has happened already,’ says the Daily Telegraph. But the detail on ‘what happens next’ was thin on the ground. Once again, the PM ‘reaffirmed that the UK is leaving the EU on March 29, 2019’. Yet this told us little

‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’ is no longer the basis of the divide over Brexit, says the Daily Telegraph. Instead, the new split is over to what extent post-Brexit Britain should ‘mirror what the EU does on trade and services’ or whether the UK should ‘plough its own furrow in the world’. 18 months on from the

EU leaders look set to formally approve a move on to the next stage in Brexit talks today in Brussels. Yet back home, this week saw the government suffer its first defeat on Brexit legislation in Parliament. So will the actions of the Tory rebels leave the government hamstrung? The Tory rebellion may prove to

The government’s defeat in the House of Commons last night amounts to a ‘bitter humiliation’ for ministers, says the Sun. It is also ‘a moment of shame for the Tory “rebels”’. In defeating the government, the Tory MPs who sided with the opposition ‘utterly compromised’ Theresa May as she heads to Brussels today. As well

Corbynistas are curiously quiet this morning about the latest YouGov poll, which puts Theresa May narrowly ahead of the Labour leader for the first time since June. 42 per cent of voters back the Tories, with 41 per cent saying they would vote for Labour. May’s success in securing a deal with the EU in

Britain and the European Union will progress to the next stage of Brexit talks following a breakthrough in negotiations overnight. The European Commission said that sufficient progress had been made in discussions on the Brexit divorce bill, the Irish border and citizens’ rights to allow trade talks to get underway. There is no doubt that

Another day, another Brexit warning: this time it comes from the head of Standard Chartered, who says that Britain’s imminent departure from the EU is already having a negative impact. Bill Winters said that his bank is already ‘preparing for the worst’. The Sun says that the ‘same old commentators’ are repeating themselves constantly with their

Not for the first time, David Davis’s words came back to haunt him as he was quizzed on Brexit today. The Brexit secretary, who is having something of a tough week in a year of tough weeks, told MPs that no detailed sector-by-sector analysis of what the impact of leaving the European Union would be