Tom Goodenough is online editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
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
From our UK edition
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
From our UK edition
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
From our UK edition
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
From our UK edition
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
From our UK edition
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
From our UK edition
17.4million people backed Brexit, but only two – at least one of whom campaigned for ‘Remain’ – decided that leaving the EU should also mean a departure from the single market, the customs union and the European court of justice, says the Guardian. The pair were, of course, Theresa May and her former aide Nick Timothy,
From our UK edition
Today’s report into the Manchester and London terror attacks makes for devastating reading, spelling out as it does the horrors of the murderous events in which 51 people lost their lives. The details are further daunting for making it clear just how great the threat facing Britain from Islamist terror continues to be. Much of
From our UK edition
Theresa May’s plan to wrap up an agreement on the first stage of Brexit talks was scuppered at the last minute yesterday. Good, says the Sun. The paper argues that yesterday’s deadline was ‘always going to be a moveable feast’, and that ‘the Prime Minister is right not to agree a deal to meet a made-up
From our UK edition
Donald Trump’s January visit to Britain now looks to be in doubt following the furore over his tweets. Diplomats in the United States are said to have put the plans on ice, according to the Daily Telegraph. Good, says the Guardian in its editorial this morning: it’s time to ditch the state visit. Tump’s decision
From our UK edition
‘At last’, says the FT, Britain has ‘accepted it must pay its dues to Europe’. ‘It has been a tortuous journey’ to get to this stage and ‘months have been wasted’ along the way. Yet while progress has been made at last, the government has still failed ‘to explain to the public the…cost of leaving’.
From our UK edition
All eyes this morning are on Britain’s Brexit divorce bill, but meanwhile Labour’s Brexit strategy remains as confused as ever. Diane Abbott is the latest figure from the party’s frontbench to hint at the possibility of a second referendum, despite this being ruled out by Jeremy Corbyn in the run-up to June’s snap election. In
From our UK edition
Britain’s Brexit divorce bill offer has now risen again, if today’s reports are to be believed. ‘At the very least’, says the Daily Telegraph, Britain is looking at handing over £40billion. It’s a ‘lot of money’, the paper concedes, and even though the ‘complex formula’ used to calculate the final bill will allow the government
From our UK edition
The warnings about Brexit could not have been clearer: leaving the EU would lead to an exodus of foreign workers and students from Britain. So far though the reality hasn’t quite matched that prediction. The Sun picks up on news today that a record number of overseas students – 70,900 – applied to study in
From our UK edition
Only a month ago, in its damning editorial the Daily Mail said Philip Hammond was a ‘dismal, defeatist, relentlessly negative’ Eeyore. Today, they ‘rescind’ the Chancellor’s nickname, and the paper isn’t the only one to praise Hammond’s Budget: The Sun says that Hammond delivered his first Budget for its readers. While the paper admits that it
From our UK edition
Philip Hammond’s second Budget of the year will mean that the Chancellor has another ‘bite at a not especially flavoursome cherry’, says the Daily Telegraph. The last time, his announcements ‘misfired’; since then Hammond’s ‘room for manoeuvre’ has become even more limited. This means that many in the Tory ranks are not filled with ‘great
From our UK edition
Robert Mugabe has resigned as president of Zimbabwe after 37 years in power. The 93-year-old confirmed his intention to step down in a letter to the speaker of the country’s parliament this afternoon. His decision to quit follows widespread protests on the streets of the capital, Harare, in the wake of the coup carried out
From our UK edition
Donald Tusk’s jibe that Britain was no longer attempting to have its cake and eat it in Brexit talks was a clear dig at the Foreign Secretary. But now the EU is guilty of adopting the same approach, according to the Sun. Michel Barnier said yesterday that ‘he wants all his demands met’ on various
From our UK edition
The furore over the Brexit divorce bill has been such that it is easy to forget that it isn’t the only major sticking point in talks with the EU. Theresa May looks set to up Britain’s offer this week (from €20bn to around €40bn), in the hope that more cash on the table will unlock
From our UK edition
Next week’s Budget could be the government – and Philip Hammond’s – last chance to snatch the political momentum away from Labour. So what should he announce? Today’s newspaper editorials have some advice for the Chancellor: Not too long ago, John McDonnell’s ‘alternative budget’ would have been announced ‘in complete obscurity’, says the Daily Telegraph.
