All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
I don’t prefer shopping at a specific supermarket. For some it’s a sign of social status, like the toffs who pride themselves in navigating the aisles of Waitrose, while sneering at the plebs in Lidl. However, my supermarket choice may now be influenced by the outrageous behaviour of Asda (in Dewsbury), who sacked a disabled
According to the Education Secretary Damian Hinds, ‘every child must learn about gay relationships before leaving school’. Under plans drawn up by his department, educating pupils about LGBT relationships will become compulsory from September 2020.This announcement follows Angela Eagle’s emotional and passionate defence of a Birmingham school besieged by protesters for teaching children as young
You might have thought that many of the world’s scientists and doctors had come to an unequivocal decision on homeopathy: that it doesn’t work. There has been extensive research into homeopathy, and the unambiguous conclusion is that it has no more benefit than any other placebo. This is not to say that it’s harmful, unless it
Rory Stewart’s pitch for prime minister seems strangely distant now, lost in the enveloping chaos of Boris Johnston’s shamble to glory. All is not lost, however. The divergent metrics of parliamentary and public sentiment – and the character deficits of the frontrunner, who claims to be able to square that circle – make it abundantly
Boris Johnson’s statement that he would not impose a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in the event of no deal may be said with sincerity and for the best of reasons, but he is either proposing something completely reckless – which will be deeply and fundamentally damaging to the whole
Chris Williamson is back in the Labour party. The controversial Corbynite MP was suspended from Labour earlier this year following comments he made about anti-Semitism in the party. But now after an internal investigation, Williamson is once again a Labour MP. Williamson was slapped with a formal warning after he was filmed at a Sheffield Momentum event
When Boris Johnson was asked by TalkRadio yesterday what he did to relax, and he embarked on a confusing ramble about his secret passion: making models of buses and painting them, few thought it was a sign of the former London Mayor’s famed erudition. https://twitter.com/rosskempsell/status/1143491303466053633 Indeed, many seemed to think that Boris’ strange rant was
Theresa May, our stand-in prime minster, was hit by a surprisingly effective ambush at PMQs. Jeremy Corbyn led on Britain’s involvement in the Yemeni conflict. Last week the Court of Appeal ruled that the government had overlooked Saudi Arabia’s responsibility for breaches of international law. Mrs May sounded desperate as she quoted a legal finding
There is a lot of confusion about Boris Johnson’s approach to Brexit. And that is deliberate because the candidate has yet to make a big call about the nature of the modifications he is seeking to the Brexit plan negotiated by Theresa May. The ultra Brexiters among his supporters, the hard core of the European Research Group
Jeremy Hunt’s case to be Conservative leader is that he is the sensible, low-risk option. While Boris is now committed – thanks to his interview on Talkradio yesterday to leave the EU on 31st October, come what may, ‘do or die’, Hunt is holding out the prospect of some flexibility. The last day of October,
Theresa May’s Brexit strategy was to play chicken with parliament. Boris Johnson’s is to play chicken with the EU. Theresa May believed that if she pressed on with her deal, parliament would – ultimately – blink and pass it. Her thinking was that MPs’ scared of no deal would vote for her deal to avoid
The Sutton Trust’s recent report – on the privately-educated dominating prestigious jobs by a scale of five to one – is an important read. The study highlights how critical an independent school education was twenty years ago, especially for those now at the top of their chosen career paths. This isn’t, however, particularly surprising. Back then,
A spark of humanity flickered in the courts today as they lifted a cruel, ill-thought through and counter productive restriction on the lives of the mentally disabled. Like so many other cruelties, it flowed from the best of intentions. Rosa Monckton and Dominic Lawson, and two other families of children with mental disabilities had challenged
Dr Noah Carl, the young conservative academic who was fired from his Cambridge college after being targeted by a left-wing outrage mob, has decided to fight back. He is launching a campaign to crowdfund a legal action against St Edmund’s College, not just to restore his own reputation but to protect the rights of other
After one of the most difficult missions ever undertaken in the Himalayas, Indian mountaineers have now finally been able to reach a team of climbers on Mt Nanda Devi who went missing last month. As of writing, they have recovered the bodies of almost all of the eight climbers, four of them British, who were
On Sunday night, I went to the local synagogue to listen to a talk by Louise Ellman, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside. This was surprising on several levels. I hadn’t set foot inside a synagogue for over 30 years (apart from weddings and bar mitzvahs) and had even gone as far as marrying a
Around nine million people – over 17 per cent of the population – live in an area classed as ‘rural’. That number is set to grow; by 2025, it has been estimated that the population of the English countryside will have increased by half a million. So surely, when a politician is bidding to become
Modern politicians are like drug dealers intent on keeping their clients’ hooked. They sell fixes to their core voters: upping the strength and deepening the addiction. The punters know at some level they are being played. But a temporary high is better than no high, and infinitely preferable to the sweats and shakes the cold
Boris Johnson has had a tricky time being quizzed by journalists over the past few days, as he’s been grilled about his Brexit position, his negotiating stratgey, his late-night row with Carrie Symonds and his history of consuming (or not quite consuming) Class-A drugs. But it seems as if the former Foreign Secretary was floored
After nine years cleaning up Labour’s mess, things are looking up. Government debt as a share of the economy is starting to fall. For Theresa May’s successor, this means there is an opportunity to spend some desperately-needed money on public services: the police, prisons, schools and local government. But it’s also vital – and a
The Boris Johnson campaign has today responded to accusations that Johnson has been avoiding scrutiny by sending their candidate on a mini-media blitz. In the past 24 hours, Johnson has given interviews to the BBC, LBC and Talk Radio. There’s even a promise of more media interaction to come. In all of the interviews, the
Whatever you think of Boris Johnson’s ability to be Prime Minister you have to admire the PR skills of Carrie Symonds. Last Thursday evening an event occurred which could seriously damage Boris’ chances of winning the Tory party leadership contest – a domestic row between the couple in which the police were called to her
I asked important EU and UK people involved in Brexit talks what they made of Boris Johnson’s claim on BBC that: 1: The EU would be prepared to cancel the Northern Ireland backstop. 2: Continue free and frictionless trade with UK for an “implementation period” after Brexit on 31st October. 3: Negotiate a new package of measures
Boris Johnson has come out of hiding but it seems he is still doing his best to dodge scrutiny. On LBC this morning, Boris was quizzed repeatedly about how a picture of him in the Sussex countryside with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds found its way into the media. And 26 times, he refused to answer.
Can veteran Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow stop putting his foot in his mouth when it comes to race? The channel has already been forced to apologise this year after the presenter observed live on television that he had ‘never seen so many white people in one place’ when covering a Brexit rally in
In today’s Times, a “long-standing friend” of Boris Johnson complains that “there’s a tendency to infantilise Boris”. Putting the man who still looks likely to be the next leader of the Conservative and Unionist party and prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland under a form of, well, house-arrest must
Everyone knows the story of how a small number of Conservatives will cast a vote that decides something of great and lasting importance. But the group of Tories is much smaller than you think, and they vote much sooner than you imagine: on Friday, in fact. I am not referring to the 160,000 members of
Before you get too worked up about the £2.4 million cost to the taxpayer of refurbishing Frogmore “Cottage” for a family of three – one a baby – bear in mind to keep some indignation in reserve for next year. Because this is only the first instalment of the project before the costs have had
Could Boris Johnson command the confidence of the Commons? That’s the question being asked in Westminster this week as various ‘Stop Boris’ factions emerge. The Standard reports that Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill has told Theresa May that she ought to only advise the Queen to appoint Johnson or Jeremy Hunt as her successor if she
The Conservative party seems to have viewed the demise of the Jeremy Kyle Show as a gap in the market which it needs to fill, with a series of bizarre stories about the behaviour of some of its leading figures over the past few days. Just to top off Mark Field grabbing a female protester
Jeremy Hunt is proving to be a more aggressive rival than many in the Boris Johnson campaign expected. Shortly before the last round of parliamentary voting, Hunt talked about putting ‘Boris through his paces’ which made him sound more like a personal trainer than a political opponent. But since making the final two, Hunt has
There are few stranger relationships in Westminster than the close alliance of Boris Johnson and the campaigner, author, and self-described ‘Chief Fanny defender’ Nimco Ali. According to Ali, she first met Boris Johnson in Putney eight years ago when they bumped into each other on the high street, as she was campaigning about FGM. She asked
This is what a senior member of the cabinet told me this morning about whether Boris Johnson’s prospects of becoming Tory leader and our PM have been seriously harmed by the disclosure that neighbours summoned police to his home after they heard his girlfriend Carrie Symonds shouting at him to ‘get off me’. Minister: ‘It
Who’s really harassing Carrie Symonds? We have no proof that her boyfriend Boris Johnson is. One surreptitiously recorded late-night row does not add up to evidence of an abusive relationship. But we have plenty of proof that leftists are. That’s the great irony of the Boris-tape controversy: Boris-bashers claim merely to be concerned for Ms