All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
For the latest literary challenge you were invited to submit a Shakespearean soliloquy delivered by one of the contenders for the Tory leadership in which they consider their pitch for the top job. During the 2016 leadership contest, Shakespearean references were flying round. Alex Salmond likened Michael Gove to ‘Lord Macbeth’, and when Boris Johnson
No matter how much you loved Boris you would find it maddening if he spilled red wine on your sofa. And more so if he didn’t even make a gestural effort to clear it up. But, like us all, Boris would have known from experience of the futility of trying to get red wine stains
An author of spoofy, light-hearted mysteries, my friend Ruth Dudley Edwards has had unusual difficulty completing her new novel, Death of a Snowflake. The trouble isn’t lack of material —she’s spoilt for choice — but real life outpacing satire. As we now live in a world of ‘you could not make this stuff up’, readers
My first award for intelligent design this week goes to Dublin airport for displaying a sign which reads ‘Lounges. Turn back. No lounges beyond this point.’ It may seem like a trivial thing, but it takes a rare intelligence to think in this way. It’s one thing to put up a sign that says ‘Lounges,
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,
A neighbour records a domestic row through the wall of their flat, takes the recording to a newspaper which then publishes details of the conversation. I wonder what The Guardian would have made of that in 2011 when it was on its crusade against press intrusion which led to the Leveson Inquiry – especially had
It’s not hard to work out the ‘lines to take’ that are being handed out from Boris Johnson’s team to his surrogates in politics and the media after the police were called to the flat he’s been living in. ‘It’s a private matter. It’s an invasion of privacy. The neighbour who taped the incident, called
Well! Just when it looked like the only political question anyone would be talking about is the start of the leadership hustings, what do you know? All anyone can think about is Boris Johnson’s row with his girlfriend on Thursday night. The one police were called to. Just after he’d seen off Michael Gove and
I am besieged by media folk asking when I shall make good on a four-year-old threat to flee to Buenos Aires should Boris Johnson become prime minister. How can I get on to a flight, I ask, when so many other voters are already waitlisted? In truth, however, we are being served successive courses in
Joe Biden may have the nickname ‘Middle-Class Joe’ but in truth, the former vice president is a career politician. He was elected to the Senate in 1972 at the ripe age of 29 and kept his seat for 36 years until he decided to gamble on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign by joining his ticket. With
If truth is the first casualty of war, the second casualty of war is credibility. Last week, much of the American media chose not to believe Mike Pompeo when he presented a Central Command video which, he said, showed an Iranian crew tinkering with limpet mines and an oil tanker. ‘Tankers Are Attacked in the
There we were in the gold embossed classical elegance of the Egyptian Room of Mansion House, all dressed up in black tie, politely listening to the Chancellor’s swan song – his last Mansion House speech – when the kerfuffle started at the back. Women in red dresses started pouring in from the rear doors with
Given that there’s apparently no aspect of American life where culture wars don’t rage, the only surprise about Netflix’s latest controversy is that it hasn’t been going on for at least three years. After all, this is a company whose CEO, Reed Hastings, called for a Hillary landslide in 2016, because ‘Trump would destroy much
This week has seen the continually bizarre spectacle of the Tory leadership contest grind on. Earlier this week Sajid Javid pitched himself as the candidate best placed to ‘make a better Boris’, reflecting the strange reality of a contest in which only one of the candidates really believes they can win. But who is Boris
The incoming prime minister will have a lot on his plate when he finally strolls into Number 10 in July – with a looming Brexit deadline on the horizon and only a threadbare majority in the Commons to deliver a deal or no-deal Brexit. But he will have even less time to relax than first
In last night’s scuffle between Conservative MP Mark Field and a Greenpeace protester, which of them was really behaving in an entitled manner? The story is that it was Field, there in his black tie, drinking and chortling with bankers at a fancy dinner as the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a speech on the
The video of Mark Field pushing a Greenpeace activist by the neck is so upsetting. https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1141820588090114049 The climate-change protestors were, according to the police and friends who were there, wholly peaceful. Why on earth does Field react with such ferocity? The violence of his intervention is quite wrong. Some people are saying Mark Field was justified
The Spectator is growing – and hiring. We’re looking for a researcher for fact-checking, data reporting and editing news for our daily emails. We’d like someone who can find a story in figures, perhaps someone familiar with Google Analytics (or capable of learning about it). The advantages: no two days in the office will be
This week’s Holy Smoke podcast is about the hypocrisy of ‘woke’ capitalism. Netflix, Disney and other corporations are both ruthlessly capitalist and ruthlessly liberal – at least when it comes to America. They’re throwing a fit because there’s been a conservative and Christian backlash against gruesome late-term abortions. They’ve also become risibly obsessed with Pride
Number 10 has confirmed that Mark Field has been suspended from his position as a Foreign Office minister, after he used force to remove a climate protestor from a banking event at Mansion House last night. Video footage of the incident showed Field grabbing a female Greenpeace protestor before escorting her from the building. The
Call me an obnoxious bigot, but here’s a suggestion. Instead of a queue of mostly male Tory leadership candidates getting their knickers in a twist about who is or isn’t a feminist, how about… electing more women who could take part in the race? After years of watching politicians dodge balls like female quotas or
Astonishing scenes at Mansion House tonight. Not the climate change protestors who interrupted Philip Hammond’s speech (though goodness knows how they got through the extraordinary security) but the Chancellor saying he will fight and fight again to prevent Boris Johnson going for a no-deal Brexit (though he did not name Johnson). He said:- “I cannot imagine
There was a huge cheer in Boris Johnson’s office when it was announced that Jeremy Hunt had 77 votes, sending him into the final two and eliminating Michael Gove. The Johnson campaign were dreading a run- off against Michael Gove, which would have been far more testing for their candidate. The Johnson campaign are keen
Why are MPs so pathetically in thrall to Extinction Rebellion? This morning, while the world was focused on the Conservative leadership campaign six Commons select committees (Treasury, BEIS, Environmental Audit, Housing, Communities and Local Government, Science and Technology, and Transport) jointly launched a ‘Citizens’ Assembly’ on climate change. If you think you have heard that
There will be sighs of relief in the Boris Johnson camp this evening after Jeremy Hunt won the second spot on the members’ ballot. It’s no great secret that the Foreign Secretary was Johnson’s preferred opponent. Boris allies were concerned that a contest against a candidate like Michael Gove (or, worse still, Rory Stewart) could
Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are through to the final stage of the Tory leadership contest, after the results of the fifth round of voting were announced this evening. Michael Gove has been knocked out of the competition, after falling just two votes short (75 vs 77). Cries of foul play have followed, with suspicion
No matter what Labour decides to do with regard to a second referendum next week, as things stand it will lose seats. And as a party which has lost half its vote share in a little over six months, it shouldn’t expect to have any target seats, just defensive positions. Before I explain why, I
‘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
Sajid Javid has been knocked out of the Tory leadership contest – coming in fourth place overall. Ahead of the contest, there were high hopes amongst Javid supporters that he could make it all the way to the final two – and potentially No. 10. However, he had a difficult campaign start and the result
Britain has become rather used to hysterical prognostications about the threat of a no-deal Brexit from our MPs ever since we voted to Leave in 2016 – with some parliamentarians suggesting that supermarkets will be left empty and drug supplies will vanish if we don’t get a deal or extension by October 31. But Labour’s Rupa
Sajid Javid has been eliminated from the Tory leadership race. He came bottom of the fourth ballot with 34 votes, four down from what he got yesterday. Michael Gove moved into second place, on 61 votes to Jeremy Hunt’s 59. While Boris Johnson received 14 more votes, giving him 157—and the support of an absolute
As the battle for second place in the Tory leadership contest has heated up in recent days, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has shown himself more than willing to go on the attack against the frontrunner Boris Johnson – to prove that Hunt should be the MP to face him in front of Tory members. That
And then there were three. After the latest round of voting in the Tory leadership contest this afternoon, the Home Secretary Sajid Javid has been knocked out of the competition, leaving only Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt in the race to become the next prime minister. Boris Johnson, unsurprisingly, came top of the
