Brexit

Tim Shipman’s book about the EU referendum campaign, All Out War, is serialised today in the Sunday Times. The newspaper today leads on the remarkable disclosure that David Cameron blames Theresa May for the paucity of the deal he negotiated in those 30 sleepless hours with Brussels. Here’s the extract:- Before the speech, conscious that immigration was likely to be an explosive issue in the referendum campaign, Cameron had floated with Merkel the idea of an annual cap on the number of national insurance numbers handed to EU migrants or an emergency brake on numbers. But the German leader said she would not agree to changes to free movement for EU citizens.

With Italy facing a referendum that could unseat its president, the EU’s member states in furious conflict over immigration, and Hillary Clinton looking like an increasingly shaky last line of defence, our very own Brexit is being held up as the model of a new, disruptive politics. But its meaning has been debated. For some, Brexit was democracy delivering justice: the West’s 'first big fightback', as Nigel Farage said on Sunday, against 'a metropolitan elite, backed by big business, who’ve just been increasingly getting out of touch with the ordinary voters.' The counter-narrative is that Brexit was a fake revolution: a coup by fellow-members of the elite who 'lied to please the mob'.

Well, that didn’t take long. George Osborne has had dinner with the FT and the write-up shows him as ambitious as ever. Having never held down a job outside of politics, the former Chancellor isn’t looking for one now. 'I am not going anywhere,' he said, 'I want to see what happens next.' It seems he is angling for Christine Lagarde’s job at the IMF, but the most striking quote is about his leadership ambitions: 'Asked about a possible return to the front line, Mr Osborne adopted — with a twist — a phrase used by Mr Johnson in 2013 to deflect questions about his prime ministerial intentions: 'If the ball came loose at the back of the scrum, I wouldn’t fumble it,' Mr Osborne, 45, said.' Mr S wonders if Osborne has realised what has just happened.

A few years ago, the pollster Nate Silver wrote a best-selling book saying (in effect) that political pundits talk rot and that only data-armed policy analysts like him could be relied on to know what was going on. He'd based his reputation on the 2012 US election, whose results he predicted. YouGov predicted it too, but Silver has a greater gift for self-publicity. His theory was later placed in doubt when he failed to predict the result of the UK General Election in a BBC documentary -- which later mysteriously disappeared. Despite this, he continues to encourage epigones in Britain, who can (and still do) come out with columns attacking folk for their inferior, prejudice-driven analysis. Today, Nate Silver is at it again -- over Trump: https://twitter.

'I am getting nervous. But it's not because Trump is good. It's because people are stupid'. So said the (usually) very funny US comedian Bill Maher on TV recently. When I heard him say it, my first thought was: Trump's going to win. Not because Maher is right, but because I recognised something from the EU referendum campaign, when the great and the good - from metropolitan comedians to overpaid columnists — piled in to suggest that Brexit backers were all dimwitted lemmings, marching zombie-like off a cliff. Pro-EU devotees, some from positions of astonishing privilege, were punching down. It wasn't a good look, and it harmed their cause. The parallels between Brexit and Trumpism are largely inaccurate.

Before the Brexit vote, the majority of economists forecast economic doom for Britain outside the EU. But the economy has, so far, been doing significantly better than expected. Will Britain continue to thrive? Or will the anticipated economic consequences of leaving the EU catch up on us? And how will Theresa May’s new government help to shape the future of our economy? On 14 September 2016, The Spectator held a discussion at the British Museum on the economic prospects of the UK, attended by over 300 guests. The panel, chaired by Andrew Neil, addressed the question: how does the new political landscape affect the UK economy?

Although Alex Salmond is Scotland's First Minister no more, luckily the public still have a chance to hear the SNP politician's thoughts on a weekly basis thanks to his LBC phone-in. Today Salmond led the charge for Nicola Sturgeon blocking Brexit: 'If Scotland could block Brexit, then I think Nicola Sturgeon should do that. I think Nicola Sturgeon should take her instruction from the verdict of the Scottish people; she's Scottish First Minister. If you remember the Scottish people voted decisively to remain.