James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
The backdrop to Theresa May’s Brexit speech is almost as interesting as the speech itself promises to be. First, there’s the government’s very deliberate decision to make clear—via a Philip Hammond interview in the German press—that Britain will play hardball if it can’t secure a decent deal with the EU. Hammond made clear to Welt
From our UK edition
Curbs on executive pay, restrictions on foreign takeovers and workers on boards. Not Jeremy Corbyn’s plan for Britain, but ideas raised by Theresa May and put forward for discussion at her cabinet committee on the economy and industrial strategy. Not for 40 years have the Tories had a Prime Minister so firmly on the left
From our UK edition
Mark Lyall Grant, the Prime Minister’s national security adviser, is leaving. As I report in The Sun today, the 60 year-old Lyall Grant is to retire later this year. The hot favourite to replace Lyall Grant is Mark Sedwill, the permanent secretary at the Home Office. Theresa May knows Sedwill well from her time
From our UK edition
Boris Johnson returned from the US this week boasting that the UK was now ‘first in line’ for a trade deal with the US. He said that the Trump team and the new Congress ‘want to do it fast’. But as I write in The Sun this morning, the situation is even more advanced than
From our UK edition
The Guardian has a very significant story on its front page tomorrow. It has obtained notes of a meeting that Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, had with senior MEPs this week. These notes show that Barnier told them that he wanted a ‘special’ deal that would guarantee access for the EU firms and countries
From our UK edition
Curbs on executive pay, restrictions on foreign takeovers and workers on boards. Not Jeremy Corbyn’s plan for Britain, but ideas raised by Theresa May and put forward for discussion at her cabinet committee on the economy and industrial strategy. Not for 40 years have the Tories had a Prime Minister so firmly on the left
From our UK edition
At PMQs today, Jeremy Corbyn didn’t have a disaster: there was no repeat of yesterday’s shambles. But he didn’t take full advantage of the opening he had. Yes, he went on the NHS—but he didn’t cause Theresa May as much trouble as he could have. There was no reference to the Times’ story this morning
From our UK edition
One of the supposed rules of modern politics is that you shouldn’t tell the voters they are wrong. So, Jeremy Hunt saying that a large part of the problem at A&E is people turning up who shouldn’t, is going to come in for some criticism. One can almost hear Labour readying its denunciation of the
From our UK edition
Martin McGuinness is to resign as deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. McGuiness’s resignation is designed to embarrass the First Minister, the DUP’s Arlene Foster, over the hugely over-budget renewable heat incentive scheme. McGuinness walking out effectively collapses the power-sharing executive and will lead to fresh Assembly elections. McGuinness going puts further pressure on the
From our UK edition
The most memorable moment of Theresa May’s New Year TV interview was when Donald Trump’s quote about grabbing women by the pussy was read out to her. A clearly uncomfortable May replied that it was unacceptable language. Before quickly adding — in an attempt to avoid angering the incoming President—that Trump himself had said that
From our UK edition
Theresa May has clearly learnt one lesson from David Cameron’s failed negotiation with the EU. As I write in The Sun this morning. she has realised that if she just asks for what cautious officials think she can get, then she won’t get enough to satisfy the voters—hence Sir Ivan Roger’s resignation as the UK
From our UK edition
Europe’s unpreparedness to deal with the terrorist threat it is now facing is highlighted in two reports today. The Wall Street Journal has obtained a copy of the report prepared for the Belgium parliament on the failure of the Belgium authorities to stop the Islamic State terror cell who travelled from Belgium to carry out
From our UK edition
Few years will live as long in the memory as 2016. Historians will ponder the meaning and consequences of the past 12 months for decades to come. In the future, 180-odd years from now, some Zhou Enlai will remark that ‘it is too soon to say’ when asked about the significance of Brexit. The referendum
From our UK edition
After the tumult of 2016, Europe could do with a year of calm. It won’t get one. Elections are to be held in four of the six founder members of the European project, and populist Eurosceptic forces are on the march in each one. There will be at least one regime change: François Hollande has
From our UK edition
300,000 people were hit by Aslef and the RMT’s strike on Southern Rail yesterday. The bad news for commuters is that things will get worse in the New Year. The unions have a six day strike planned for January, that means a whole working week of commuters not being able to get to their jobs,
From our UK edition
PMQs began with the Labour MP Peter Dowd asking Theresa May if she didn’t wish that she had told Boris Johnson to FO rather than sending him to the FO. To which, May replied that he was a fine Foreign Secretary — an FFS. At this point, it seemed that the session, the last PMQs
From our UK edition
Want proof of how bad things are for Labour? Jeremy Corbyn and his disastrous leadership is not even its biggest problem anymore. I write in The Sun that Labour’s biggest problem, and it is potentially an existential one, is that its reaction to the Brexit vote is threatening to make it a political irrelevance More
From our UK edition
Few years will live as long in the memory as 2016. Historians will ponder the meaning and consequences of the past 12 months for decades to come. In the future, 180-odd years from now, some Zhou Enlai will remark that ‘it is too soon to say’ when asked about the significance of Brexit. The referendum
From our UK edition
461 MPs have just voted for Theresa May to invoke Article 50 by the end of March. The Tory amendment to Labour’s opposition day motion passed comfortably with only 89 MPs opposing it—and Ken Clarke the only Tory amongst them with 20-odd Labour Mps joining the SNP and the Lib Dems in voting against. Now,
From our UK edition
With Theresa May away, it was David Lidington v Emily Thornberry at PMQs today. The shadow foreign secretary asked Lidington if the UK would stay in the customs union, Lidington danced round the question. But Thornberry, unlike Corbyn, kept coming back to the same question. By the end of the exchanges, it was clear that