Four ambassadors from different EU countries have spoken to Sky News under the guise of Chatham House rules (which means the quotes can be made public but not directly attributed) saying that each of them has had separate conversations with Boris Johnson in which he has said that he personally supports the principle of freedom […]
The latest ICM poll is beyond apocalyptic for Labour – here’s what that means
Everyone is pooing on polls these days, saying they are all terribly wrong so why should we listen to them. Only they aren’t really all that incorrect when you examine them closely. On Brexit, the telephone polls got it pretty close to bang on, while in America they said Clinton would be ahead in the […]
What Paul Nuttall becoming UKIP leader might mean
Back in July, when the post-Brexit world was still fresh and new, I said that a Paul Nuttall led UKIP could become a terrifyingly large force in British politics. What UKIP has done since then has shocked everyone watching, not least myself. I don’t need to go through all of the items again – fist […]
If Fillon is the candidate in the run-off, will Marine Le Pen still win in May?
Sarkozy and Juppé have pulled a “2010” – they both used praise of the third, assumed to be out of the race candidate in an attempt to pull votes from that person’s camp, only to find that they had created a genuine rival for the big prize. But unlike in 2010, when Nick Clegg’s Lib […]
Trump is right that Castro was a dictator – but not about what to do about Cuba now
Donald Trump, the US president-elect, was unequivocal about Fidel Castro in a statement yesterday. “The world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades. Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.” I hate to agree […]
What Tony Blair’s reappearance in British politics signifies
This week, Tony Blair has done a round of press, announcing that he wants to re-enter British politics. Sort of. Not frontline politics, for as he says, “there are elements of the media who would literally move to destroy mode if I tried to do that”. While he has a point about the media, that […]
Here’s the line that Labour should have taken on yesterday’s Autumn Statement
The response of John McDonnell, and in fact the response of Labour as a whole, to Hammond Autumn Statement yesterday did not work as I can only assume was intended. That isn’t newsworthy in and of itself – this is the new way of things. Labour are ineffective, hey ho. But what is sad is […]
Donald Trump’s New York Times interview, dissected fully
Donald Trump was interviewed by a team of reporters from the New York Times yesterday. It was interesting for numerous reasons: one, the rocky relationship that had developed between Trump and the newspaper; two, the fact that they decided to print the interview absolutely verbatim, with no editorial content (which means we get a lot […]
Something to cheer liberals up: a summary of UKIP being rubbish, again
It is fair to say that liberals, by that I mean small ‘l’ liberals of whatever political allegiance, have not had much to cheer about in 2016. In fact, I would say one could almost define themselves as liberal if you found most of what has gone on in politics during this calendar year so far as […]
Theresa May is being pulled in two economic directions by Brexit
Theresa May’s speech to the CBI conference this morning, trailed in the newspapers, perfectly illustrates the economic policy bind she is in. In one breath she will say: “In the autumn statement on Wednesday, we will commit to substantial real terms increases in government investment in R&D investing an extra £2bn a year by the […]