Our pessimistic country needs a One Nation housing crusade June 19, 2019 It’s the political equivalent of playing Pac-Man, while nodding your mullet to Wham! – our housing policy seems stuck in the 1980s, like a Care Bear in a leg-warmer. The Conservative leadership candidates have all served as part of a government whose core housing strategy hails from that Duran Duran decade: subsidised social housing sell-offs [...]
Editor’s Notes: Canary Wharf is still the place to meat June 13, 2019 We live in interesting times. A few years ago, who would have expected vegan sausage rolls to fly off Greggs’ heated shelves, or for KFC to announce a new vegan “chicken” burger called The Imposter? Veganism is alive and well… but not so much at the Canary Wharf branch of Boisdale this week, where the [...]
Post-Maybot, the Tories are on the hunt for a likeable leader May 30, 2019 Every Tory leadership election has a flavour. In 2016, after childishly airing our dirty laundry to our European neighbours during the bitter referendum, a sheepish UK was looking for a “grown-up”. Six years of boyish David Cameron making rash decisions on behalf of the country had taken its toll on the Conservative party, and the [...]
Vote Leave chief urges MPs to back Theresa May’s deal as Brexiters start to turn March 17, 2019 The head of the Vote Leave campaign has urged MPs to swing behind Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, saying Brexit has “never been at greater risk”. Matthew Elliott, the former chief executive of the official Brexit campaign that had the backing of Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, said the UK’s departure from the European Union “probably won’t [...]
Tory leadership race: Who are the leading candidates? March 29, 2019 Theresa May’s promise this week to step down if her Brexit deal passed parliament made the prospect of a Tory leadership battle increasingly likely. Although May’s deal was defeated in the commons yet again this afternoon, her calamitous premiership looks like it could end at any moment. There are dozens of potential candidates for the top [...]
Is wanting Rory Stewart to be the next Prime Minister just a pipe dream? May 31, 2019 The world has moved on from Bill Clinton’s infamous line 26 years ago that, though he may have experimented with marijuana in his youth, he never inhaled. Yesterday, international development secretary and Tory leadership hopeful Rory Stewart told Sky News that he made a “very stupid mistake” by smoking opium at a wedding in Iran [...]
Love him or hate him, Boris is nicking the Marmite strategy June 14, 2019 Is there any brand in the history of advertising that has come up with a slogan as ingenious as Marmite’s “You Either Love It Or Hate It”? I say this as someone who despises Marmite. To quote the singer Amanda Palmer lamenting her partner’s love of this inexplicable condiment, “it tastes like sadness, it tastes [...]
The anti-vax movement is a symptom of our expert malaise April 26, 2019 The anti-vaccination movement is deadly. According to the charity Unicef, more than half a million UK children were not vaccinated against measles, a highly dangerous but preventable disease, between 2010 and 2017 – which is part of a terrifying global trend. When less than 95 per cent of a population are vaccinated, herd immunity is weakened, [...]
Gove and Fox to remain in May’s cabinet to work on Brexit’s future November 16, 2018 Michael Gove and Liam Fox have said they will continue serving in Theresa May’s cabinet, after stating they had confidence in the Prime Minister and the future of Brexit. Environment secretary Gove had been widely tipped as the Prime Minister’s next major resignation after eight ministers, MPs and officials quit over Downing Street’s draft Brexit agreement yesterday. He [...]
Stephen Barclay replaces Raab as Brexit secretary, as Amber Rudd returns to government as work and pensions secretary November 16, 2018 Stephen Barclay has been confirmed as the new Brexit secretary, while former Home secretary Amber Rudd has been appointed as the Work and Pensions secretary. Barclay, the MP for North East Cambridgeshire, was previously a minister at the Department for Health and Social Care. He takes over from Dominic Raab, who quit his role yesterday [...]