No red carpet for Boris Johnson in Orkney. No welcoming waves nor friendly hurrahs. There was barely so much as a cheery ‘och aye!’ The greeting he received, in fact, as his Presidential-style motorcade zoomed through the southern west town of Stromness, was as chilly as the sea breeze and twice as salty. PG Wodehouse … Read more
Boris Johnson wants to clear Backlog Britain by the end of September. Good luck with that. He hasn’t a hope in hell’s chance of persuading feather-bedded civil servants back to their desks any time soon. Why would they, when MPs have just knocked off for six weeks’ summer holiday? If the Government was serious about … Read more
This time last year, Boris Johnson marched into the summer recess with the lumbering swagger of an all-conquering prizefighter. In his first appearance in the Commons as Prime Minister, he pummelled Jeremy Corbyn through the ropes. Battered. Banjaxed. Jezza looked so punch drunk it’s a mercy he didn’t require smelling salts. Boris rarely emerges quite … Read more
CRAIG BROWN: Rock star memoirs are easily confused with memoirs of World War I: the noise, the explosions, the bloodshed. The author of the latest is Chris Frantz.
Do we have a corrupt and rotten Establishment teeming with people who are happy to take money from countries that wish us ill, particularly Russia and China? It’s a depressing suggestion. But over the past few weeks we’ve seen more evidence that some of the great and good have – how shall I put it? … Read more
A year ago, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn declared all-out war on the BBC. Why? Because of a Panorama programme in which seven former Labour party staffers blew the whistle about anti-Semitism in Corbyn’s Labour Party. They explained how they felt a growing factionalism under Corbyn had created a safe space for anti-Semitic views … Read more
For as long as I can remember, late night bust-ups have been par for the course at European Union meetings. Even so, this week’s Brussels summit to rescue the EU’s pandemic-blighted economy was in a class of its own. For more than four days, the leaders of the 27 member states were locked in sweatsodden … Read more
As I took my seat in the spartan, bug-swept offices of the intelligence and security committee’s anonymous Westminster headquarters in the summer of 2018, my excitement was tempered with trepidation. Since watching the Soviet empire collapse 30 years ago, I had been sounding the alarm about Russia‘s reluctance to give up its dreams of empire. … Read more
HENRY DEEDES: Pure Tinker, Tailor… all it needed was Smiley with a filterless Senior Service By Henry Deedes for the Daily Mail Published: 22:01 BST, 21 July 2020 | Updated: 22:01 BST, 21 July 2020 As a cast of characters goes, even that masterful spy scribe John Le Carre might have struggled to improve upon … Read more
1 . Princess Anne turns 70 on August 15. She will celebrate this landmark birthday with a glass of barley water and a modest cake from the Mr Kipling range. ‘I can never see the point of candles,’ she says. ‘Why bother lighting them if you’re just going to blow them out?’ 2. At her public school, … Read more