The rotund and rather bizarre MEP for the Brexit Party Ann Widdecombe has bewed up a fuss remarking that leaving the EU is akin to slaves rising up against owners. She was a Tory MP for many years with trenchant right-wing views – against the legality of abortion, against various issues of LGBT rights such … Read more
Jeremy Hunt’s rank-outsider status in the Tory leadership fight has jumped to a more hopeful possible with news of Boris Johnson’s plate-smashing fight with his girl-friend. There was always a risk that Boris would put his foot in it given his erratic, reckless and overly excitable tendencies. Hunt, 1 November 1966, is a steadier … Read more
The tragi-comic pantomime mid Brexit of the Tory leadership election has thrown up colourful, criminal misdemeanours on the drug-taking front and now an unseemly spat between a breakfast television presenter and one of the contestants who was once was a sofa colleague. There are whispers of professional jealousy. It’s all a storm in a teacup … Read more
Turning a full-scale state visit into a sitcom takes some doing but trust Trump. Against protocol he’s bringing all of his children (except young Barron) – Don Jnr, Eric, Ivanka, even Tiffany, and their spouses. Arriving on Monday the bells-and-whistles entertainment begins with a ceremonial welcome, private lunch at Buckingham Palace, afternoon tea with … Read more
John Cleese has had a Basil Fawlty moment or at least is presumed to have had given the over-reactive public mood, when he said London was no longer English. Truthfully, like most major cities it never was, being a melting pot of multifarious peoples. But it has caused the usual outraged flutters in the … Read more
Nigel Farage is understandably ebullient about the Brexit Party in the UK taking first place in the European elections and getting voluble about repeating the trouncing of other parties at a General Election. Though standing back it’s obvious that the UK is no clearer about what it wants with the Lib Dems and Greens … Read more
The never-ending mystery of Theresa May’s leaving date just keeps on trucking. There’s still no definite date but maybe a ‘timetable’ of departure if and when something happens down the road. Not that any of the alternatives are exactly enticing – Boris, Corbyn, Farage – all too depressing to contemplate. The cross-party talks with Corbyn … Read more
Keir Starmer, the UK Opposition spokesman for Brexit, comes across as a steady pair of hands. He was formerly a defence lawyer with an interest in human rights and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service. He only became an MP in 2014 and declined to stand in the leadership contest because of his … Read more
In the faint hope of finding a nugget of helpful info in the carnage of Brexit – Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, definitely a soft Brexiteer (if it happens at all) is looking decidedly agitated from mid this month and more so in the first three weeks of May with tr Uranus square his … Read more
Theresa May has her fans who see her as diligent, earnest, dutiful and straight, landed by fate with a poisoned conundrum that no one could have been expected to solve. There again there are those who reckon she’s part of the problem, indeed in the words of one despairing minister the “sole architect” … Read more