Columnist for Daily Mail UK and MailOnline USA.
@TimesRadio
anchor. Former Chairman of The Spectator, Editor Sunday Times, BBC TV anchor, Chairman Sky TV
Scores of celebrities and the rich have arrived in Sicily for a Google conference. They came in 114 private jets and a flotilla of super yachts. The conference is on global warming.
I suspect many folks, when they see this, will be adding Britannia Hotels to the list of businesses they will not be frequenting when this crisis is over.
Aviemore Coylumbridge Hotel sent this letter to staff today. Not just fired but chucked out of their accommodation with no notice and no redundancy pay!
@BritanniaLtd
Britannia Hotels should be ashamed of themselves. Certainly no "room at the inn" here, disgusting.
Well, Corbyn interview got 3.2m viewers. So not that "tired".
The Tories posted it on Facebook. So not "tired" at all.
"Tired" never raised when trying to fix time and date.
This "source" is a "pyramid of piffle"
PS to source: monologue got 4m+ views. So some voter interest.
Johnson confirms he is rejecting Neil interview
Senior Con source: “The public are fed up with interviews that are all about the interviewer and endless interruptions. The format is tired and broken and needs to change if it is to start engaging and informing the public again.”
Weakest reply so far from Mr Cummings: I was worried my eyesight had been hampered by Covid and not good enough to drive back to London. So I put the wife and kid in the car for a 30-mile test drive to Barnard Castle.
Boris Johnson four days ago: “Let's be in no doubt about it, the exam results that we've got today are robust, they're good, they're dependable for employers.” Not a single claim in that sentence was true, was it Prime Minister?
Sad story from Germany: finance minister of the German state of Hesse, Thomas Schäfer, committed suicide because he had become “deeply worried” over how to cope with the economic fallout. We should not forget or lightly dismiss the huge strain on those currently governing us.
After four years of lecturing Britain that it could never countenance anything that might lead to a hard border in Ireland, the European Union, in a desperate response to its own vaccine incompetence, introduces a hard border. Then thinks better of it.
If Britannia had not ruled the waves there would never have been a Royal Navy strong enough to abolish the slave trade, intercepting 1,600 ships and freeing 150,000 Africans while sustaining major casualties. Guess it’s too late to delete your tweet ...
Do those Brits who believe it’s ok to sing an 18th Century song about never being enslaved, written when the UK was enslaving and killing millions of innocents, also believe it’s appropriate for neo-Nazis to shout, “We will never be forced into a gas chamber.”
#RuleBritannia
Important thread (for me!): With heavy heart I announce I will be leaving the BBC. Despite sterling efforts by new DG to come up with other programming opportunities, it could not quite repair damage done when Andrew Neil Show cancelled early summer + Politics Live taken off air
The UK is drifting, unhappy, losing faith in previously respected institutions (like the police), buffeted by extremists (often allowed to run amok), dismayed by decline, angry at the inability of the political class to do anything about it, despairing that the Westminster
Alastair Stewart — very smart, kindly, professional, impartial, knowledgeable, fun, trained by the best (Alastair Burnet). Now the only person to be fired for quoting Shakespeare accurately. The only explanation can be the ITN suits wanted him out — and seized their chance.
Stop posing as some kind of hippy ice cream play. You’re now wholly owned by a massive global conglomerate called Unilever. Perhaps if it paid the taxes HMRC thinks you should pay we could afford to accommodate many more asylum seekers.
Hey
@PritiPatel
we think the real crisis is our lack of humanity for people fleeing war, climate change and torture. We pulled together a thread for you..
Imagine the twitter storm tonight if this had gone the other way. It would have been of biblical proportions. For some reason it’s not getting much traction on the MSM either. Ho hum.
If any of this is true it should be revealed by the PM in an address to the nation, not spun out in an off the record briefing by an anonymous government source.
Revealed: elderly to be quarantined at home or in care homes for four months, in "wartime-style" mobilisation to combat Coronavirus. Full details here.
Why was there not a minute’s silence at Glastonbury to remember and honour all the young people who were brutally murdered, raped, tortured and kidnapped at the music festival in the Israeli desert on October 7th? Why did not one performer even mention this atrocity?
As for the future, I’m delighted to announce I have accepted the post of Chairman of GB News, a new news channel to be launched early in the New Year bringing new perspectives to the news. I will also be presenting a new nightly prime-time show on GB News. Watch this space.
Isn’t this a remarkable — some might say brazen — re-writing of what actually happened? The first “protective ring” was “advice” in February which said (twice) care homes had nothing to worry about. Then old folks were decanted from hospitals to homes without testing ...
"Right from the start we've tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes. We set out our first advice in February... we've made sure care homes have the resources they need" says Health Secretary, Matt Hancock.
Read the latest on
#COVID19
:
No need to bother, Co-op. As of today you are henceforth banned from advertising in The Spectator, in perpetuity. We will not have companies like yours use their financial might to try to influence our editorial content, which is entirely a matter for the editor.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have said we must all acknowledge the "uncomfortable" past of the Commonwealth.
The Duke of Sussex said "it's not going to be easy" but "it needs to be done".
Read more:
IKEA has decided to boycott GB News because of our alleged values. Here are IKEA’s values — a French CEO who is a criminal with a two year suspended jail sentence for spying on staff.
The new boss of Sky, which is a major sponsor of the COP26 climate change jamboree in Glasgow, spent the first half of this year commuting regularly between her home in America and her office in Britain by private jet.
After today's exchanges at PMQs it is clear that the United Kingdom now has a functioning, probing, measured, informed Official Opposition. The government will need to raise its game.
A massive peaceful protest march took place in London today. I’ve seen no reports of violence, yobbery or arrests. This is what a mature democracy is supposed to look like.
Looking at these shameful pro-Hamas demonstrations in London and elsewhere yesterday it struck me that Israel must be the only country in the world that is attacked for being attacked by a murderous, fascist, infant-killing death cult -- then is further attacked for having the
Andrew Marr puts Chinese ambassador on the spot. Ambassador flummoxed. Ends up spouting drivel. That’s what being held to account looks like in a democracy.
Given there is currently quite a high bar for hospital admittance, Boris Johnson’s “precautionary” hospitalisation is quite worrying. Given his pregnant partner is also suffering Covid symptoms, this is a very tough time for both of them.
"I'm no longer the Speaker. I don't have to remain impartial now... Brexit is the biggest foreign policy mistake in the post-war period"
Former Commons Speaker John Bercow speaks his mind on Brexit
What do you think of London’s new artwork on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square? It’s by the artist
@h_phillipson
and has been unveiled this morning. It’s called THE END...
#4thplinth
Hard-left National Education Union opposes schools reopening even if all teachers get a priority jab. Schools clearly an inconvenience for teachers’ union, since they only get in the way of its real passion — political activism. It would help NEA if we just closed schools forever
UK Covid death total now consolidated as among the worst. ONS revealed excess deaths now huge, boosting overall death toll. Gov. failed for 3rd day to hit test target. Senior advisers admit test/trace dropped because not capacity. Feet should be being held to fire. They're not.
Trump sitting with Putin calls journalists he doesn’t agree with ‘fake news’. You don’t have that problem, he tells Putin. He’s right. Journalists who cross Putin are killed or disappeared or jailed. Disgraceful statement by a US President.
The woke warriors trying to stir up an advertising boycott of GB News, a channel that hasn’t even started broadcasting, are hilarious.
Even funnier is their threat to cancel mobile phone contracts of operators who dare to advertise on GB News.
The £ is nudging up close to $1.40 today. Not that long ago Goldman Sachs told us that Brexit meant £ was heading for parity with $. Wise financial heads nodded in agreement.
Great figures on
@GBNEWS
Andrew Neil show last night. Number one in time slot (again). Three times audience of Sky News. 26% more than BBC News Channel. And we’ve only just begun.
Around 15,000 people a day are still flying into the UK. Their medical condition is not checked on arrival. That's the equivalent of 105,000 passengers a week, including those with serious Covid-19 outbreaks, like the US, China, Spain and Italy.
As of yesterday there had been 611,000 vaccinations in Scotland, not quite the 1m by end of January promised by local health minister Jeanne Freeman. The SNP was furious when UK refused to join EU vaccine procurement. Perhaps it’s still keen to emulate EU roll out pace.
Nicola Sturgeon says an independent Scotland would help protect the world’s seas from Russian aggression. This from a leader of a party that would kick out UK nuclear deterrent and can’t even build two ferries
Easyjet will go ahead with a £174m dividend, including £60m which will go to its founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, payout to shareholders despite appealing for taxpayer support.
This can't be allowed. Taxpayer money must not be used to enrich millionaires
In a country already awash with anti-vaxxers, President Macron’s questioning, in a fit of pique, of the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine, on no scientific basis whatsoever, plumbs the depths of irresponsibility.
The European Space Agency has selected Leicester for its new space tech incubation centre. Expected to create 2,500 jobs, the £100m-plus Space Park Leicester development has already attracted global companies including Lockheed Martin, Thales, Airbus and Hewlett Packard
#UKmfg
🇬🇧
Encouraging piece in Daily Mail by South African doctor who first alerted world to omicron. She says its symptoms generally very mild, even with no vax, and accuses PM Johnson of “hysteria”. If she is right - if - then perhaps latest UK measures are more political than medical.
I do wish British journalists — esp Brussels-based — would stop repeating the false mantra that the EU holds all the cards in upcoming negotiations. It holds many, perhaps more than UK. But if UK left on WTO rules it would have total regulatory freedom. EU’s worst nightmare.
When I was young antisemitism was dominated by the knuckle dragging far right. Plastic fascists but frightening nevertheless. Today antisemitism is largely the preserve of a hard left which celebrates everything that makes a civilised society impossible — Islamist dictatorship,
Bizarre experience on
@thismorning
on ITV today. Asked about extinction rebellion’s protest on Remembrance Day I said it was totally inappropriate. To be confronted by Philip Schofield asking - so are you a climate change denier?
Lest you forget.
The Johnson Government’s decision not to join the EU vaccine procurement programme was widely vilified at the time. Today’s Daily Mail has a useful catalogue of who said what when
eg The Observer: “Brexit means Covid vaccine will be slower to reach UK.”
This illustrates the visceral hatred — not too strong a word — there is now for the BBC in Israel. How could this have been allowed to happen? It was unnecessary and would not have happened if the BBC had stuck to its own rigorous journalistic guidelines. A former boss of BBC TV
Anti-vaxxers protest BBC coverage of pandemic by storming a building in White City. A building the BBC vacated in 2013 and is now luxury flats. Is there a link between stupidity and anti-vax? Opinions vary but evidence is growing …
Quite remarkable how the Twitter Left cavalierly dismiss the loss of the winter fuel allowance for 10m pensioners as “they can afford it”. Some can. But they have no idea how many more will be hit by it. And, of course, if the Tories had done this the very same twitterati would
PM Johnson defends alcohol-fuelled Downing St leaving parties and his "leadership duty" to attend them. It's a new line -- and new nonsense. I left the BBC after 25 years during lockdown. There was never any question of a leaving party. We all knew it would be against the rules.
Clear this morning that UK government has two major problems on its hands:
1. Failure to ramp up testing, especially of NHS and social care staff. Unless ministers get a grip this will become THE scandal of the crisis.
2. Failure to distribute enough PPE to NHS/social care staff
@afneil
Stop interrupting all the time ffs. It’s fine to keep your interviewees on their toes but you just wouldn’t let Corbyn finish points he was making perfectly fluently
Tho it’s unlikely to manifest itself at PMQs today, there is mounting unease, even anger, among Tory backbenchers and grassroots at what they perceive as indecisive, even incompetent leadership from Boris Johnson at this stage in the Covid crisis.
"Churchill replaced Chamberlain just days before the Second World War, Lloyd George replaced Asquith weeks into Somme, Eden lost his job during the Suez crisis"
Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy says "there are always others" to replace Boris Johnson
The UN has chosen Iran to lead its Commission on the Status of Women.
It claims to be “the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women”.
Words fail me.
Very poignant video by Boris Johnson shot shortly after being discharged by the hospital.
He also thanks all doctors and nurses who saved his life, especially nwo nurses “who stood by his bed for 48h: Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal”.
Oh yes. Because when I interviewed Boris Johnson during his Tory leadership bid I only asked him what his favourite colour was. Did you see my interview with Tory Liz Truss last week? I think you used to be a footballer. Stick to kicking balls.
Unconfirmed reports that Hamas has slaughtered 40 babies, beheading some, increasingly and sadly look like being true. Major news outlets now carrying the reports. The English language does not contain the vocabulary for an adequate response to this.
We've never met or talked. You have no idea what my views are on any major issue today, tho you think you do. To call me "scarily right-wing" is inaccurate, a smear and a hard left trope. You should withdraw it.
I think Andrew Neil is biased and scarily Right-wing but he is such a heavy hitter when it comes to Paxman-style interviews, including when holding his own side to account, that I am genuinely disappointed to see him go.
This we only learned last night:
Chancellor Rachel Reeves accepted £7,500 in donations for clothing but it was registered vaguely as “support” for her office.
So much for the promised transparency
Deputy PM Angela Rayner accepted clothes worth £3,550 declared confusingly as a
Who are these affluent young Londoners, in the safety of our capital, tearing down pictures of women and children maimed, tortured and abducted by Hamas?
What mindset would lead you to do that?
Who has poured the poison in their ears to make them behave like this?
And why is it
When it comes to the EU the British media’s general default position is to treat anything UK government does as a deceit/lie/obfuscation/matter for ridicule, while treating anything out of Brussels as gospel. When did you last see a Barnier-type given a tough interview?
The British media needs to get a grip of itself. Why shouldn’t the PM’s top advisor sit in on meetings of its expert medical advisors in middle of a pandemic crisis? The government needs to get a grip and stop obfuscating. Just justify it. Stop spinning.
Last month Labour insisted it had “no plans” to change the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. Today it scrapped it for 10m pensioners. Confirming the old adage that, when a politician says they have “no plans” to do something, it means they’re going to do it — but just not
If, like the British Government, you big up a new strain of Covid to place London and the South into a newly-devised tougher Tier 4 then you can hardly blame the French for saying Zoot Alors! Let’s close the border for 48 hours til we work out what it all means.
A heartbreaking and monstrous injustice: Iran sentences Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to ANOTHER year in jail. Iran, now chairing the UN Commission on women's rights ...
President Macron says he won’t surrender “his share” of fishing in UK waters. He’s terrified French fishermen become new gilets jaune. But on Jan 1 UK becomes an independent coastal state. So what does he mean by “his share”?
This could be your daughter, your sister, your girlfriend, your colleague, your friend. Like most of us, she is fearful and frustrated because women don’t feel safe on our streets. And then this...
This man is now the British foreign secretary. In a few short weeks he’s already made a number of embarrassing blunders. Look them up. He also seems to think his department should be more interested in pursuing net zero than running British foreign policy. The British Tories were
When even President Macron says supply chains will have to become more French, from food to pharma, then you know globalisation will be in serious retreat in 2020s.
Britain agreed fishing permits for 98% of boats that applied, as per post-Brexit trade deal; 55 French boats not given access to Channel Isles waters because they failed to provide any evidence they’d ever fished in these waters. And for that Macron threatens a trade war.
I replied that climate change was real and needed to be confronted. But that did not mean siding with the nonsense scaremongering of extinction rebellion. It’s clear how even the mainstream media would like to close down debate by stigmatising even the slightest questioning.
Since the British Government has made a total Horlicks of counting Covid cases, perhaps we should move back to Covid deaths, which even the government can't screw up (I think). The seven day moving average of Covid deaths is 51. 51 too many. But hardly a pandemic.
I was born into a working class family, brought up in a council house and went to a state school. The rest of your tweet is also drivel. Get your facts right. Better, do us all a favour and give up Twitter.