Andrew Neil
@afneil
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Columnist for Daily Mail UK and MailOnline USA. @TimesRadio anchor. Former Chairman of The Spectator, Editor Sunday Times, BBC TV anchor, Chairman Sky TV
Everywhere
Joined April 2010
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.
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The best of British. Our country needs more like him, especially now. There’s something in my eye. A true inspiration.
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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.
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Normal party politics is suspended in Britain tonight. All people of good will hope for the Prime Minister’s speed recovery. He is in good NHS hands.
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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.
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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.
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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?.
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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.
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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.
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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 . .
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I have always resisted comparisons between Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. Not tonight.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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What’s the point of police chasing a lone walker in the wilds of the Peak District when this is happening every day?.
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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.
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Harry’s claim that he killed 25 Taliban is a nightmare — an absolute nightmare — for his security teams. How stupid can you be?.
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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.
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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.
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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?.
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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.
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I’m sure you’re right on both points. But just to reassure the sceptics and naysayers could you produce a list of British-Pakistani Muslim community leaders and/or prominent spokesmen (I assume they will be all men) who have been robust in condemning the rape gangs?.
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Labour and Black Rock. Working together. Irony has surely died.
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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 . .
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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.
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What is it that the Commonwealth has done wrong? And since they don’t live in it, what’s it got to do with them?.
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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.
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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.
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This is anti-British drivel of a high order. Was any of the licence fee used to produce something purely designed to demean us?.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Sky Data poll finds 90% of Brits think the Brexit talks have been a “national humiliation”.
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Germany goes to the polls in February. This atrocity in Magdeburg will have an impact.
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Many folks don’t think you were impartial when you were speaker.
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He tried — and failed — to cancel my BBC career several times.
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A very healthy 3m saw my interview with Mr Corbyn last night on BBC1. I suspect the catch up audience will be pretty healthy too.
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Surely this cannot be right? .Chancellor Rachel Reeves is describing her China trip as a 'significant milestone' in re-engagement with Beijing, saying she has agreed deals worth £600m to the UK economy. If that’s it, it wasn’t worth the journey. For China it’s not even small.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Ok smart arse. Produce another year when I wrote this or admit it’s just part of your usual lying thuggish spin doctor disposition. You know. The sort that took us to war on a false proposition which you propagated.
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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.
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To the left, Rockefeller Centre. To the right, Trafalgar Square. When it comes to Christmas Trees London really needs to up its game.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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But Labour was happy to refer to Liz Truss as a lettuce. Was that also misogynistic and unprofessional?.
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What are you selling? Daft clothes? Do you no longer sell cars? You must already sniff the smell of disaster with this “campaign”. What was the agency?.
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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.
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Clearly this must mean easyJet has no need of state support or taxpayer bailouts and the government should act accordingly, surely?.
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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.
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I couldn’t find mention of this in the business coverage of the British media, including the FT, so I thought it worth a retweet.
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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.
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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.
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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,.
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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?.
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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.”.
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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.
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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 ….
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Every single one of Mr Lammy's historical analogies is factually incorrect.
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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.
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UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the Commons today that Libya was ‘next door’ to Syria. True. If you count being 1,000 miles apart and separated by Egypt, Israel and Jordan as next door.
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Neither Mr Johnson nor Mr Corbyn being given time to develop their arguments nor to debate with each other. Too rushed, too hectic.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If he says ‘we’re doing all we can’ re PPE one more time I will need a new TV screen.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?.
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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.
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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.
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Well last night at 8pm my show out-rated Sky News and BBC News Channel combined. Next question.
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been moved from intensive care back to the ward at St Thomas’ Hospital — Downing Street. With luck the worst is over.
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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.
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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 . .
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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”?.
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