HENRY DEEDES on Michael Gove updating the House on the government’s Brexit strategy 

Michael Gove was charged with updating the House on the Government’s Brexit strategy yesterday. Of course he was. For years the Govester has been the Government’s man for big occasions. The closer, the ‘death’ bowler entrusted with the crucial last overs. Need to rally the troops? Send for Gove! Under the previous lot this was … Read more

HENRY DEEDES sees The Saj take aim at the ‘Cummings and goings’ 

Well, it was no knockout blow but it was certainly a decent jab to the sweetbreads.  Sajid Javid’s resignation speech to the Commons yesterday may have lacked Sir Geoffrey Howe’s verbal pyrotechnics against Margaret Thatcher, but it will have rattled a few Downing Street teacups all the same. Modest, witty, stylishly courteous, the ex-chancellor’s ten-minute … Read more

ROSS CLARK: Life expectancy is NOT falling because of austerity. It’s just we’re fatter

We have heard the mantra so many times over the years that it must be true: ‘Tory austerity’ is killing off the poor. Listeners to Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday will have heard this same old narrative trotted out by Sir Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology at University College London, whose review into ‘health inequalities’, … Read more

HENRY DEEDES on a brain-zapping for MPs from the Shadow Chancellor

Whenever John McDonnell addresses the Commons, weird things happen in Westminster. The entire parliamentary estate is gripped by unexplained phenomena. Dark nimbus clouds suddenly form over Big Ben. Birds stop tweeting. Flowers along New Palace Yard begin to wilt. Over on Parliament Square, excitable puppies abruptly cease their wagging and curl into defensive balls. It … Read more

SARAH VINE: The most shattering truth about Harvey Weinstein and women has been laid bare 

The sordid story of Harvey Weinstein has taught us many unsavoury truths about Hollywood, and about the kind of abuse that lurks behind those million-dollar smiles. Never before have the workings of this tawdry world been laid bare in such excoriating detail. We have been spared nothing, from detailed descriptions of the ex-mogul’s apparently deformed … Read more

CRAIG BROWN: Eight things you didn’t know about badgers…

1 Badgers have hit the headlines after a new book, Sinking In The Swamp, revealed President Trump has an unexpected obsession with these shy nocturnal creatures. Authors Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng claim that when former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus tried to brief the President on healthcare initiatives or foreign policy, he … Read more

IAN BIRRELL: Yes, Sir Humphrey must be tamed. But I fear No 10’s hostile approach may yet backfire

Early skirmishes have erupted into open warfare bet-ween the Government and the army of civil servants resisting a Whitehall shake-up. Over the weekend, reports emerged that Boris Johnson wants to replace senior mandarins seen as ‘offside’ on Brexit, while Tory sources were said to be wielding a ‘s***-list’ of senior civil servants whom No 10 … Read more