Congratulations, students – welcome to a broken system August 17, 2018 It is hard to think of a more eccentrically British fixation than the national obsession with A-level results day. And there’s something for everyone in the results announced yesterday A rise in the proportion of students achieving As and A*s (“exams have become too easy”), a fall in the numbers achieving above a C grade [...]
MPs tell Hammond: Don’t even think about a vape tax August 16, 2018 An influential committee of MPs has urged the government to ease its rules on e-cigarettes in the wake of reports that the Treasury plans to slap vapers with a new sin tax. In a report which hits out at the government for “missing significant opportunities” to tackle smoking-related deaths, the Science and Technology Committee has called [...]
Turkish President Erdogan has no one to blame but himself August 15, 2018 US President Donald Trump has done everything in his power to help fuel the narrative his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wants to portray, stoking the fires of the country’s currency crisis through sanctions and, of course, tweets. Erdogan has cast himself as a man of the people fighting against external forces, and now the [...]
Tory MPs hit back over rail fare hike August 14, 2018 The government has come under fire from Tory MPs for hiking train fares amid a growing dispute over the measure used to determine price rises. Transport secretary Chris Grayling said tonight the government will “freeze regulated fares in line with inflation” for the sixth year running, a move that will potentially add hundreds of pounds to [...]
Emergency COBRA meeting to be held after terror attack August 14, 2018 An emergency COBRA meeting is being convened this afternoon, following a terror attack outside Parliament this morning. Armed police officers arrested the man, who drove a silver Ford Fiesta into the security barriers outside the Houses of Parliament shortly after 7:30am, on suspicion of terror offences. He is not believed to be known to police, [...]
Jobs miracle is a real achievement for the UK August 14, 2018 Brexit, Boris and burqas. These are hardly halcyon days for the Conservatives, who – according to the latest opinion poll – trail Labour by two points, despite Jeremy Corbyn’s hapless and controversy-laden leadership. Nonetheless, yesterday held a reminder of a genuinely remarkable achievement that successive Tory inhabitants of Downing Street can point towards – namely, [...]
Bad Apple: Erdogan threatens iPhone boycott after spat with US August 14, 2018 Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a boycott of iPhones and other American electronic products yesterday as tensions between the two countries escalated. Erdogan remained defiant amid what he called an “economic war” with the US after Washington imposed punitive sanctions on Ankara. “Whatever we buy from abroad we are going to produce here in [...]
Jeremy Corbyn’s approval ratings reach lowest level in a year – but Don’t Know is still the most popular option for PM August 10, 2018 Jeremy Corbyn's approval rating has fallen to the lowest level since May 2017, as the Labour leader fails to grapple with the antisemitism claims dogging his party. A new YouGov poll found just 22 per cent would support him as Prime Minister, compared with 36 per cent of people backing Theresa May. Neither of those [...]
Even the Venezuelan President knows that socialism has failed August 10, 2018 Venezuela is back in the news, with a plot straight out of a Netflix drama storyline. The apparent assassination attempt on President Nicolas Maduro last Saturday has everything: a drone explosion during the President’s speech, the terrified reaction of his wife captured during a live broadcast, and now a slew of accusations and counter conspiracy [...]
Russia hits out at ‘unacceptable’ US sanctions and warns of retaliation August 9, 2018 Russia is planning retaliatory measures against sanctions imposed by the US over the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal, which caused the rouble to fall to its lowest level since November 2016 today. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said today that Moscow was starting to work on measures following Washington’s decision to impose sanctions, which [...]