There was bad news last week for aperitivo-loving bigots, as the self-styled “people’s news channel” GB News declared the negroni the signature drink of the “woke… establishment media” – something that would probably surprise the 19th-century Corsican count and decorated cavalry officer credited with its creation. But I doubt this ruby-red cocktail, apparently a favourite of David and Samantha Cameron, is only popular with the socially aware: these days everyone is drinking them… apart from, it seems, the handful of people watching GB News. And that’s fine – one should only drink what one enjoys, and for a long time the British did not share the Italian enthusiasm for bitter tipples. Indeed I suspect that this was part of the negroni’s ...

George Osborne advanced perhaps the most important argument in favour of the two-child benefit cap. Announcing the policy to limit tax credits and welfare payments after the second child in 2015, he said that it aimed “to ensure that families in receipt of benefits faced the same financial choices about having children as those supporting themselves solely in work”. This is important not because it explains why the cap, which Keir Starmer has now said a Labour government would keep, was introduced – this is the Treasury we’re talking about, it was to save money – but because it explains why the cap is so persistently popular with the electorate. It has not, after all, actually worked, at least according to its ...

No extra benefits for those with three or more kids. That’s the line Keir Starmer pushed on the BBC yesterday (16 July), confirming that Labour would not scrap the two-child benefit cap, which prevents parents claiming benefits for their third or subsequent child. There seem to be two core reasons for the move. First, the policy is broadly popular with voters. A YouGov poll from last week found 60 per cent of people want to keep the limit in place, including Labour voters by 47 per cent to 35 per cent. Second, the leadership wants to close down any debate over policy that would require spending commitments, even if scrapping the cap would only cost £1.3bn a year. The strategy is ...

When my friend invited me to a dating event last month, I leapt on the invitation. Earlier that day, I had found out that a guy I had spent most of a wedding flirting with had a girlfriend. I was bored of online dating. And I was bored of finding out that guys who hit on me have girlfriends – so I was heartened by the thought of an event primarily for people seeking “primary partners”. And, apparently, it was primarily for “EAs”, which I originally took to mean executive assistants. When my friend clarified that it stood for effective altruists – of which he is one – I was sceptical. Effective altruism is a movement composed of organisations such as ...

Liz Truss’s ghost lives on. But she is haunting the Labour Party. In the ruin of the mini-Budget, Labour saw an opportunity to usurp the Conservatives as the party of fiscal responsibility. But at what cost? The party ceded a lot. It lambasted her attempt to achieve growth through unfunded borrowing. This was the kamikaze Budget, the one that bankrupted the country. So eager was Labour to forget Liam Byrne’s 2010 letter to his Treasury chief secretary successor, which said there was “no money left”, it wielded Truss’s ideological pursuit of growth as a shield against accusations that it was profligate. But Keir Starmer was the first politician to champion economic growth. In July last year, he argued, definitively and largely unnoticed, ...

"What has gone wrong in Sunderland?” asked Neil Kinnock. He was reacting news of my selection, in June 1985, as Labour candidate for the stronghold of Sunderland South. The Labour leader was on a visit to the north-east and, believing himself in safe company, began to express himself in language that was characteristically colourful. “First,” he said "Sunderland has an MP who is a boil on the arse of the Labour Party.” A reference to the estimable Sunderland North MP, Bob Clay. “Now they have gone and selected a certifiable lunatic." Looking back, I realise how fortunate I was. Despite my not being a favourite son of the local establishment – and a southerner to boot – and despite, to put it mildly, ...

Working people are facing unprecedented pressure on their household incomes. Average real wages are now no higher than they were in 2005. But while most people’s incomes fall, the wealth of multimillionaires and billionaires has reached record highs. While millions of families are struggling to make ends meet, Porsche had a record year in 2022 and sales of superyachts have surged too. CEO pay is surging – up 23 per cent at FTSE 100 companies last year – and bankers’ bonuses are at their highest level since the financial crash. In short, wealth is being rewarded, work is not. Yet under our flawed system, this rising wealth is not being taxed fairly. Everyone knows someone on an NHS waiting list as staff ...

Angela Rayner transformed today’s PMQs into a history lesson. The deputy Labour leader took the House of Commons back to 1996 and channelled John Prescott, asking Oliver Dowden, the Deputy Prime Minister, who “is no Heseltine”, the same questions as her predecessor. She pointed out that “tens of thousands of families are facing repossession and homelessness”, as Prescott did 27 years ago, and mimicked Theresa May’s “nothing has changed” shrug as a final flourish. Dowden, who was standing in for Rishi Sunak for the second week in a row because the Prime Minister is attending a Nato summit, replied with a dig about Jeremy Corbyn supporting UK withdrawal from the military alliance. He went on to say that he would “take no lectures” ...