Simon Heffer's Blog, page 13

How eight years of Barack Obama created Donald Trump

T his article was originally published on February 13, 2016. It has been republished in light of the course of the US election .

Brexit is going to happen - and the judges aren't stopping it

I wouldnt bet on the Supreme Court overturning the decision by three senior judges to prevent the royal prerogative being used to trigger Article 50 of the EU constitution , and the Brexit process. To tell the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls that they are wrong...

Enoch Powell was the greatest man I have ever known, and history will be kind to him

A play in Birmingham dramatises events around Enoch Powells Rivers of Blood speech , delivered there in April 1968. Powell asked me to write his biography and we spent hours discussing this episode, which ended his front-bench career but made him the best-known politician in Britain.

DRS betrays the spirit of cricket and undermines the art of umpiring

T wo questions one predominantly practical, the other largely philosophical have arisen so far out of Englands winter on the Indian subcontinent. The former is what England do about their desperate shortage of world-class spin bowlers , clearer than ever after Mehedi Hasans stunning role in Englands defeat...

Tony Blair brilliantly shoots the Remain cause in the foot with his ill-timed intervention

T here is, I am reliably informed, as much chance of the Prime Minister joining Labour as of her agreeing to another referendum on our membership of the EU. For Tony Blair to call for one on Friday was unfortunate for him and his cause.

May's golden opportunity; Trump can still win; and the sordid pillory of Sir Philip Green

D espite the hysterics of the politically ignorant teenagers in our financial markets, and the jeremiads of those still outraged that the common people did not do as they were told and vote to stay in the corrupt and dysfunctional European Union, Britain remains a prosperous and strong country with...

Nicola Sturgeon is a living in a parallel universe of delusionary effluent. Theresa May should call her bluff

L eaders say things at party conferences that look embarrassing on reflection, but one senses that Nicola Sturgeon lives so snugly in the parallel universe of her independent Scotland that she will remain ever satisfied with the effluent she has pumped out to the SNP's latest gathering.

Theresa May take note: all successful prime ministers curb the power of the Treasury

T he almost autonomous behaviour of the Treasury over the past 20 or so years defies the nature of our constitution, and encourages an anti-democratic streak in how we are governed: a streak manifesting itself as seldom before in the desperate attempts of parts of the political establishment to reverse...

Theresa May is following Enoch Powell ��� by actually listening to what British people want

M any will recall the conflict in the Conservative party in the late 1960s and early 1970s between its then leader, Ted Heath, and its great ideologue, Enoch Powell. Powell took issue with Heath on various points, and two resonate today.

The City traders betting against the pound are ignorant teenagers without the foggiest idea what Brexit means

I m getting rather tired of what Nigel Lawson called the teenage scribblers, the currency traders and analysts whose actions affect the value of sterling. In the last 30 years matters have worsened.