Opinion

Sir James Dyson, Mike Ashley and the Coates family enjoyed momentary respite yesterday after appearing in the top 50 taxpayers list. Following a few turbulent weeks in which prominent Brexiteer Dyson shafted Britain by moving his company's headquarters to Singapore and Sports Direct owner Ashley shafted the city of Newcastle by skirting on transfer funds again the beleaguered billionaires enjoyed a moment in the sun as part of a cohort of 50 top tax-paying people who contribute nearly £2 billion year to...

Last week the Queen took time out of her busy schedule to appeal to the nation to find “common ground” in a divisive “modern age”. Addressing a women’s group in Sandringham, she said she prefers the tried and tested recipes “like speaking well of each other and respecting different points of view; coming together to seek out the common ground; and never losing sight of the bigger picture”. Her remarks were lauded by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, who...

A little under a year ago The London Economic exposed that billionaire entrepreneur Sir James Dyson was planning to create hundreds of jobs in Asia after promising Brits in June 2016 that "we will create more wealth and more jobs by being outside the EU". The piece sparked a hysterical response from the firm's PR officers. "No way are we moving jobs to Asia", they said, we're a "British company committed to investing in Britain". And so we retreated. Slightly. But as David...

The only moments in life that count for something are the exceptions. Mondays are Mondays just as Tuesdays blend into every other Tuesday except for the Wednesday that wasn’t a Wednesday because it was the day when, like the title of Joe Heller’s oft-neglected yet brilliant novel, Something Happened. For me, I’d retired from writing without even knowing I’d done just that. An idea would flare in my mind like a match lit by the flick of a thumbnail but...

Most certainly drugs should be legalised, because prohibition causes far more devastation than the drugs themselves. It pushes the production and distribution of these compounds into the hands of criminal cartels. It endangers users and obstructs scientific research and the careful creation of policies created to protect the health of citizens and generates vast untaxed profits which leads to corruption, violence and avoidable human suffering. The 50-year war on drugs has been a disaster. It was obviously doomed from the...

Picture this. Jeremy Corbyn is driving through Islington on constituency business. He pulls out of a side road too fast and collides with another car, carrying a woman and a nine-month-old baby. The woman suffers a broken wrist, but Corbyn and the baby are unharmed. When Corbyn is pulled from the car, he says “I’m such a fool” and tells police he was ‘dazzled by the Sun.’ Two days later, Corbyn is seen driving a new car and not wearing...

This weekend’s revelations that Theresa May is considering axeing the Human Rights Act after Brexit should come as no surprise. The party responsible for the Windrush scandal and other hostile immigration policies have been hamstrung by compassionate elements of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) for years. Proposals to reform human rights law were included in the Conservative party manifesto in 2015, putting in writing age-old promises to “break” the link between the British court and the European court...

So much of the European Union referendum was about “taking back control”. Today, now fallacies around money for the NHS, economic freedom and immigration have been cast aside it is one of the few arguments Brexiteers have left in their armoury when defending their rationale for voting out. But if we are indeed to take back control when we leave the EU, then who are we giving it to? Well, if today’s speech from Boris Johnson is anything to go...

Theresa May reiterated once again that she will “respect the result of the referendum” this week as she took questions from Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs. The Prime Minister reverted back to her default position amidst mounting pressure from politicians to hold a second referendum. According to the latest polls the UK would vote to stay in the European Union by a huge 12 percentage points if it was given another vote. It is the highest level since the Brexit referendum...