Day: November 21, 2017

    Driverless cars are the chancellor’s vision. He promised to ride one but yesterday backed off: someone warned him driverlessness was a bad look on budget eve. If he is trying to mimic Harold Wilson’s 1964 white heat of technology, it may not be as popular. Few yet yearn for robots on the roads certainly not the million professional drivers fearful of joining the unemployed, even if Philip Hammond wrongly claimed on Sunday that the unemployed don’t exist. But it’s a faithful image nonetheless. There was never such a driverless cabinet, crashing daily as its members split and split again like Trotskyite groupuscules. You might think the great fault line between Brexiteers and remainers was enough. But no. Michael Gove and Boris Johnson’s astonishingly aggressive letter to th...

    Britain's election watchdog has re-opened an investigation into a controversial donation made by the Vote Leave campaign group during the final days of the Brexit referendum campaign. The Electoral Commission announced on Monday that it was probing whether a £625,000 ($827,000) gift to Darren Grimes, a 24-year-old fashion student, was in breach of strict election regulations. It is also investigating Vote Leave directly over claims that it breached the maximum spending limit during the referendum period. This is the second time the donation is being investigated. In a press release on Monday, the commission said it had decided to investigate again. Explaining the decision, it said: New information has come to light which, when considered alongside the information obtained ...

    A suicide bomber killed at least 50 people at a mosque in northeastern Nigeria on Tuesday in the biggest mass killing this year in a region facing an insurgency by Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Abubakar Othman, a police spokesman in Adamawa state, said the death toll from the attack in the town of Mubi is 50 people, but there could be more as those seriously injured could add to the figure. Mubi is in Adamawa state where Boko Haram militants held territory in 2014, although the insurgents were pushed out of those areas by troops in early 2015. Boko Haram typically mounts suicide attacks in crowded public places such as mosques and markets. Tuesday's attack is the highest loss of life since 56 people were killed in the same state last December, when two schoolgirl sui...

    Theresa May faced a backlash from Tory MPs Monday over plans to pay up to £40billion in a Brexit divorce bill. A host of senior Conservatives blasted plans to stump up a ransom to Brussels after a crunch private meeting of her Brexit War Cabinet. Theresa May is said to be raising the offer to Brussels in a bid to close a deal Mrs May triggered mounting opposition to a hefty divorce bill, amid claims she is set to offer another £20billion on top of what she has already signalled she is willing to pay. Voters would go bananas if the UK forked out £40billion, warned former minister Robert Halfon. He told the BBC: If we start saying that we’re going to give £40 to £50 billion to the EU, I think the public will go bananas, absolutely spare. I voted Remain because I believe in a...