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They say that politics is all about priorities. But what happens when the public says you’ve got it wrong? Mr S has got his hands on some polling – and it doesn’t make for happy reading for No. 10. Some 76 per cent of UK adults say the government has the wrong priorities, with low support for policies like football regulation and the smoking ban. It seems like the public have taken a leaf out of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s book: ‘Boo to nanny…’ When asked which areas the government is spending too much or too little time on, the proposed football regulator and the generational smoking ban policies ranked lowest. Just

Well, well, well. Sir Keir Starmer’s big immigration speech on Monday prompted accusations the Prime Minister was trying to ‘out-Reform Reform’ – but if this is the case, it doesn’t seem to be working. A new survey by political advisory firm True North has recorded the highest vote share to date for Farage’s party in a Westminster opinion poll, with 30 per cent of Brits backing Reform. Will the surge ever stop? The UK-wide poll, carried out between 2-5 May, put Labour five points behind Farage’s crowd on 25 per cent, while Kemi Badenoch’s boys in blue are lagging on 18 per cent. The Lib Dems are on 13 per

A week of diplomatic manoeuvring, ultimatums and psychological gambits has ended with a sadly predictable result: Vladimir Putin will not be coming to the negotiating table in Istanbul. Nor will he be sending a single cabinet-level negotiator. Instead the Russian delegation will be headed by former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky – the same low-level minion that Putin sent to the last round of talks in Istanbul in March-April 2022. Instead of a breakthrough, the great diplomatic effort led by Zelensky and the combined leaders of Europe have elicited nothing beyond a calculated insult from a defiant Kremlin.  This latest cycle of hope and failure in the endgame to the Ukraine

Across Europe, Nanny’s influence is growing: there has been a steady erosion of liberty for those of us who like to eat, drink, vape or smoke. Leading the pack in the 2025 Nanny State Index is Turkey where the state’s penchant for control borders on fetishistic, banning vapes outright and taxing alcohol off the scale. Its only saving grace is that so many of its little prohibitions are poorly enforced. Hot on its heels is Lithuania, where the war on fun is fought with puritanical zeal. Alcohol is a particular target, with the drinking age raised to 20 a few years ago and all advertising banned. E-cigarettes are not outlawed