Politics

King Charles III is all set for his ‘Scottish coronation’ in Edinburgh tomorrow. Yet despite the royal fervour north of the border, Mr S hears that the nationalists are still not satisfied. Alex Salmond of the pro-independence Alba party and Green co-leaders, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, have all snubbed the royal invitation. Quelle surprise. ‘This ceremony is entirely wrong-headed and neither fish nor fowl,’ raged Salmond, after revealing he has declined the monarch’s invitation to what he called the ‘artificial and second rate ceremony’. According to Salmond, ‘Charles is being poorly advised by a group of courtiers who have a great love of pomp and no understanding of circumstance.’

Will the government meet its NHS target? Health Secretary Steve Barclay was asked about this when he did the broadcast round this morning, arguing that even though there were record waiting numbers, the government had successfully reduced the longest waits. But as Fraser wrote this week in his Telegraph column, Rishi Sunak is having to face up to the chance that he might miss this (and most of his other) five ‘priorities’ which he said the British people should judge him against at the next election. But voters might be paying a little less attention to another area of care where things are visibly going backwards: mental health. When I

Nearly three quarters of French people think it’s time for President Macron to send in the army to restore order to the towns and cities that have been sacked in recent days. According to a poll published yesterday, 70 per cent of people said they wanted the military to be deployed to areas that have been looted, vandalised and firebombed since police shot dead a 17-year-old in western Paris on Tuesday morning. The teenager, Nahel, was laid to rest on Saturday afternoon but it remains to be seen whether the furious reaction to his death – for which a policeman has been charged with voluntary manslaughter – will abate in