All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
AN: Nicola Sturgeon the SNP has governed Scotland for ten years, so can we start by agreeing that the performance of Scottish public services is the responsibility of you and the SNP government? NS: I take responsibility for the performance of our public services, although Scotland’s overall budget of course is determined by decisions taken
Given Scottish Labour’s rapid fall from grace north of the border, Mr S suspects that its leader Kezia Dugdale has grown accustomed to being on the receiving end of many choice words from the public. However, she probably wasn’t expecting Sophy Ridge’s most recent slip of the tongue. On Sky News, Ridge introduced Dugdale as the
Amber Rudd – Abedi operation is still at ‘full tilt’ In the wake of Monday’s horrific attack in Manchester, Andrew Marr interviewed the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, about what action the government was taking in the aftermath of the attack, and whether the government and security services had done enough to prevent the attack happening
With Labour beginning to gain ground in the polls, the party will be keen to keep its momentum going in the final days of the campaign. So, whichever brain at Labour HQ decided it was a good idea to send Diane Abbott onto the Andrew Marr show has some explaining to do. Explaining her credentials
The latest challenge was to supply a poem that takes as its first line W.S. Gilbert’s ‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one’ but replaces ‘policeman’ with another trade or profession. Although this line doesn’t come until line eight in Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘Policeman’s Song’, it was the opening I prescribed and so it
Where’s all the unpredictability in politics gone? After the hubbub about a ‘crisis of liberalism’ and the thrills of punting on Trump and Brexit, election betting in 2017 is beginning to look almost boring. Everybody who wasn’t crazy — or excessively paranoid about the return of fascism — knew that Emmanuel Macron would beat Marine
My father worked as a fire warden during the Blitz, trying to contain the damage done by the Luftwaffe, and he witnessed more death and devastation than most soldiers saw on the frontline. Over a million houses in London were destroyed and nearly 20,000 civilians killed. But the horrors of the night were made more
Perhaps we’re now past the moment of shock. Certainly we’ve moved fairly swiftly past the other stages of post-massacre grief. With the departure of Katie Hopkins from LBC it is good to see that Monday night’s attack in Manchester has not gone completely unpunished. The desire to point fingers and scapegoat is a perfectly normal
The news that the Tory lead has dropped to just five points, according to a Times/YouGov poll yesterday, has been dismissed in some quarters as an exception to the polls, rather than the rule. However, even if you don’t buy that the Tory lead over Labour is now at its lowest since Theresa May came to power, it
We learned something important from Jeremy Corbyn’s interview with Andrew Neil: The Labour leader wants to be Prime Minister and will do whatever it takes. His soppier critics often announce their sympathy for a man who would be much happier on the backbenches. Do not believe a word of it. Listen instead to what he told the BBC
Jeremy Corbyn and his crowd always blame Britain first, I argue in The Sun today. They view the West as being responsible for the world’s ills. It was this worldview that led Corbyn to say in his first speech since the Manchester attack that British foreign policy increases the risk of terrorism at home. Now,
Before the timely invention of the motor car, large urban centres were drowning in horse manure – only the ‘crossing sweepers’ who for a fee would clear a path through the mire for pedestrians made street life bearable. I thought of them as their opposite numbers – the conspiracy theorists – spread their predictable ordure
There’s one headline you didn’t read in the aftermath of the Manchester attack: Isis celebrates ‘crusaders’ attack and vows further violence against Christians Sounds silly, I know. But look at what Isis actually said in their statement after the bombing: I have not seen the word ‘Christian’ mentioned in a single report since this statement was published.
Until last week, it was thought that the jihadi threat was subsiding and the security services were increasingly able to disrupt any serious plot. The recent attacks involved knives or rented cars – deadly in the wrong hands but a far cry from the 7/7 attacks, or the seven-aircraft Heathrow aircraft bomb plot thwarted in 2006.
A hundred years after the Russian revolution, Russia has a tsar and a court. Proximity to Putin is the key to wealth, office and survival. The outward signs of a court society have returned: double-headed eagles, the imperial coat of arms, the cult of Nicholas II (one of whose recently erected statues has ‘wept tears’),
Jeremy Corbyn first became an MP 30-odd years ago. Until he became Labour leader, Corbyn was a relatively unknown figure with all sorts of fringe views. Corbyn said, and did, a lot of things with minimal scrutiny because no one thought he would ever be in a position of power. But Corbyn is now Labour’s
AN: Mr Corbyn, today you drew a link between terror attacks at home and British actions abroad. Do you believe if Britain had not followed the foreign policy it has since Tony Blair was in office the attack on Manchester would not have happened? JC: The attack on Manchester was shocking, appalling, indefensible, wrong in
If, as seems increasingly likely, Jeremy Corbyn becomes British Prime Minister in June, his victory should be greeted not simply with incredulity in the United States, but also elation. A Corbyn triumph should arrive as soothing balm to Donald Trump’s wounded feelings. Corbyn stands for much of what Trump has espoused. Both men revile NATO,
Today, Jeremy Corbyn elevated terrorist attacks from acts of medieval mass murder to the level of a political statement. He injected the slaughter of pop fans and their parents with the frisson of anti-imperialism. He may not have meant to do this, but he did. When he said in his speech this morning that terrorism at
With a slim majority of just over 2,000 to defend, Nick Clegg has his work cut out holding onto Sheffield Hallam in next month’s snap election. So, with less than two weeks to go until polling day, surely the Liberal Democrat is busying himself campaigning locally? Well, perhaps not. Mr S was curious to discover that the
With Labour closing the gap on the Tories in the polls, it was only a matter of time before an act of self-immolation returned them to square one. This morning, Corbyn gave a speech in which he drew a link between British foreign policy and terrorist attacks on home soil. This will surely go down
The most dangerous thing about Jeremy Corbyn’s speech today, blaming terror attacks in Britain on wars we have fought abroad, is that it is partly true. The temptation for the Conservatives will be to show outrage at the words: ‘Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed to the connections between
Until recently, the prospect of Theresa May flopping in this general election would have been absurd – but today’s YouGov poll shows her lead cut to just five points, less than a quarter of its peak. Converted into seats, that would mean a majority of just two MPs, down from the 17-strong majority achieved by
Our whole nation has been united in shock and grief this week as a night out at a concert ended in horrific terror and the brutal slaughter of innocent people enjoying themselves. When I stood on Albert Square at the vigil in Manchester, there was a mood of unwavering defiance. The very act of thousands of people
After the atrocity in Manchester on Monday night, campaigning for the general election resumes today. With just a fortnight to go before voting, the parties have a lot of ground to cover, not least their plans for the economy. I don’t suppose either Labour or the Conservatives will thank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
This week’s Best Buys, provided by Moneyfacts, are Remortgage Rates.
Corbyn is closing in on May, the Times reports this morning, as a poll from YouGov shows the gap between the two parties is down to just five points with less than two weeks to go until election day. The latest numbers show the Conservatives have, once again, seen their support drop: this time by
In the aftermath of recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Nice, the BBC’s This Week has kicked off with a speech from Andrew Neil on the tragedies — and the ‘jihadi johnnies’ responsible. Last night, in the wake of the Manchester Arena terror attack which left 22 people dead, Andrew Neil adopted a different tone —
What does Isis want? As Douglas Murray writes in this week’s cover piece, jihadis are quite clear on the subject – but we just aren’t listening. The question that never seems to be asked, however, is: what do we want? That is the core of my objection when our politicians tell us to continue as normal
One might have expected the general election campaign to resume in a softly-softly fashion following the Manchester bombing. But Jeremy Corbyn’s speech tomorrow morning will lead to some of the most vigorous political debate we have seen in recent times. Corbyn will say ‘Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed
For those who argue that Britain should blindly accept refugees, the family history of Salman Abedi must make somewhat uncomfortable reading. Salman was born in Britain in 1994 to a couple who had newly arrived as refugees from Libya. At the time, such people were welcomed with open arms because they were opponents of President
The Manchester murders have given British politics its first conspiracy theory with a grain of truth in it. It may sound ghoulish to discuss the political consequences of an atrocity. But terrorism is a political crime, and we are in a general election campaign. Everyone is thinking that the Manchester attack passes the advantage to
Ukip has vowed to ban the burka if it ever comes to power and in its manifesto – which it launched today – the party calls on people to show ‘your face in a public place’. But there’s a problem: in the same document in which the party unveiled its policy, there was one person who could
Inflation is rising. Real wages are stagnant, and GDP is being revised downwards, putting us down there with the likes of Italy. If Theresa May had a script for the final fortnight of the election campaign it probably didn’t include figures like those. Today’s revision of the quarterly GDP number, down to a sluggish-looking 0.2