All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
‘Purposeful activity’ is a phrase often heard in discussions about our prisons. It describes work, training, therapeutic courses and other meaningful activities which improve prisoners’ mental health and make them less likely to behave antisocially in prison or offend after release. In theory our prisons should make sure that most prisoners are spending a significant
Dear oh dear. It now transpires that Lord Alli is under investigation by the Lords Commissioner – with the millionaire businessman being looked into over ‘alleged non-registration of interests’ with concerns the Labour donor may have breached the Lords code of conduct. How curious… The donor – who funded workwear for the Prime Minister and
At long last, and not a day too soon, it transpires that London’s ‘night czar’ is standing down. Amy Lamé will leave her City Hall role at the end of the month after, er, eight years in the job on a six-figure annual salary – despite receiving a 40 per cent pay hike part way
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Last night the Vice Presidential nominees JD Vance and Tim Walz went head to head in a televised debate. It began with the war erupting in the Middle East, followed by a clash over abortion and immigration. Freddy Gray speaks to Sarah Eliot from Republicans Overseas about why Vance came out on top, and whether
Who was the winner from today’s Tory leadership speeches? The final day of the party conference saw all four candidates take to the stage in a bid to have a David Cameron moment. Back in 2005, Cameron managed to gain momentum at the party conference with an assured speech (no notes) and get one over
What an ordeal. If there is one thing more trying than watching a leader’s speech at a party conference, it is watching four of them in a row – four doses of platitudes, jokes that miss the mark, personal anecdotes about their childhood and parents which are supposed to build up a sense of character
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The final day of the party conference saw all four candidates take to the stage in a bid to have a David Cameron moment. Back in 2005, Cameron managed to gain momentum at the party conference with an assured speech (no notes) and get one over on his main rival – the then frontrunner –
Something happened at the Conservative party conference today which suggested it is too soon to write off the democratic world’s most successful party: there were three brilliant speeches in a row. Given that this political era is not known for its great orators, this was a most unusual and very welcome occurrence. It is too soon
The Tory front runner was third up in Birmingham. Throughout this race, Robert Jenrick has sought to position himself as someone with the polish of David Cameron and the politics of Nigel Farage. His speech today was very much in that vein: a staunchly right-wing message centred around delivering a ‘new Conservative party’. Like Cameron
Kemi Badenoch’s opening video before her speech had a series of politicians and normal people talking at odd angles into their phones about the need for a new politician. She was pictured smiling, charming people in person, and vowing ‘let’s renew’, before she walked onto the stage for another no-notes speech. It was, as you
Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot have had a tough time of it lately with the freebie fiasco – and it’s only getting worse. Now it transpires that Labour figures received gifts from the gambling sector worth, er, over £1 million. Talk about a bad bet, eh? Starmer’s army accepted a range of items from the
James Cleverly’s speech did a much better job than Tom Tugendhat’s of explaining what sort of person he is, and what he wants to do with the party. It was very characteristic of Cleverly: there were lots of mentions of ‘optimism’, which is probably his guiding philosophy in life, and some well-delivered jokes, including one
It is the final day of Tory conference and the event for which we have all been waiting: the four leadership candidates are each delivering their 20-minute speeches, setting out their vision for the country. Tom Tugendhat had the mixed blessing of going first. The benefit of this was that it allowed him to deliver
Iran’s decision to launch 181 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday night followed a similar pattern to the attacks of 14 April. Israeli and allied air defences appear to have performed extremely effectively. The damage to the military and civilian sites targeted is minor to non-existent. One Palestinian Arab man was killed in a village near Jericho, not from
Even the most ardent Trump-loathers are admitting that, last night, the Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance easily won his debate against his opposite number, Tim Walz. ‘Vance is going home with Walz’s wallet,’ said the veteran Never Trumper David Frum. It’s curious, then, that – at time of writing at least – Donald Trump still hasn’t
Last night, Iran launched a large-scale missile strike against Israel, dubbed ‘Operation True Promise II’. According to the latest reports, the attack involved approximately 180 ballistic missiles, making it one of the largest missile assaults in history. Iranian officials stated that the attack was in retaliation for the assassination of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran
Prime Minister Michel Barnier addressed parliament on Tuesday afternoon as he outlined his government’s policy programme. The priority, explained Barnier, was to tackle France’s ‘colossal’ debt of 3.2 trillion (£2.7 trillion) euros, which has left the Republic with the ‘sword of Damocles hanging over the head of France and every French person’. The gravity of
Oh. My. Lord. I’ve been looking at Dawn Butler’s spoken verse as presented by her on X and it’s difficult to know what to say. It is, it seems, Dawn’s contribution to Black History Month. The lyrics are at the bottom of the page, though for the full effect you really need to hear her
To manage expectations in the run-up to last night’s debate, Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, let it be known through anonymous sources that he was nervous. He didn’t want to let Kamala Harris down. Well, he was tense and it showed. The first question was, inevitably, about the big story of the moment,
At age 85, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been risk-averse for much of his time in office. He has preferred to operate through proxies and partners like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis rather than directly engaging in combat with Israel and the United States. This is how he has survived. Since becoming supreme
The most important takeaway from the vice-presidential debate between Senator J.D. Vance and Governor Tim Walz is that this is what a serious debate for high office should look like. It was calm but impassioned, thoughtful, and truly helpful to any voter who wants to understand the policy differences between the two tickets. The candidates
Tim Walz versus J.D. Vance was the anti-Trump debate. There were no references to the animal kingdom in this Vice-Presidential debate. There were no sharp attacks about abortion. There were no vituperative comments about a lack of character. There weren’t even any assessments of golf handicaps à la Joe Biden and Donald Trump during their first debate.
Kemi Badenoch kicked up an almighty stink when she argued at the weekend that not all cultures are ‘equally valid’ when it comes to immigration. The Tory leadership contender was forced to clarify her comments, made in the Sunday Telegraph. ‘I actually think it extraordinary to think that’s an unusual or controversial thing to say,’
A trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. Of course, France now owes even more than that. To be precise, a colossal €3,228,000,000,000. Up by one trillion euros since the election in 2017 of President Emmanuel Macron, the ‘Mozart of finance’. A ‘sword of Damocles’, admitted the new
Uh oh. There’s trouble in Tory paradise after leadership candidate Robert Jenrick made some rather questionable remarks about the armed forces. At the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, the wannabe leader claimed that: ‘Special forces are killing rather than capturing terrorists’ because of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Tory frontrunner added that ‘those
This year’s Tory conference has seen a number of old faces as well as new – and the appearance of Boris Johnson’s former culture secretary at a More in Common event this evening has caused quite the stir. Nadine Dorries told delegates that her brief speech at a venue outside of the conference centre would
It’s the final night of Tory party conference and tempers are fraying. Three of the four leadership candidates have ended up weighing in on the 2019 sacking of the late Roger Scruton from his role as an unpaid adviser to the Department for Housing, after an interview he gave to the New Statesman (which was
It has been a busy Conservative conference for Kemi Badenoch, whose comments on Sunday about maternity pay have dominated the last few days. Each of the other candidates in the Tory leadership race is wary of saying anything that might remotely damage their chances next week. But Badenoch remains undaunted by criticism, as she showed
Israel has come under widespread missile attack from Iran. Some 200 ground-to-ground missiles were launched from Iran, according to Israeli media. Israelis have been ordered to stay in bomb shelters while the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) intercept missiles overhead. The sound of interceptions over Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city, are constant and deafening. So far,
Iranian missiles are slicing through the evening sky over Tel Aviv as Tehran responds to the killing of Hezbollah leader and terrorist mastermind Hassan Nasrallah. Some reports on Israeli television put the number of missiles at 100, while the head of emergency medical organisation Magen David Adom has told Channel 12 that the number is
Vice-presidential debates rarely matter in politics except as fodder for jokes and, for today’s lazier commentariat, memes of the lesser variety. The greatest moment in modern vice-presidential debate history is Lloyd Bentsen’s ‘you’re no Jack Kennedy’ zinger of Dan Quayle, a debate win so effective that Bentsen and Michael Dukakis lost 40 states. Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman’s
We have all found ourselves making a point and seeing the argument run away from us unexpectedly. Perhaps that was Robert Jenrick’s feeling when he was challenged on a claim that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was giving British soldiers no option but to murder terrorist suspects. ‘Our special forces are killing rather
The Tory leadership race is ramping up — and so is Kemi Badenoch’s anti-Reform rhetoric. The contender for the top job hasn’t held back on her views of Nigel Farage this week, and the back and forth looks set to continue… The Reform leader has been rather uncomplimentary about Badenoch of late — tweeting furiously
It’s the second day of the big Tory leadership interviews at party conference and Robert Jenrick is on the main stage. Making his case for why he should be elected leader of the Conservative party, the former minister slammed the state of the Home Office as being ‘in ashes’, promised he would ‘re-enact’ a version