All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of National Review, is being cancelled for calling Haitian immigrants the N-word. One problem: he didn’t. Lowry was on Megyn Kelly’s podcast to talk about the claims, amplified by Donald Trump and JD Vance, that Haitians have been snacking on local cats in Springfield, Ohio. He commented on a combative interview Vance
Following the huge success of the 2011 film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – from the book of the same name by John le Carré – there was much talk of a second movie, based on le Carré’s 1979 novel Smiley’s People. The possibility was floated by Tinker Tailor cast member Gary Oldman in 2012 and
The toll wreaked from the events of 17 and 18 September has been extensive. According to the best estimates, more than 3,500 people were injured and 37 were killed. The events I’m referring to, of course, were the sudden and surprise explosions of thousands of electronic devices, carried (in the majority) by members of Hezbollah
In a wetsuit and atop a jet ski, Sir Ed Davey hurtled towards the Brighton shore, descending on the Liberal Democrat conference this week with yet another eye-catching stunt. One can only hope it is the final one in what has been months (years?) of such exploits. No doubt the party and its press officers
Overlook for the moment the shenanigans surrounding French prime minister Michel Barnier’s attempt to cobble together a new government. One political crisis can conceal another. And a more existential spectre is haunting Paris. Its name is Marine Le Pen. Amidst the chaos, the weakened president and the hapless efforts to form a government, the leader
Freshers’ Week. It sounds so appealing, even to an uneducated counter-jumper like me who finds the word ‘uni’ so repellent that it’s right up there with ‘gusset’ and ‘spasm’. At British universities it mostly means drinking a lot of alcohol – our historical reaction to most situations – which may contribute to outbreaks of what is
Smart meters were meant to make our lives easier. They were designed to help us reduce energy consumption and cut bills. Over the last five years, the government has been pushing energy firms to install these meters as quickly as possible. Millions of homes have been fitted with one. The flashing screen monitoring how much
Say what you like about Steven Patrick Morrissey – lead singer of The Smiths, the Mancunian miserabilist, ‘the Pope of Mope’ etc – but he has a knack, nearly four decades after his band dissolved acrimoniously, for coming out with attention- and headline-grabbing pronouncements. At first glance these declarations might seem like revelatory news stories,
A week is a long time in politics. Keir Starmer began the week sending out his senior ministers to defend his decision to accept donations of clothing for both himself and his wife Lady Victoria Starmer from Waheed Alli, the Labour peer. On Sunday, David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, suggested these donations were necessary, for
It’s his sworn ambition to become Prime Minister of the UK by 2029. But is Nigel Farage perhaps spending a little bit too much time in the States? Barely had the Reform leader finished addressing his party conference, then ‘ping!’ An email arrived in Steerpike’s inbox touting Farage’s latest trip across the pond. The former
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Party conference season continues as Reform UK’s kicks off today in Birmingham. Katy Balls has been at the NEC hearing from Richard Tice, Lee Anderson and leader Nigel Farage, amongst others. What’s been the mood? And, after a remarkable few months, what could be next for the party? With Labour conference starting at the weekend,
Nigel Farage has just finished his keynote speech at the Reform party’s annual conference. In a performance enhanced by Eminem, balloons and pyrotechnics, the Reform leader received a rapturous response from the packed NEC arena on the outskirts of Birmingham. Farage used the speech to argue that his party is only just beginning. He said
Reform’s party conference is in full swing in Birmingham, as the leadership continue to hammer home their pivotal role in the Tory party’s disastrous result in July. But as Nigel Farage and friends celebrate their own success in the general election – with five MPs entering parliament – the group is looking to the future
Ding ding ding! The gloves are coming off today in Birmingham, where Reform UK is hosting its day-long party conference. The Nigel Farage-led party is celebrating the election of its five MPs and its takedown of the Tories with speeches from a variety of MPs and party bigwigs crammed in between 12pm and 4pm. The
Sir Keir’s frockgate scandal is only gathering pace, it appears, after a rather calamitous week for the Prime Minister. Donations received by both Starmer and his wife have been heavily scrutinised after it emerged at the weekend that Lady Starmer’s gifts were not declared in line with parliamentary protocol. Rules for thee, but not for
‘Whatever happens, Vladimir Putin must not be allowed to win the war in Ukraine’. For the first time since being released from a Russian prison in August, the politician Vladimir Kara-Murza arrived in London this week for a series of high-profile meetings to discuss Russia’s future. Kara-Murza, who holds both Russian and British citizenship, was
Russia’s decision to kick out six alleged British spies in August prompted a strange sense of deja vu. After the Salisbury nerve agent attack in March 2018, I sweated for a week in the British Embassy in Moscow, waiting to hear if I’d be kicked out in the diplomatic tit-for-tat. We need a better plan
With the Huw Edwards court case complete – and the disgraced BBC News presenter given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, after he admitted charges of making indecent images of children – attention has returned to the fact that he could still receive a £300,000-a-year BBC pension. Many are horrified by this. There
This morning marks a milestone – but it’s nothing to celebrate. Public sector net debt as a percentage of the economy has exceeded 100 per cent: a level not seen since the early 1960s. And there are no signs of course correction. The latest update from the Office for National Statistics shows, once again, that
Sir Keir Starmer will be hoping his first Labour conference as Prime Minister this weekend goes better than the last week has done. The PM’s top team is getting rather worried about a host of negative briefings about the government, with leaks including Starmer’s freebie problem and Sue Gray salary reports generating rather suboptimal press
The allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed are dreadful: the former Harrods owner has been accused of raping five women and sexually abusing at least 15 others when they worked at his department store. A BBC investigation, which detailed the allegations, claimed that this abuse took place from the late 1980s to the 2000s. The name
I am sure that the business secretary Jonathan Reynolds picked up many useful skills in his previous job in local government, but does he really know more about how to run a business than the people who run one of the world’s most successful companies? Apparently, yes. Asked on LBC where his comments about encouraging
The former boss of Sainsbury’s, Justin King, warned on the Today programme this morning that Rachel Reeves has damaged the economy through her constant warnings of tax rises to come in October’s budget, causing anxious shoppers to draw in their horns until the big day. But if shoppers really are holding off purchases for fear that
France can’t go on like this. The country, and its overseas territories, are in chaos. On Wednesday night two men in New Caledonia were shot dead by security forces after a confrontation on the Pacific Island. The insurgency began in May and shows no sign of abating with the rebels determined to gain their independence from
The European Court of Human Rights has thrown out a challenge by former cabinet minister Owen Paterson. The ex-Tory MP, accused of breaking lobby rules, took the government to court in a bid to have a 2021 parliamentary investigation into his conduct declared unfair. That Paterson went to the Strasbourg Court in the first place
If you want a surefire indication that a politician has ended up on the wrong side of public opinion, it’s when they start saying: ‘The public don’t really care about this stuff. They want us to focus on the issues that matter to them instead’. So far, this has been the response from the government
Few will mourn the demise of TGI Fridays, whose parent company collapsed into administration this week. The restaurant chain’s 87 branches in the UK have been put up for sale. Only a fool would think they could turn around TGIs’ fortunes. The truth is that the British obsession with American food, and specifically American diners,
This hasn’t been the easiest week for Hezbollah. It started with the terror organisation’s pagers mysteriously exploding, killing 37 people people (according to official reports) and injuring some 3,000 people, mostly members of the group. This has stunned Hezbollah – and the world. A day later, their walkie-talkies starting blowing up too. The attacks, which have been attributed to
The fleet of border control cutters responsible for patrolling our waters (and at times for dealing with irregular migrants on them) is showing its age and needs renewing. Unfortunately we now know that the exercise will cost £300 million rather than the original estimate of roughly £50 million, and will be delayed until at least 2030. Why
It’s a gaffe a day with David Lammy. Now the Foreign Secretary has come under fire after he hailed Azerbaijan for being able to ‘liberate’ territory – in an ongoing conflict widely viewed as an ethnic cleansing operation – in a recent Substack post. Lammy took to his blog to express his unsolicited musings about
Diane Abbott is on the warpath, and her target is Sir Keir Starmer. Earlier this week, the Labour MP hit out at the Prime Minister during an interview with BBC Newsnight, in which she slammed the Labour leader for his behaviour towards her during the Frank Hester racism row, describing how he treated her as,
Good heavens. Does no one teach journalistic etiquette these days? This afternoon James O’Brien caused a stir on social media after he delivered a rather bizarre handover on air about, er, one of his station’s own guests. Not long before O’Brien jumped behind the mic, Nigel Farage had joined LBC’s Nick Ferrari for a phone-in