All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
In my first lesson teaching Year 8 in inner-city Birmingham, one boy, seeing the opening slide of my ‘Introduction to Judaism’ PowerPoint, rocked back on his chair, and, with a level of focus that he never matched again, simply said, ‘I f***ing hate the Jews.’ The Teach First training programme had promised us ‘challenging’ schools.
The government’s green credentials are in the firing line – and not for the first time. In office, Keir Starmer has sparked headlines with seemingly endless plane trips abroad. And now Mr S has done some digging to find out what ministerial cars are being used to ferry our leaders around. A Freedom of Information
Christianity is thriving on the football pitch. Despite the declining number of Christians in the UK, Instagram, X, and other social media sites are awash with biblical quotes. And those responsible? Professional footballers. Over recent years, something of a movement appears to have developed in English football. Players, previously so determinedly secular, have become not
When I visited Maaloula in southwest Syria in 2016, the Jabhat Al-Nusra (the predecessor of the Hayat Tahrir Ash Sham jihadis, who have toppled Bashar al-Assad) had systematically destroyed and desecrated the town’s churches and monasteries. Orthodox nuns were kidnapped and held to ransom, only freed after the Syrian government agreed to release extremist prisoners.
How far should a government go to stamp out people smuggling? This month, the Home Office is set to introduce powers that will allow courts to place expansive restrictions on those suspected of people smuggling and other serious crimes. Penalties are set to include social media bans, restrictions on banking and even curfews, imposed pre-arrest. Infringement of
In one place at least, the reaction to Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal has been one of unequivocal joy. That is Russia – and for obvious reasons. Most Russians have long seen US language about the ‘rules-based order’ as a mere mask for US empire and US national interests.
There is no land more lovely than Wales. I have walked through a magical forest to splash in the shallow, shimmering waters of the sea at the forested Newborough Beach in Anglesey and traipsed out to the monastery on the spit. I’ve struggled up Mount Snowdon while being pummelled by the angry Welsh wind and
It was just six days ago that the Ivor Caplin, the former Labour MP for Hove, emerged from obscurity to offer his thoughts on Elon Musk. Tony Blair’s former defence minister went on GB News last Sunday to offer his thoughts on the Tesla billionaire’s tweets about Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips. Such posts, Caplin
Poor old Rachel Reeves. Whether it’s being besieged by the bond markets or savaged by the Sinosceptics, it has not been the best of weeks for our under-fire Chancellor. So what better way to cap it all off then a full-barrelled broadside by one of the UK’s most beloved supermarkets? For food giant Morrisons tonight
Rachel Reeves, who is now fighting for her political life, was instrumental in helping Labour secure a landslide majority at the general election. If you don’t believe that then you have probably forgotten that her predecessor as shadow chancellor was Anneliese Dodds. All the while that the wild-haired former university lecturer Dodds was in charge
As the second Trump term looms in the near distance, it’s become a bit of a cliché to say that ‘a stopped clock is right twice a day’. Pinko liberal Nats like myself have had to get used to the fact that for all our disagreements with the man on policy and style, there are
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This week, MPs voted against a new national inquiry into grooming gangs. The vote followed weeks of pressure on Labour after Elon Musk brought grooming gangs back into the spotlight, after safeguarding minister Jess Phillips rejected a new national inquiry. If we did have a national inquiry, what would it achieve? We’ve had many in
Censorship and the silencing of dissenting voices has been a defining feature of the 21st century. It’s curious, because it wasn’t meant to be like this. This epoch, as the tech libertarian utopians of the 1990s so eagerly pronounced, was going to be one of unprecedented and untrammelled freedom. The internet, which burst into public consciousness
Last year, I wrote here about the dark side of LA, after the Friends actor Matthew Perry was found dead in the hot tub of his $6 million Pacific Palisades house. I grimly predicted that his luxury ocean-facing bungalow – sold on to a developer for over $8 million just a few months after his fatal drug
It’s not often that a country can solve a serious, endemic problem quickly, easily and at no expense at all. But Spain can. The problem is some of the country’s left-wing politicians’ harmful ignorance of Spain’s 20th century history – and in particular about what actually happened during the Second Republic (1931-1936) and the resulting civil
Emmanuel Macron has a problem and its name is not Elon Musk. It is interference of an altogether more dangerous nature, a brazen attempt to destabilise France. On Thursday, while Thierry Breton – until recently France’s commissioner in Brussels – called on the EU ‘to investigate Musk’s practices’, a reference to the American’s regular commentary on
Time and time again, people look to those outside of the Middle East to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After decades of an occupation and unrelenting hostilities between Jews and Arabs in the region, it makes sense why the burden of peace is so often placed on leaders abroad. Unfortunately, this approach has repeatedly failed, in large
The quietly spoken, thoughtful, brilliant Robert Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, four times winner of the Distinguished Service Order and co-founder of the Special Air Service, was nothing like his profane, psychotic, paddywhacking caricature in the cartoonish BBC series SAS: Rogue Heroes. His hideous portrayal does him a grave disservice and has understandably upset his family. Truth about Mayne
What type of person studies Latin in 2024? As a result of Labour’s decision to axe the £4 million Latin Excellence Programme (LEP), the stereotype of the average Latin student – that they are posh and privately educated – is likely to persist. As a state school student who studied Latin – a subject that
Well, well, well. It’s not been a great start to the year for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party in Westminster and it seems the Scottish lot north of the border are having a tough time of it too. Leader Anas Sarwar has seen his popularity fall towards the end of 2024 while his SNP rival
Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died aged 96 on 7 January, was the personification of the travails and excesses of post-war France. He was a co-founder in 1972 of the reactionary Front National, whose senior members included former Vichy collaborators and a former member of the Waffen SS Charlemagne Division. Yet on 21 April 2002 to
Uh oh. There’s trouble in paradise this evening as it has emerged that 12 Reform UK councillors are set to quit over Nigel Farage’s leadership. As reported by the Guardian, it transpires that the mass exodus could begin as early as tonight, with the announcement that the group intend to resign en mass timed to
As Rachel Reeves, flies to Beijing , she will have plenty of support from those who claim that the UK needs China for its economic wellbeing. The country ‘needs more engagement with China’, said Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds in October last year at the International Investment Summit put on soon after Labour’s election victory. The facts, however,
It used to be said that parties were Eurosceptic in opposition but Europhile in government. The same might be true of China too. Under Keir Starmer’s leadership, Labour initially adopted a Sinosceptic stance, strongly condemning the Hong Kong crackdown and promising to recognise China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide. Yet in office, they have
Over 200,000 listeners tuned into Elon Musk’s online conversation with Alice Weidel, the co-leader of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), on the social media platform X yesterday. Musk has endorsed the anti-immigration party as ‘the last spark of hope’ for Germany. Reactions were expectedly tetchy in Weidel’s home country where the AfD is polling in second place ahead of
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The war between Labour and Elon Musk continues to rage. Today the Financial Times reports that the tech tycoon has had discussions about ousting Keir Starmer before the next election, while the Mirror holds a report that the Home Office has been assessing Elon Musk’s tweets as a part of their efforts to tackle online
Last year, a Mauritian politician raised eyebrows in Britain when he told a political rally that ‘England has agreed to pay us a compensation’ to the tune of ‘many billions of rupees’ as part of the deal to hand over the Chagos islands to Mauritius. Still, a billion Mauritian rupees only converts to around £17 million, so
From the start of Elon Musk’s onslaught, Sir Keir Starmer’s position in refusing a new national inquiry into the grooming and rape of girls across England has looked fragile. This weekend that position – and Labour’s parliamentary discipline – will be tested further. That’s because Labour are now away from the Commons, back among their voters. Labour
Mr Steerpike was interested to read over the Christmas break that young people are currently flocking to join China’s civil service, attracted by the job stability it offers compared to the volatile private sector, and seeking to escape the country’s relatively high youth unemployment. According to the Reuters piece, the civil service is still seen
It used to be said that parties were Eurosceptic in opposition but Europhile in government. The same might be true of China too. Under Keir Starmer’s leadership, Labour initially adopted a Sinosceptic stance, calling out the Hong Kong crackdown and backing calls to formally recognise China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide. Yet in office,
There’s always something that seems clinically compelling about a claim that we need yet more equality laws. Mary Prior KC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association and a proud working-class Potteries girl, has demanded that regional accents and social deprivation should be legally protected characteristics. At first sight it’s difficult to argue with the icy logic. If
Another day, another story that risks further exacerbating tensions between the world’s richest man and the prime minister. The Mirror reports that Elon Musk’s posts on X (the platform he owns) are being monitored by the Home Office’s counter-extremism unit as part of an increased effort to assess the risk posed to Britain by tweets
Elon Musk may have moved political focus in the UK to the grooming gangs scandal, but there is another issue causing alarm in the upper echelons of government this week: the economy. With every day that passes, Britain’s financial situation appears to be deteriorating. On Tuesday, a £2 billion auction of 30-year UK government debt