All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Here is a sign of how weak Keir Starmer’s relationship is with the new leader of the free world. Nigel Farage has repeatedly offered to act as a bridge between the UK Labour government and the incoming Donald Trump administration. And for the second time, Farage is celebrating a Trump presidential election victory with the
When it comes to Donald Trump’s relationship with Nato, there are two principal schools of thought. The first, articulated by Trump’s own former national security advisor, John Bolton, is that the president-elect is hostile to the alliance at an elemental and instinctive level. The second, proposed by those who are favourable to him, argues that
33 min listen
Donald Trump has won the election and will be 47th President of the United States after winning the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. ‘America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,’ the Republican candidate told supporters. ‘This is a magnificent victory for the American people, that will allow us to
On 13 October 2024, I jaunted 20 minutes south down Interstate-5 to the Cosumnes Nature Preserve, whose toy swamp I used to visit with my parents and my daughter Lisa; they are all dead now, and so was my pleasure on that Sunday, thanks to a haze that looked merely dirty until I opened the
The first European leader to tweet their response to Donald Trump’s victory was Emmanuel Macron of France, pipping Giorgia Meloni to the prize by a matter of minutes. ‘Congratulations,’ declared the President of France. ‘Ready to work together as we did for four years. With your convictions and mine. With respect and ambition. For more peace
So now we know what happens when you sneer at voters as ‘garbage’. When you view them as ‘deplorables’. When you treat them as the dim stooges of demagoguery, the playthings of powerful men. When you brand them ‘low information’ and chortle in your coffee houses about how Donald Trump is ‘preying’ on their ‘hazy
So Donald Trump is heading for the White House once again. It’s a result that has stunned much of the British commentariat, many of whom fawned over Kamala Harris when she was unveiled as Joe Biden’s successor. Yet, just like in 2016, Harris could not live up to her cheerleaders’ hype. With both Keir Starmer
One of the few western nations where public opinion was in favour of Donald Trump returning to the White House is Israel. Israelis trust him as the man who recognised Jerusalem as their capital, moved the US embassy there, recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and said that settlement-building was not per se against
Thank you very much. Wow. Well I want to thank you all very much. This is great. These are our friends. We have thousands of friends on this incredible movement. This was a movement like nobody’s ever seen before. And frankly this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s ever been
Donald Trump’s victory this time may not be the surprise that his 2016 win was, but for his critics it’s even more of a shock. Trump has been impeached, arrested, convicted, shot at, and relentlessly demonised as a ‘fascist’ over the last four years. None of that was enough to stop him. Just the opposite:
Truth Social rocketed. Bitcoin soared in price. The dollar rose, and bond yields were up, while Chinese equities wobbled. Over the course of last night, as it became clear that Donald Trump had won the US presidential election, the markets responded to the news. The trouble is, no one really knows what Trump 2.0 means
Whatever you think of Donald Trump, watching the mood change in the BBC’s election studio has been delicious. It was like a New Orleans funeral in reverse – a carnival turning a corner and transforming into a wake. This was supposed to be a historic night. But then it wasn’t just the BBC. The liberal
Trump is headed to the White House. As I write, that is the consensus of almost all political experts, including the New York Times’ Nate Cohn, who puts Trump’s chance of victory at greater than 95 per cent. Trump is set to pick up at least one – and possibly all three – of Michigan,
In the run-up to the US election, it was expected that the count could take days, possibly a week. Now, it looks like the 2024 election will be decided in a matter of hours. Swing states North Carolina and Georgia have been called for Donald Trump. Fox News reports that the most crucial swing state
Donald Trump is on course to win the US election – and it’s safe to say that Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell aren’t thrilled about the news. On a livestream of their Rest is Politics podcast, Stewart – who earlier this week said he hadn’t ‘changed my mind on Kamala Harris winning comfortably’ – struggled
21 min listen
Results are coming in across the United States, and the early signs (though it is still very early) look good for Donald Trump. At the time of recording, the betting markets are with him and the famous New York Times ‘Needle’ has swung to a ‘likely’ Trump victory. It is still much too early to
Over the past half hour, the famous New York Times ‘Needle’ has moved out of the ‘toss-up’ range, and into the ‘Trump range’. As of 2.47 a.m. UK time, the Grey Lady gives Donald Trump a 69 per cent chance of returning to the White House. The model estimates Trump will get 286 Electoral College
This is a grim night so far, in terms of every piece of data that we have about how Kamala Harris is performing. Of the four different possible situations, one was obviously a big win for Harris, one was a small win for Harris, one was a small win for Trump, and one was a
As Americans prepared to head to the polls, I heard from lots of Jews in the UK and elsewhere that a Donald Trump victory will be ‘good for Israel’. By this, they generally mean that Trump will be less critical of the Israeli government and the military action it is taking in response to 7
In retrospect, it’s easy to justify any election outcome. This election won’t be any different. In fact, it will be easier than ever to explain the result. He hadn’t won an election since 2016. He ran a campaign of fear and division. Between elections, he was convicted of 34 felonies. He picked a Vice Presidential
Donald Trump has declared victory in the US election after winning the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. ‘America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,’ the Republican candidate told supporters. ‘This is a magnificent victory for the American people, that will allow us to make America great again,’ he said
Benjamin Netanyahu dropped a bombshell this evening when he fired Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Outside observers might wonder why the Prime Minister would fire the only member of his government with meaningful military experience when Israel is engaged in a prolonged and complex war on several fronts. Israelis however, have been expecting this to happen
With polls open across the United States a new President is about to be elected. But who is it going to be? Steerpike has already taken a look at the betting markets who have Trump down as the winner. But do Spectator readers agree? For the past fortnight Mr S has been asking new subscribers
It surely comes as no surprise to hear that North Korea does not like the United Nations. The hermit kingdom has long derided the organisation as espousing ‘double standards’ in what Pyongyang has believed to be an unfair demonisation of its ‘sovereign rights’ to test missiles, conduct satellite launches – a euphemism for testing ballistic
In a few hours, US election results will start to roll in, and while Britons this side of the pond have no say on the outcome they’ve been keen to give their opinions to prowling pollsters. New YouGov polling of 6,520 UK adults has revealed that almost four in ten Brits expect Kamala Harris to
Six days on from the Budget, and things don’t look any better for Rachel Reeves’s claim that her Budget won’t negatively affect working people. Today and tomorrow, it is the turn of the Commons Treasury Select Committee to pick through the wreckage. What have we learned so far? David Miles from the Office for Budget
As the US presidential race rollercoasters towards its finale, many Americans are already bracing themselves for a close and highly contested vote. The uncertain outcome of the election is just the beginning of what could be a fraught period for the United States and the world. There are 76 days for mischief, or worse, between
I have spent a quarter of a century caring for people dying from smoking. Deaths of this sort are not only premature but often horrible. My mother’s death from lung cancer was both. The puritan nature of my medical heart should, therefore, leap up at the new restrictions of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, introduced
23 min listen
Last night, Donald Trump appeared for what will be his last-ever presidential campaign rally, for a crowd of about 12,000 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He stuck with tradition and ran through many of his greatest hits – dishing out insults, talking about his scrape with death, and dancing to ‘YMCA’. But he did also hammer
‘Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all,’ said Balfour. Tell that to the American political class on the day of the 2024 presidential election. After months of the Trump–Biden–Harris drama – the criminal indictments, the disaster debates, the President dropping out, the assassination attempts – the nation is in a state of
The countdown is on, with just days left until the result of the US presidential election is announced. With pollsters across the world undecided about the likely outcome, Sir Keir’s Starmer’s government is trying to hedge its bets. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has insisted on the airwaves today that ‘there will be a really good
Whatever happened to Kamala Harris’s promise of ‘joy’? Joy was in catastrophically short supply among her supporters I met in the United States last week. I’ve never encountered a more glee-less crew. It was all Nazi this, Nazi that, ‘The world is burning’, ‘We don’t want a rapist in the White House’. If this really
14 min listen
Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet continues to take shape: Chris Philp has been appointed shadow Home Secretary, with the biggest news being Robert Jenrick’s decision to accept the position of shadow Justice Secretary. Jenrick’s proposal to leave the ECHR was one policy disagreement with Badenoch, could this cause the Conservatives problems in the future? And what
Is Donald Trump going to lose Iowa? That’s the conclusion many US pundits came to after a bombshell poll over the weekend. That poll, conducted by the psephologist Ann Selzer, put Kamala Harris three points ahead of Trump in Iowa, despite Trump having comfortably won the state by almost ten points in the past two presidential elections.