All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
It must be exhausting being Elon Musk. Alongside sending rockets into space, working on brain implants and running one of the world’s biggest social-media firms, he seems to have a plethora of beefs to attend to. The arrogance of EU officialdom knows no bounds. So soon after Musk’s war of words with Keir Starmer, over
It’s not been the best start to the week for Sue Gray. Reports that there are divisions among Sir Keir Starmer’s top team have put the Prime Minister’s chief of staff under the spotlight. The Mail on Sunday splashed on claims made by Whitehall sources about Gray ‘thinking she runs the country’. An insider claimed
The evangelicals really are revolting. After a lot of talk of the need to break away from a tainted, liberal, heretical Church, something significant has happened. Last month, two of London’s biggest conservative parishes – All Souls Langham Place and St Helen’s Bishopsgate – held services ‘commissioning’ new leaders. It’s an obvious repudiation of the
It is possible to have some sympathy for the Defence Secretary John Healey, despite the irritating self-serving mantra of Rachel Reeves that the Conservatives have left a £22 billion fiscal ‘black hole’. Healey, generally a straightforward and sensible politician, has inherited a department with huge cultural problems, and real financial issues. In March, the House
Lord David Neuberger of Abbotsbury, the British lawyer who sits on Hong Kong’s highest court, needs to take a long hard look in the mirror. The territory’s court of final appeal has upheld verdicts and prison sentences against some of Hong Kong’s leading pro-democracy activists for taking part in a peaceful protest in 2019. The
As part of the ongoing review into the primary and secondary school curriculum, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has announced that children in England will be taught how to spot misinformation and extremist content online, so that students can arm themselves against ‘putrid conspiracy theories’. In the wake of weeks of rioting, with children as young
Elon Musk’s war on the SNP was on no one’s bingo card this year – but the animosity has ramped up after First Minister John Swinney waded into the row. The SNP leader is the latest UK politician to take a pop at Musk, blasting the tech billionaire for allowing Twitter to become a ‘platform
Today’s labour market figures ought to bring good news: they show that growth on earnings has moderated to 5.4 per cent, the lowest level in two years. That should ease fears of inflation – it is growth in pay which has most concerned the Bank of England in recent months – and pave the way
Emmanuel Macron believes that the Paris Olympics have shown the world the ‘true face of France’. The Games were indeed a success, recovering from the disastrous first day, when saboteurs disabled the rail network and torrential rain turned the opening ceremony into a very damp squib. Macron must have feared the worst but the weather
The Sussexes never seem to keep out of the news for too long, and this time they’re back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. It now transpires that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have managed to lose yet another staff member – taking the total to an estimated 18 since their marriage
The lengthy interview between Donald Trump and Elon Musk on X last night began 40 minutes late, a technical glitch much of the media celebrated with unrestrained joy. They hate, hate, hate Elon Musk (despite his electric vehicles) – and they hate a media rival. They hate his transformation of Twitter, now X, into an open forum
Am I getting soft in my middle age, or are some of the sentences being handed down to the rioters a tad stiff? Justice must be served, of course. Everyone who took part in the riotous violence of recent weeks should feel a copper’s hand on their shoulder. But I’m worried that justice is turning
The horrific murders in Southport earlier this month were followed by horrific riots and horrific counter-riots. But fear not. Because then the official account of Paddington Bear tweeted, ‘Perhaps it’s time for a little more kindness’. At times of wickedness, disorder and the worst of humanity, what do we 21st century moderns look for to
Even by its own standards, Twitter has been an asylum of late with a lynch mob going after our associate editor Douglas Murray. An interview he gave months ago has been selectively edited and republished to misrepresent him and, in effect, make out that he was encouraging riots. This is how Twitter works. People respond,
Blue is the colour, winning is the game. The Premier League returns this week and it seems that one Tory leadership contender is taking notes. After the 1922 committee ruled that any candidate found engaging in ‘blue on blue’ will face the public shame of a ‘yellow card’, James Cleverly has now gone a step
The Home Secretary has admitted a thing that has long been known to those of us without close protection officers: that in many communities, people often feel that ‘crime has no consequences’. Her remarks this morning also acknowledged another pretty obvious fact: that the country has lost respect for the police. Yvette Cooper’s words are strikingly
Last week saw dramatic events in Catalonia as Carles Puigdemont, wanted for almost seven years by Spanish justice for spearheading the region’s illegal declaration of independence in 2017, reappeared in the centre of Barcelona and delivered a rousing speech to some 3,500 of his adoring supporters. Then, just as suddenly, he disappeared – to the massive embarrassment
We are approaching the fifth anniversary of British prime ministers promising to stem the tide of illegal migration across the English Channel. It was in late August 2019 that Boris Johnson did a piece to camera in which he warned potential new waves of illegal immigrants: ‘We will send you back.’ In the event, hardly
In the aftermath of misinformation spread via tech platforms during the recent riots, there is talk of the government requiring tech platforms to remove ‘fake news’ – as well as introducing a duty to remove ‘legal but harmful’ content as part of a review of the Online Safety Act. ‘Fake news’ could presumably take a number
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Over the weekend we have had some news on Labour’s housing policy. The Times have splashed on the news that in order to meet their pledge to build 1.5 million houses by 2030, councils will be given the power to buy up green belt land. Will this actually get Britain building? Elsewhere, the Tory leadership race continues
Oh dear. It seems that the clowns at ‘Stop the War’ are it again. In the wake of Kyiv launching its surprise counter-offensive on Tuesday, Russia has been forced to evacuate parts of the Kursk and Belgorod regions in the face of Ukraine’s advancing troops. It is the first time that Russia has been invaded
It has been seven days since Ukraine began its attack on the Russian region of Kursk – with Ukrainian soldiers launching the first successful cross-border invasion of Russia since the second world war. Still, Ukraine is showing no signs yet of slowing down. This morning, local authorities in the neighbouring Russian region of Belgorod announced that the
We will find out in Rachel Reeves’ first budget on 30 October whether Labour really does intend to wage a war on wealth. It is all too easy to see the Chancellor playing to her gallery by imposing punitive taxes which are designed more to achieve social engineering than to raise revenue, and which stifle entrepreneurism
The riots of 2024 will be remembered for many things. One of them is the way the establishment spectacularly closed ranks on online speech. Metropolitan Police commissioner Mark Rowley said on Saturday that he intended to throw the book not only at rioters themselves, but at ‘keyboard warriors’ who might support them. The CPS, through the Director
In four weeks’ time, the Liberal Democrats will descend on Brighton for their annual conference. It’s likely to be the most enthusiastic such gathering in recent years, with the party celebrating the record 72 seats they won at last month’s election. The Lib Dems gained 61 more MPs than the paltry 11 they took in
If there is one thing that can be said about Elon Musk, whether you like him or not, he is certainly an argument for the great man theory of history. Rather than the human story just being just a series of social forces pushing us like waves, a single individual can steer events in a
After more than two weeks showcasing a series of extraordinary sporting feats, Paris brought the curtain down on the 2024 Olympics with a star-studded closing ceremony at the Stade de France last night. Billie Eilish, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snoop Dog were just some of those to feature across the evening. Tom Cruise,
Should you be woken in the middle of the night by the sound of a hydraulic lift rising from a van, and look out of the window to see a stern-looking bearded man spray-painting something on your wall, your usual instinct might be to ring the police. These days, however, you’d be better off calling
Ding, ding, ding! It’s another round in the endless online wars involving the erratic owner of Twitter/X. Fresh from his spat with Keir Starmer, Elon Musk has now turned his guns on Humza Yousaf – the flailing former First Minister of Scotland. Speaking at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival on Thursday, Yousaf described Musk as ‘one
As the Olympics draw to a close tonight, two things have delighted the French. The first is that the Games turned out to be fairly successful, overlooking the weird opening ceremony. The other is the general amusement here that Britain managed to beat France at its own national summer sport: rioting. If Froggie-bashing has for years been
How should the Labour government deal with Elon Musk? It’s a question that Keir Starmer has been grappling with since violent disorder broke across England, initially stemming from false claims over the identity of the attacker in the Southport stabbings. Since then, ministers say social media has been used to encourage riots. While Telegram is
The previous Tory government may not have been very successful in containing the global ambitions of China, but at least it tried. Whether David Lammy’s Foreign Office has the same ambition to stand up to Beijing’s bullying is unfortunately becoming more doubtful. A straw in the wind is the announcement by China this week that
The Great Barrier Reef is, of course, dying – a victim of humans’ hubris and callousness towards the natural world. We know this because we keep being told this is the case. This week, the New York Times carried the headline: ‘Heat Raises Fears of Demise for Great Barrier Reef Within a Generation’. This story,
Democracy is dying in Thailand, or perhaps it’s already dead. Thailand’s constitutional court this week ordered the dissolution of the country’s most dynamic and popular political party. This ruling is a decisive blow to an already wounded Thai democracy. The Move Forward party’s (MFP) ‘crime’, according to the court, was to call for the country’s