All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Following the tragic Southport stabbings last Monday, the BBC Today programme has interviewed the man who attempted to stop the attacker in his tracks – and was knifed in the leg as a result. Jonathan Hayes spoke about his harrowing experience of coming across the knifeman and then trying to disarm him. ‘When I opened
Wednesday night was expected to be filled with violent riots breaking out across the country – but instead of the disorder that the police had prepared for, counter-protestors filled the streets. The new Labour government will be hoping that this is the beginning of the end of a week of disruption and that their swift
After the far-right rioting of last night failed to materialise, there is hope that we have now seen the worst of the public disorder that flared up following the Southport stabbings. This is certainly what the Prime Minister will be thinking today, but his new good friend the King could well have exactly the same
Authorities encountering the kind of civil disorder that has marked the last few days in Britain are best advised to keep a cool head and quietly deploy the powers of the ordinary law to face it down. Unfortunately there are worrying signs that this is not happening. The announcement from the Director of Public Prosecutions
The Tavistock’s notorious Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic in London – which prescribed puberty blockers to children – closed in March. Two replacement clinics have already opened in London and Liverpool. NHS England has now confirmed they will be joined by six more, starting with Bristol this coming autumn and a centre for the
The police were getting ready for far-right demonstrations in 100 locations, we were told. Hounslow, a west London suburb, has a decent mix of Muslim, Christian, Hindu and Sikhs but we have never had any serious race relations trouble. This changed at 3 p.m when Hounslow’s high street became a ghost town. Panicked police officers
Oh dear. It’s not been the best week for ITV, which has seen over 8,200 Ofcom complaints about Monday’s episode of Good Morning Britain. Mr S would advise readers to cast their minds back a few days, where – after a weekend of riots – Home Secretary Yvette Cooper was interviewed by, um, her own
17 min listen
Courts have started giving out severe sentences to those involved in the riots today, but there is a continued clamouring for Keir Starmer to do more. The next step seems to be cracking down on discussions online, where social media platforms such as X and Telegram could be inflaming the riots. Could the government give
37 min listen
Since Kamala Harris ascended to top of the ticket, there have been reports of meltdowns in Trump world, with Republican strategists suggesting Trump is having a public breakdown. Has the era of a thoughtful, poignant Trump already disappeared? Also on the podcast, Kamala Harris’s VP pick came as a shock to many Democrats, with insiders
Around 100 demonstrations are expected to break out across the country this evening, and now the Speaker of the Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has waded into discussions about the safety of parliamentarians. It emerged today that GP surgeries are shutting up early, businesses are boarding up windows and private City firms are advising employees to
Liz Truss continues to do a lot of heavy lifting for the Labour party. The former prime minister’s mini-Budget featured more in the election – as a Labour talking point – than any piece of policy implemented by Rishi Sunak. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is determined to present the next round of spending cuts and tax
With just 24 hours until nominations open in the Scottish Conservative leadership contest, Murdo Fraser has stuck his hand up. That makes six contenders so far to replace outgoing leader Douglas Ross. Fraser has stood for the post before, in 2011, but lost out to Ruth Davidson. Perhaps the pivotal reason for Fraser’s defeat was
Back to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who seems to have recovered from his strop earlier in the week. After Rowley was slammed for ignoring reporters who met him outside the Cabinet Office – even grabbing the microphone of one journalist – the Met boss has decided to speak with broadcasters today amidst
Talk of Donald Trump ‘meltdowns’ tends to be overblown. For eight years, we’ve been told, frequently, that he’s losing the plot, fuming at staffers, having tantrums and setting fire to his re-election hopes. Somehow, however, the Trump train keeps chugging on. This week, Republican strategists are telling Politico that Trump is having ‘a public nervous
It’s hard to keep track of Elon Musk. The X/Twitter boss has been busy taunting ‘TwoTierKeir’ Starmer over his handling of the UK riots, asking ‘What the hell is going on?’ in Britain. Musk has also launched legal action against a group of advertisers and major companies – including food giants Unilever and Mars –
Sun Tzu, the Chinese military strategist writing roughly 2,500 years ago, said that ‘Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.’ As we stand on the precipice of a truly frightening regional conflict, which pits a technologically advanced Israel and its allies against Iran and its allies in
Sir Keir Starmer is having a rather testing time as Prime Minister, to put it mildly. With violent riots breaking out across the UK within his first month in the job, the Labour leader has already faced criticism from his opponents for having ‘dithered and delayed’ on the issue. Now the public have had their
Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have set out a blunt message to rioters that they will end up in prison – but the policing response needs to step up in parallel with this robust rhetoric. It is incredible that after the outrageous threats against mosques and attacks on hotels, and other assaults, this disorder has
Ed Miliband, along with those who support his ambition to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030, has long had a favourite argument with which to try to put down people who say it can’t be done: why, if it is going to be so difficult to achieve, is the National Grid ESO – the company
The riots that have erupted across England in the last week have been splashed across Europe’s newspapers and broadcast on the primetime news. There have been editorials in France’s Le Monde, video reports in Spain’s El Pais and podcasts in Sweden’s Aftonbladet. The Italian newspaper, La Stampa, published video footage of disturbances in Plymouth on Monday night, and described the rioters
When will the violent disorder across England and Northern Ireland dissipate? That’s the question being asked in Westminster as ministers brace for further incidents. Keir Starmer last night chaired his second Cobra emergency meeting ahead of a wave of possible events over the next 48 hours, with 30 potential riots anticipated today. Among possible targets
British riots are not a new phenomenon. They were regular occurrences throughout history and usually the spark that lit the tinder was a sense of grievance that the authorities were refusing to deal with. In our century, governments have better technological means to stay attuned to public opinion. But the recent outbreaks of violent protest
Images of thugs causing mayhem on Britain’s streets has brought back painful memories of the football hooligans of the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, ‘firms’ of shaven-headed white men regularly went on the rampage, in and around railway stations, town centres and football grounds. Shops were looted, police officers and their horses were pelted with beer cans, and highly
Balaclavas were once the preserve of bank robbers and members of the IRA, but this week they were worn by thugs who clashed with police. During riots across England, protestors concealed their faces as they threw projectiles and smashed up shops. Balaclavas were also worn during anti-immigration protests against a proposed asylum site in Coolock,
Joe/Jeff Marsh wants to make it clear that he did not, like people keep saying, start the riots in Southport. He wasn’t at the riots. He doesn’t like riots. He’s a white nationalist, fine, but he’s also a busy, self-employed builder from Swansea. And Swansea is nowhere near Southport. All he did was share a
15 min listen
Freddy Gray sits down with political commentator and podcaster Dash Dobrofsky to discuss today’s news that Kamala Harris has picked Tim Walz to be her running mate. The Governor of Minnesota was joint favourite alongside Josh Shapiro. But who is Tim Walz? And can he stand up to JD Vance in the debates?
Finally. Someone who ran the Metropolitan Police that will actually speak to the media. Former Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson appeared on LBC today to give his thoughts on the riots that have spread across the UK. Quick to hit out at the Prime Minister himself, Stephenson was certainly pulling no punches… Quizzed about his
Since Kamala Harris moved to the top of the Democratic ticket, it’s been assumed she would use her boss Joe Biden’s tactic for selecting a running mate ahead of the US presidential election: picking someone with completely different credentials and characteristics, to fill in the gaps in the voting base. When Biden was running for
US vice president Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota governor Tim Walz to be her running mate. Walz, a Midwestern Democrat with deep ties to labour movements, will be seen as an opportunity for Harris to hang on to some of the ‘blue wall’ states that president Joe Biden flipped from Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
The Chancellor has kicked off her investment tour under rather difficult circumstances. While Rachel Reeves spends the next three days in the United States and Canada trying to drum up investment for Britain, the world of finance remains with eyes glued to the turbulence of the stock market, having to admit to itself that it’s
The first person in the UK to be charged with stirring up racial hatred on Facebook during the riots is due in court next week. Jordan Parlour, a 28-year-old from Leeds, will appear at the city’s magistrates’ court today – but it appears his case has already attracted attention from across the pond, not least
13 min listen
The Prime Minister has clashed with billionaire owner of ‘X’ Elon Musk over comments that Musk made claiming that – in light of the violent disorder across the country – the UK is heading for civil war. How long will this spat go on? And is this the start of Starmer being tough on the
As the country saw more violent riots last night, Tory leadership hopefuls have taken to the airwaves to condemn, er, Nigel Farage. The Reform UK leader posted a letter to Twitter on Monday morning on the weekend’s disorder, hitting out at ‘the impression of two-tier policing’ in the UK. Farage pointed to differences in the
Scotland’s exam results day has been something of a disaster this year. An already stressful time for anxious pupils has been made worse after hundreds of students across the country received blank email templates instead of their grades – a gaffe which the Scottish Qualifications Authority is scrambling to fix – while a flailing Scottish