All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
There were no defections today at Prime Minister’s Questions, which probably put Keir Starmer in a slightly stronger position, ironically, given the fuss about Natalie Elphicke crossing the floor last week. The Tories have so thoroughly trashed their former colleague that the most damaging thing Labour could probably do now would be to send the
After nearly 17 years in office the Scottish government has finally accepted the truth: it is incompetent. It has declared a National Housing Emergency – effectively a vote of no confidence in itself. ‘Honest’ First Minister John Swinney has thrown up his hands and said: it’s a fair cop, in anticipation of the Scottish parliament
Sometimes life comes at you fast. Barely 18 months ago, Sir Keir Starmer, beginning to scent general election victory in his future, pledged to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber as part of a project to ‘restore trust in politics’. By Tuesday this week, the Labour leader in the
What comes around goes around. Instead of Ofcom doing the scrutinising, the media regulator found itself under the microscope this week. On Tuesday, Ofcom’s CEO was hauled in front of peers on the Communications and Digital Committee during its inquiry into the future of news. After the regulator was recently urged to ‘grow a backbone and
Talk to almost any right-wing Tory MP these days and one of the first things they raise – with me anyway – is whether or not the Reform party is going to cost them their seats. ‘It makes no sense getting rid of people like me. The way we are going, we will only send
It is hard to deny the assertion made by Jeremy Hunt and the Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride that there are plenty of opportunities for people who want to work, or at least for a good number of them. If you want the long-term unemployed to take up jobs, you don’t offer them a
Sea-thieves messenger, deliver back in reply,tell your people this spiteful message,that here stands undaunted an Earl with his band of menwho will defend our homeland,Aethelred’s country, the lord of mypeople and land. Fall shall youheathen in battle! To us it would be shamefulthat you with our coin to your ships should get awaywithout a fight,
Scottish nationalists are not happy. What’s new, I hear you ask. Did they lose another leader? Has Sainsbury’s been selling Somerset strawberries in Stornoway supermarkets? Nothing quite so grave, but they are displeased nonetheless. The cause is Rishi Sunak, who has offended them with his Big Serious Speech at Policy Exchange on Monday. It was just a single
‘Rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city — except for bombing,’ declared Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck in 1971. Lindbeck may have belonged to the political left but he understood basic economic principles. He knew that far from lowering prices, rent controls only lead to disaster. If only
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Lucy Dunn speaks to Katy Balls and former Blair advisor John McTernan about the one vote that won plans to exclude MPs from parliament arrested on suspicion of serious sexual offence. After Keir Starmer faced criticism for allowing her into the party, could some of her greatest critics now see the perks? Also is Labour
The first official portrait of King Charles III since his coronation has been unveiled. Both the artist Jonathan Yeo and the King should be delighted: the vast oil on canvas, which was seen for the first time at Buckingham Palace today, captures a remarkable likeness of the King. One particular work of his might give
A suggested government ban on rainbow-coloured lanyards in the civil service has, perhaps unsurprisingly, proved divisive at the highest reaches of government. The idea for the ban came from Esther McVey, officially a minister without portfolio but more widely known as ‘the minister for common sense’. In a speech on Monday, McVey suggested that permanent
The most important stories from the Covid Inquiry are found in the written evidence and submitted statements. However, the Cabinet Office is refusing to release vital evidence that the Inquiry isn’t interested in, in case it ‘excessively focused’ the public’s attention on lockdown-decision making. If neither side change their position, the British people will be
‘Sometimes when we turn on the television we get the impression that nothing’s going well in France,’ Emmanuel Macron said on Monday. ‘I don’t think it’s true.’ France’s president has developed a knack of being overtaken by events – and so it has proved once again. A huge manhunt is underway after two prison guards
Dear oh dear. Has all Labour’s tough talk on tackling immigration been purely for show? That’s how things appear after a question on illegal migration today saw a grand total of, er, zero Labour backbenchers turn up. Not even Natalie Elphicke, the Dover and Deal defector who made tackling immigration her defining mission, bothered to
Given so many people are suffering from some kind of mental distress at the moment, many of them out of work because of it, it’s heartening to read the report from a group of MPs and peers who want to do something constructive about it. The cross-party ‘Beyond Pills All Party Parliamentary Group’ has published
Javier Milei pledged to ‘make Argentina great again’ when he took to the stage in February at the CPAC meeting of right-wing thinkers in the United States. The Argentine president is a self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist who, like Donald Trump, rose to prominence promising to deliver shockwaves to his country. The first six months of Milei’s presidential
Oh, the embarrassment. The government commissioned its own Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to investigate whether graduate visas (which grant overseas students the right to stay in Britain for two years after graduation) are being exploited and should be abolished. This was seemingly in the hope of gaining some ammunition to do away with a measure
The renegade royal never manages to stay out of the news for long. Now the spotlight is back on Prince Harry and his memoir Spare, nominated for a number of prizes at last night’s British Book Awards. But, unluckily for the precious Prince, his book was beaten to first place in every category it was
Oxford students, like others, are protesting about Palestine, but not so much when it rains. There’s an encampment outside the Pitt Rivers museum and once the rain starts the protesters in tents disappear inside them and the others disappear indoors. But when the sun is out, they re-emerge, though not if it’s too early. Welcome to
Yesterday, the High Court in Belfast dealt a blow to the government when it struck down several provisions in the Illegal Migration Act 2023, and declared that parts of the legislation were incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Illegal Migration Act is a key piece of legislation for the government’s Rwanda scheme.
If there is one thing that Harry and Meghan excel at, it is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Their much-hyped trip to Nigeria – a royal visit in all but name – had, from their perspective, gone exceptionally well. Not only did Harry manage to deliver a well-received speech about mental health to
The first time I heard the name ‘Michael Cohen’ was in 2015, from a Republican political operative who told me: ‘It’s his job to clean up Trump’s messes with women.’ He went on to explain how Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer, would pay a large amount in cash to whichever actress-model-stripper-pornstar was claiming to
Back to Scotland, where hapless Humza Yousaf is still managing to cause the SNP problems even after his resignation. It’s been over a month since Yousaf’s controversial Hate Crime Act came into force, and it still isn’t going down particularly well with the people of Scotland — to put things mildly. It now transpires that
Are interest rates still heading ‘downwards’ as the Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said last week? Homeowners across the country will be hoping so as average two-year mortgages are again approaching 6 per cent. But the latest figures on the UK job market may dampen hopes of a cut coming soon. Britons have continued
Hurrah, the problem of plastic waste has been sorted – as of this summer all plastic water bottles sold in the EU have to come with a cap that is tethered to the rest of the bottle. If the cap comes attached to the bottle, goes the thinking, then consumers are less likely to discard
President Vladimir Putin’s appointment of the civilian economist Andrei Belousov as Russia’s defence minister in the third year of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is bad news for Kyiv and its allies. Replacing the unpopular Sergei Shoigu with Belousov marks a clear shift in Putin’s strategy: he views the war as a battle of economic attrition.
Nadhim Zahawi’s latest resignation letter was one of the all-time classics of the genre: unctuous, preening and pretentious even by the high standard of unctuousness, preeningness and pretentiousness set by his predecessors (including him). ‘Greatest honour of my life,’ he wrote. ‘Best country on earth…it was where I built a Great [capitalisation sic] British business,
The latest report on maternity care in the UK hasn’t told us anything new. The headline finding of the parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma is that poor care is ‘all-too frequently tolerated as normal’, with women’s concerns and requests for pain relief being dismissed, poor postnatal care where women who couldn’t move after surgery were
Is Catalonia’s independence movement dead in the water? Elections held in the region on Sunday reveal that support for separatist parties dropped significantly. Between them, the hard-line Junts per Catalunya, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and two small separatist parties only managed 61 seats – of which 35 went to Junts. In the regional parliament,
Will any woman who has given birth on the NHS be surprised by a damning report into maternity services? I wasn’t. I was horrified to read of babies born with cerebral palsy because of mistakes and failures made before and during labour. I was deeply saddened to read about mothers who were mocked, neglected, patronised, even shouted
I see JK Rowling is being cruel again. Her nasty streak is off its leash. She’s bullying random people and engaging in ‘unedifying’ behaviour. What monstrous utterance has she issued this time? What fresh bigotry has spewed from her tweeting fingers? Brace yourselves: she called a man a man. Yes, hold the front page: a
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Rishi Sunak delivered a pre-election speech this morning setting out the dividing lines at the next election: security with the Tories or risk with Labour. Will it be enough to shift the dial? And is the Natalie Elphicke defection still haunting Keir Starmer? Natasha Feroze speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson.