All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old shot dead by a secret service sniper following the attempt on former president Trump’s life at Butler, Pennsylvania, had donated $15 to ActBlue, a political action committee which raises money for Democratic causes. State voter records also show that Crooks was a registered Republican. Either way, it is too early
England and their manager Gareth Southgate fell short once more, losing 2-1 to Spain in the Euro 24 final. Spain gave England a lesson in attacking football, dominating possession and controlling the match for long periods. The Spanish are the deserving champions of Europe for a record fourth time. And England? They hardly turned up,
Hard not to think that that’s the election in the bag for The Donald. Surviving an assassination attempt was always going to be a bounce in the polls, no question. Trump not only survived one but – improbably enough, given he’s a 78-year-old man and he was surrounded by a passel of burly, supposedly highly
History was made in Pennsylvania last night as much by the attempted assassination of Donald Trump as by Evan Vucci of the Associated Press. Vucci’s image shows a presidential candidate, blood from a bullet wound on his face, his fist raised defiantly, with the US flag behind him in the sky. Anyone in my line
Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee will host America’s conservative elite for the next five days – including Donald Trump, who has just survived an assassination attempt. This true-blue city has been chosen to host the Republican National Convention, primarily because of it’s the largest city in swing state Wisconsin. Around 50,000 delegates, politicians, apparatchiks and journalists are
When there are acts of violence on a campaign trail, we often hear about how this is a commentary on our uniquely toxic, hyper-partisan times. You won’t have to go far to find people now seeking to blame Donald Trump for stirring up the forces that almost killed him last night. But running for president
That image of Donald Trump, blood streaming down his face, fist raised in front of the banner of the republic, will be a defining photo of the 21st century. Someone attempted to kill the former and would-be president, they missed, and Trump survived. His response to his followers? ‘Fight’. We can expect to see him
Today’s British news is dominated by Donald Trump narrowly escaped with his life after an attempted assassination at his rally in Pennsylvania. Images of the aftermath show Trump being escorted away with a bloodied ear, as one spectator was killed and two others are in critical condition. Secret service agents shot and killed the gunman,
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Join Fraser Nelson, Katy Balls and Kate Andrews, along with special guest Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, for a live edition of Coffee House Shots recorded earlier this week. A week on from Sir Jacob losing his seat, he declares ‘I can speak freely now’. So, why does he think the Conservatives lost the election? The team
Trump displayed great presence of mind in raising his fist in defiance and shouting ‘fight’ as secret service agents sought to move him to safety. He now becomes a living martyr for the MAGA cause. Not since Theodore Roosevelt continued speaking for an hour after he was shot in October 1912 has an American president
Butler, Pennsylvania The crowd had waited for hours in the heat for Trump to show up. When he did arrive, they cheered when he asked if they minded if he went off the teleprompter. He had just been turning his head to point to a graph showing how many fewer illegal deportations there were when
When Ronald Reagan was shot on 30 March 1981, his wound was not immediately noticed. It wasn’t until he started bleeding from the mouth that the car was diverted from the White House to the hospital. The story goes that upon arrival, the president said to the surgeons, ‘I just hope you’re Republicans.’ A doctor
England play Spain tonight in Berlin in the final of the European Championships. Emmanuel Macron is a football fan so he may tune in. Then again, it might all be a little too painful for him. If football was in keeping with history it would be France in the final. It’s their day, after all,
England play Spain this evening in the final of the 2024 UEFA European Football Championship. On Wednesday evening England’s last-minute goal eliminated the Netherlands and simultaneously disappointed many Spaniards who were hoping that the game would go to extra time: extending the match would have left the team they play tonight that little bit more
Nearly a year ago, I wrote about the rise of the Greens in rural constituencies. Now, after standing as the Conservative candidate in Waveney Valley and losing to the Green party’s co-leader – while being savaged by the rural Greens – it is time to revisit the subject. I did not expect to come across
Donald Trump was rushed off stage by Secret Service agents on Saturday afternoon after shots rang out at his rally in Pennsylvania. A male attacker was shot and killed by a federal agent after the assassination attempt. The attacker killed one spectator at the rally, and two others are critically injured, according to the secret
When an opportunity came today for Israel to take out the leading Hamas member and head of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif, it could not afford to pass it up. It’s unclear yet whether Deif was in fact killed in the strike, which took place near the city of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip.
Don’t bother going after the Reform UK vote – the next Conservative leader should target voters lost to the Lib Dems instead. So says George Osborne, who told ITV ‘the Conservative party over a number of years vacated the central ground of British politics and allowed the Labour party to move from the Corbynista position
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What happens to staff in Whitehall when a government changes? In this Saturday edition of the podcast, Katy Balls is joined by Henry Newman, former adviser to Michael Gove. He now runs Whitehall Watch, a project exploring who’s up, who’s out, who’s in and what’s going down across Whitehall, the corridors of power and the
The Republic of Ireland has always prided itself on its lack of racism. Take the fact that two of the country’s most popular sons are black or mixed-race. Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott was the first truly international Irish rock star, while the brilliant footballer Paul McGrath was, and remains, perhaps the most genuinely beloved Irish
How do you solve a problem like Suella? Rishi Sunak is facing calls to expel Braverman from the Conservative party following her remarks about the LGBTQ+ flag, according to the BBC. The Beeb felt fit to run the story even though it was only able to find one failed parliamentary candidate and one failed council
Whether it’s Harvard, Pennsylvania, Oxford or Cambridge, if there are large endowments and manicured lawns then, it seems, anti-Semitism is virulent. As the academic year comes to an end, we need to discuss the bigotry that has been unleashed at elite universities across Britain and America. The latest example to hit the headlines occurred at
Keir Starmer, a lifelong Arsenal fan, will be in Berlin to watch England take on Spain this Sunday in the Euro 2024 final. The Prime Minister says he wants to ‘mark the occasion’ if England win, prompting speculation that an extra bank holiday may be in the offing. Plans are reportedly underway for a celebration in London
As opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer long struggled to define what ‘Starmerism’ is, other than ‘not Corbynism’ and ‘not Toryism’. Last Autumn, he belatedly stumbled across a policy theme which he has since tried to make his own: ‘Yimbyism’, a positive ‘Yes In My Back Yard’ attitude to development: the antidote to Nimbyism. Labour’s rhetoric on housing
In a sense, Democrats ought to be relieved. After his calamitous presidential debate, Joe Biden delivered one of his most embarrassing gaffes on Thursday, when he introduced Volodymyr Zelensky as ‘President Putin’, and called Kamala Harris ‘Vice President Trump’. These howlers – which could have been mistaken for hard-right disinformation – are incontrovertible evidence the
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Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has acknowledged that ‘our prisons are on the point of collapse’. She has announced that, from September, most prisoners serving sentences of less than four years will be released 40 per cent of the way through their sentences instead of the halfway point, which is currently the case. The policy will
Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has bowed to the inevitable: acknowledging that ‘our prisons are on the point of collapse’, Mahmood has announced that, from September, most prisoners serving sentences of less than four years will be released 40 per cent of the way through their sentences instead of the halfway point, which is currently the
Just Stop Oil continued its campaign by spreading orange paint over road junctions in Westminster this week, but why bother when the organisation seems now to be in power? Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband is said to be weighing up blocking new licenses for oil drilling in the North Sea. Labour has previously said
The swearing-in ceremonies in parliament this week have been rare in that more of them are filmed, posted on social media – and together, give us a flavour of the diversity in the islands, unified by the crown. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Protestants and Catholics swear loyalty to the King on a holy book of their
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The Spectator’s Freddy Gray sits down with author and professor of politics Eric Kaufmann. They discuss the dangers of DEI, why Eric blames the bleeding heart liberals for the woke contagion and why it is possible much worst than originally thought. You can also watch this episode on Spectator TV:
Parliamentary oath-taking rarely causes excitement. MPs swearing the oath of allegiance to the Crown after an election is an archaic yet prosaic sight: line up, shuffle in, say the words, shuffle off. Repeat 600-odd times. It’s a bit different this time, because so many of the MPs are first-timers. Nonetheless most of their swearing-in moments
The House of Commons has a more secular character than ever before. Roughly 40 per cent of MPs have chosen to swear in using the secular ‘affirmation’ rather than a religious oath. Only 24 per cent took the secular option at the start of the last parliament. The current secular affirmers include half of the
Are we witnessing a new and more dangerous stage in the indirect war between Russia and the West? The news that Moscow’s agents may have been planning to assassinate European defence industrialists suggests they are escalating their covert operations abroad, which demands a quick and serious response. German and US intelligence sources are claiming that