All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
There’s bad news for coffee fans: the price of your favourite beverage – which has already rocketed in recent years – is about to soar. A prolonged heatwave in Vietnam, the world’s second largest coffee producing country after Brazil, is damaging the coffee crop and sending the cost of robusta beans – used in instant
On Tuesday, parliament voted for the first time on legislation to begin the phasing out of smoking (not just cigarettes, but cigars, shisha, you name it), and to create a two-tier legal system where some adults will be able to buy these products, and some won’t. Although the ban seems popular with the public, it
Another day, another Holyrood mess. This time, it’s hapless Humza Yousaf being criticised for his slow response to the Cass review into gender services. It’s not like the Scottish First Minister to be missing in action when it matters… If Yousaf’s time as First Minister is defined by anything, it might well be his staggering
It is hard not to feel a teeny weeny bit sorry for Emma Raducanu, who was hailed as the next big thing in tennis after her fairytale win in the 2021 US Open. She was just 18 when she won at Flushing Meadows, a Grand Slam triumph achieved only three months after she finished her
It’s a day ending in ‘y’ – which means it’s more bad news for Rishi Sunak. The beleaguered Tory premier had a relatively good day on Wednesday, celebrating falling inflation and a punchy performance in parliament. But today’s Times brings news that another Tory MP has lost the party whip while its claims about alleged
11 min listen
The day after her book was published, Rishi Sunak faced down questions from Keir Starmer and Labour members at PMQs about Liz Truss. While he had his replies at the ready, the questions underscored the main issue for Sunak: how should he deal with his predecessor? Also on the podcast, there is more inflation news
A year ago today, the Putin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was jailed for 25 years – the longest sentence handed down to a political prisoner in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union over 30 years ago. For the last year, Kara-Murza has been held in a prison in Siberia, often in solitary confinement, with
The movement to radicalise the art and museum world was always going to come back and bite its own children. It has happened more quickly than we thought, as demonstrated by the seriously red faces at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) last week. Among the paintings on display at the NPG was one by French
Keir Starmer came to Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) with a spring in his step. He announced that he owned ‘a rare unsigned copy’ of Liz Truss’s memoirs. ‘The only unsigned copy,’ he added with a chortle. Then he asked Rishi Sunak to justify the calamities of Truss’s premiership. ‘He should spend less time reading that
Lord Renwick, the Labour peer and former Foreign Office mandarin, used to say that young diplomats of a certain breeding suffered from the ‘Wykehamist fallacy’. This, he said, was the tendency to assume that even the most bloodthirsty despot had an inner civilised chap of the sort one might find at Winchester College. Treat him
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was a classic knockabout between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer clearly written by their respective attack units. Both came armed with the sort of material you’d expect for a scrap: the Labour leader had a ‘rare unsigned copy’ of Liz Truss’s book, while the Prime Minister wanted to talk about Angela
The heart sinks at the latest thoughts espoused by David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, on a future Labour government’s foreign policy. Lammy has penned a 4,000 word essay for Foreign Affairs on his vision of pursuing ‘progressive realism’ for Britain on the international stage. It is a less than catchy phrase that amounts to little
The curious case of Angela Rayner’s tax affairs continues to drag on and Rishi Sunak isn’t prepared to let Sir Keir Starmer forget about it. In a new development yesterday, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Steve Watson revealed that ‘there are a number of assertions knocking about’ while another police source told
She’s produced a bestseller! Liz Truss’s new book has been out for less than 72 hours and it’s already sold out on Amazon. It’s currently reprinting but will be due back in stock early next week. Golly. Ten Years to Save the West is part-memoir, part-political vision, documenting not only Truss’s 49 days in office
Interest rate cuts are beginning to look like a mirage: the closer we seem to get to them the more they seem to recede into the distance. Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey may have hinted this week that UK rates could soon be cut regardless of what happens in the United States, where strong
Next month’s local elections will be the last significant encounter with voters before a general election, likely later this year. So far, the talk is that heavy losses for the Tories are ‘priced in’ – with the party expected to lose about half of the Tories up for re-election. As I previously reported, senior conservatives
‘How do you think this looks to the rest of the world?’ asked Nigel Farage as police attempted to shut down the National Conservatism conference in Brussels on Tuesday. Belgian politicians won’t care what it looks like. This is the most undemocratic country in western Europe. And while the mayor who tried to ban the
Another day, another development in the curious case of Angela Rayner’s tax affairs. Mr S last week reported that Rayner became the subject of a formal police investigation. Initially, this was thought to focus on a potential breach of electoral law. But it has subsequently emerged in the Times that the force investigating Rayner is
When will the Scottish government get on with the day job? Hot on the heels of his controversial Hate Crime Act, Humza Yousaf has now promised a misogyny law that will apparently protect members of both sexes. The First Minister insisted that ‘anyone affected’ by misogyny would be covered, whatever their biological sex. This includes,
After the longest promotional tour in history, Liz Truss finally held her belated book launch party. Less than an hour after voting against her successor’s smoking ban, Truss welcomed the good and the great of Tory politics to mark the advent of her new tome Ten Days to Save the West. In a wide-ranging speech,
It seems political consensus isn’t dead. It’s simply been hibernating, waiting for a kind of crackdown on personal liberty that is so popular that it brings everyone together. That moment came this evening, when MPs voted on the second reading of the government’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which will not only ban whatever flavoured vapes
In the past few minutes, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill has passed its second reading by 383 votes to 67, with at least six Conservative ministers voting against the legislation. It was a free vote, but it is still a striking thing to see a cabinet minister – in this case Kemi Badenoch – going
Tonight saw the second reading of the Sunak administration’s flagship Tobacco and Vapes Bill. As expected the government easily won the vote by 383 votes to 67, thanks to Labour’s support of the legislation. However some 59 Tories chose to cast a vote of protest against plans to introduce a generational ban on smoking, with
When Rishi Sunak first unveiled his plans for a smoke-free generation, Downing Street was clear it would be a free vote. Such are the divisions in the Tory party over the issue and the question of personal liberty that there were never any plans to whip the vote. As expected, Sunak’s policy to make it
It’s easy to laugh at Liz Truss bringing out a book, much harder to ask whether there are points she makes that Westminster can actually learn from. The former prime minister obviously has a self-awareness problem which leads her to blame her failures on anyone and everyone who happened to be around at the time.
Brussels A familiar refrain at any National Conservatism conference is that leftist elites are censorious, authoritarian and intolerant of free speech. Today, it seemed like this was proven correct, after the Brussels police were ordered to shut down the conference in an outrageous assault on freedom of speech. It has been a surreal day so
14 min listen
It’s not just Britain that has a growth problem. Today’s release of the IMF’s April 2024 World Economic Outlook report argues that the global economy is following the lacklustre trend. Within this bleak picture, how does the UK look compared to its counterparts? Also on the podcast, MPs are set to vote this evening on the government’s
It’s a sad day for lovers of personal freedom. Not only is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pressing on with his smoking ban — the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is taking place today — but now the Belgian authorities are attempting to shut down the National Conservatism conference in Brussels. Nigel Farage
It’s not just Britain that has a growth problem. Today’s release of the IMF’s April 2024 World Economic Outlook report argues that the global economy is following the lacklustre trend. Global growth is expected to sit at 3.1 per cent by 2029: ‘at its lowest in decades’. Global growth is forecast to move at the same pace
The Spectator runs the UK’s only double-blind internship scheme. We don’t ask for a CV, we don’t use your name. We don’t care where (or whether) you went to university, we anonymise your application. We give each applicant a city name, mark out of 100 and give offers to the best ones. You’ll come in
It’s going to be a long day for Rishi Sunak. It’s the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and the Prime Minister is expecting to see a number of his own politicians vote against his smoking ban this evening. Opponents of the bill include Sir Simon Clarke and Sir John Hayes while Penny
There’s 16 days to go until the London elections and Labour is comfortably in the lead. But is Sadiq Khan now feeling the heat? Perusing Twitter/X this morning, Mr S could not help but notice a new account has sprung up, under the name of ‘London Tory Fact Check’. Its bio reads simply ‘Exposing London
The High Court has ruled today in favour of Michaela Community School, after it was sued by a Muslim pupil who objected to the school’s prayer ban. Below is a statement from the school’s headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh: A school should be free to do what is right for the pupils it serves. The court’s decision
Happy NatCon day, one and all. Yes, it’s that time of year again, when some of Europe’s most vocal right-wing exponents get together in a room for the annual National Conservatism conference. Last year’s shindig was in Westminster and spawned numerous headlines about Miriam Cates and Lee Anderson. This time though it’s being held in