All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford has won a reputation for its energetic programme of ‘decolonisation’. Its director, Laura van Broekhoven, is an expert on the Amazon. Nonetheless, on the museum website she actually begins her account of her academic work with the words ‘Laura’s current research interests include repatriation and redress, with a focus on the
Are you beach-body ready? Boris Johnson, who has always projected a joyously uninhibited confidence about his physical form, clearly thinks that he is. The blond bombshell has been basking in Sardinia and is now reported to have a second summer holiday already in the diary which will keep him away from these chilly shores until
As the election date draws ever closer, this morning it was the turn of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to face callers on LBC’s phone-in. And as the questions rolled in, the PM found himself doing a rather lot of defending: of his decision to have the national poll in July, on his party’s plans to
After a three-year saga, inflation has finally returned to the Bank of England’s target. The Office for National Statistics reports this morning that the inflation rate slowed to 2 per cent in the 12 months to May 2024: its lowest point since July 2021. The greatest contribution came from another slowdown in food and non-alcoholic
Emmanuel Macron has described the left-wing coalition’s manifesto as ‘totally immigrationist’. The Popular Front, which brings together Communists, Greens, Socialists and Anti-Capitalists, was formed at the start of last week to contest the upcoming parliamentary elections. While there has been the odd divergence on personnel – notably who should be prime minister in the event
It’s a day ending in ‘y’ which means that a political party somewhere is having candidate drama. This time it’s Sir Keir Starmer’s lefty Labour lot, who have had to drop their Aberdeenshire North and Moray East candidate over controversial social media posts about Russia and antisemitism. Oh dear… Andy Brown shared contentious posts about
Following last week’s manifesto launches, Mr S has been looking into the fine print. As part of Labour’s plans to reform the House of Lords, Starmer says that he now wants to forcibly retire British peers at 80 years old when – he believes – they will be unfit for public service. But Steerpike is
Anyone over the age of 40 can scarcely help comparing this election, or the state of our two main parties, with those of the past. Though in 2024 it seems a choice between dumb and dumber (or grey and greyer), this wasn’t always the case. The government of Blair, Brown, Prescott and Cook seem like
Are the Tories feeling the heat from Reform? Apparently so, if online adverts are anything to go by, with London-based Facebook users complaining of an increase in online adverts targeting Nigel Farage’s party. The latest example involves an advert which tells social media users ‘Vote Reform, Get Labour’ — a phrase trotted out regularly by
On the face of it, there could hardly be a better example of a turkey voting for Christmas than the news that Jim Ratcliffe has come out and backed the Labour party. Yes, a Brexiteer who owns one of Britain’s six oil refineries really is throwing his weight behind Keir Starmer, a man who wanted
So, another place where men have to mind their language: on mountains. In an article in Scottish Mountaineer magazine by one Dr Richard Tiplady, he advises male walkers never to call women ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’. They should not assume that women can’t read a map. ‘If they ask for advice about kit or their route, be
12 min listen
If you’re a Twitter user, you might have seen more of Boris Johnson than usual. He’s been making videos to endorse selected candidates from his holiday in Sardinia. Might he make a bigger return to the election campaign? Is he the man that could save the Tories from Farage – and does he want to?
Kate Andrews speaks to Michael Cannon, the director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, to discuss how the US government prevents medical professionals and entrepreneurs from offering higher-quality, lower-cost care. Michael explains what policies can improve access to healthcare – both in America and Europe.
Is Trussonomics making a comeback? That’s the suggestion today, as Jeremy Hunt was recorded on the campaign trail telling students that Liz Truss’s goals for the economy were a ‘good thing to aim for’. As Chancellor, he said, he was ‘trying to basically achieve some of the same things’ as Truss, but ‘more gradually’ compared to the
Should a candidate feel forced to pull out of public hustings events because of concerns about their safety? No, of course not, though that’s exactly what our current political culture has caused Rosie Duffield to do. One of her own Labour party colleagues, Lord Cashman, had the whip suspended after he suggested she was ‘frit
Uh oh. After multiple reports of controversial candidates, Reform UK boss Nigel Farage has announced that he is threatening a vetting firm with legal action. The party leader has accused the company, Vetting.com, of ‘stitching up’ Reform UK. Golly… In April, the Farage-founded party signed a £144,000 contract with Vetting.com on the agreement the firm
The Nouveau Front Populaire has been formed to take on Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in the French legislative elections. It is a coalition of ultra-leftists, woo-woo greens, a candidate who has been identified as an active Antifa activist, the tottering geriatric residue of the French communist party and also many traditional opportunistic socialists.
When Vladimir Putin lands in Pyongyang today on his first visit to North Korea in 24 years, it will be the second time he has met his fellow dictator, Kim Jong Un, in under a year. Even if the summit simply brings more bright lights and signatures, it would be a mistake to dismiss the
France’s prime minister was out and about on Monday mixing with the proles south of Paris. ‘I’m going to shake your hand because you’re all right,’ said one old man, accepting the outstretched hand of Gabriel Attal. ‘But you’ll have tell the president to shut his trap.’ Attal didn’t quite know how to respond, mumbling
When Paris overtook London as the continent’s largest stock market two years ago, it was widely seen as a significant milestone in Britain’s relative decline. It was a sign of the City of London’s weakness – and it was evidence that the UK’s departure from the European Union was slowly destroying its once powerful financial
With only 16 days to go until the election – and today being the last day you can register to vote – election campaigning is heating up and political plans are coming under ever more scrutiny. This morning Sir Keir Starmer appeared on LBC to take questions from the public on Labour’s 2024 manifesto pledges
‘The thing is,’ says one Conservative member of the Scottish parliament, ‘that we wanted rid of him – just not like this.’ Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross’s decision to stand in next month’s General Election infuriated colleagues. His response to that backlash – to resign his position – has driven some of them positively apoplectic
Why did it take Nigel Farage to suggest clawing back some of the super profits pocketed recently by British banks? Why hasn’t Labour thought of stopping the Bank of England paying interest on the deposits of commercial banks? There is, after all, plenty of money for the taking. In 2023, HSBC reported a record net
In the final election push, the Tories are trying to drag the Labour party into a game of taxation whack-a-mole. The Conservatives seem to think that the threat of tax rises is the one lifeline they have. After bungling their £2,000 per-family line with a row about where the numbers come from, they are now
‘Hereditary peers remain indefensible,’ says Labour’s manifesto. The party plans to rectify this issue by ‘introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords’. If it follows through on its promise, Keir Starmer’s party will be making a big mistake. Labour suggests that its reform will
The ghost of 1997 haunts the 2024 election. The defining image of this year’s contest, barring any major upsets over the next fortnight, is already clear: Rishi Sunak drenched like a drowned chipmunk outside 10 Downing Street as he called the snap election. ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, Labour’s ’97 campaign anthem, was blasted out
Ok, so I’m partisan, granted. This was a game between my favourite mainland European country and the continent’s noisome, jihadi-replete, sewer. Sure, the VAR decisions against that grand old stager Romalu Lukaku– especially the latter one – were utter absurdities. There are microscopic infractions whenever a player has the ball and it is neither in
Humza Yousaf is back with a bang. Now the embattled politician has taken to the Grauniad’s opinion pages to write a fiery piece on ‘anti-Muslim hatred’. In an explosive entry, the ex-SNP leader claims that Muslims across the continent are ‘fearful’ due to ‘growing popularity and mainstreaming of the far right’. ‘It is increasingly difficult
Since the return of Nigel Farage, Reform UK has been going from strength to strength. Last week a YouGov survey for the Times saw the Farage-founded group overtake the Tories in the polls for the first time. Today JL Partners’s research has found that since the arch-Brexiteer’s comeback, Rishi Sunak’s popularity has dropped to pre-election
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Nigel Farage has unveiled Reform UK’s manifesto. Except, it’s not a manifesto, because he says the word is synonymous in voters’ minds with ‘lies’. It promises a freeze on non-essential immigration, a patriotic curriculum, leaving the European Court on Human Rights, and cutting taxes by £88 billion. Is this contract more of a wish list?
Nigel Farage’s tail is up. The Reform party election campaign has gone better than he dared hope and its poll rating is up by several percentage points since he re-entered the fray. Today he went to South Wales to launch what he insisted was not a manifesto, but a ‘contract’ with the electorate over its
Nigel Farage has launched his party’s manifesto, which he’s termed ‘Our contract with you’. The Reform leader dropped the word ‘manifesto’, claiming the word is synonymous in voters’ minds with ‘lies’. Farage told attendees he’d chosen Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales for today’s launch to highlight Labour’s record there, yet the document’s contents indicate that
In this election, neither Labour nor the Tories are particularly interested in serious constitutional reform. By contrast, there’s one smaller opposition party that makes it quite clear in its manifesto that it does believe in serious democratic change to make government radically responsive to what voters want. That party is Reform. True, there’s a lot in
Labour’s election manifesto has been criticised by many commentators for being too vague; like a ‘choose your own adventure’ book which would allow the party to do almost whatever it likes in government. This was highlighted today by Rachel Reeve’s remarks on Brexit. In an interview with the Financial Times, the shadow chancellor pointed out the need to improve elements of the UK’s trade