All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
‘Maoré na Farantsa paka tcho!’, Emmanuel Macron declared five years ago campaigning in Mamoudzou, speaking the local language of Shimaoré in the capital city of Mayotte, a French-ruled archipelago-commune in the Indian Ocean. Translation: Mayotte and France, for ever, in life until death. The French president returned to the islands this week to play emperor but
Humza Yousaf lasted just over 400 days as SNP leader. Will his replacement John Swinney get that far? The question arises so soon into his tenure because of Swinney’s decision to oppose the suspension of a former cabinet colleague. Michael Matheson resigned as health secretary in February after the taxpayer was left with an £11,000
Oh dear. It’s not yet 48 hours since Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a general election and already tensions are running high. Now it transpires that Labour backbencher and vocal women’s rights campaigner Rosie Duffield was not invited to her own party’s election launch in Kent despite being an, er, Kent MP. Making a rather
Unveiling fancy new technology is one of the strategies the government can use to show Brits that they take defence seriously. In recent months, UK officials have made a big deal of Dragonfire, the UK’s new laser system that promises to blast a drone out of the sky for the same price as a takeaway. Defence Secretary
It’s day two of the election campaign and things aren’t looking up for Rishi Sunak. After the downpour on the Wednesday and the Euros blunder on the Thursday, today the Prime Minister produced his third viral moment of the campaign on a visit to Belfast. As the latest polls revealed that his party is still
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Next week the world may know whether Donald Trump becomes the first US President to receive a criminal conviction. But could this verdict help or hinder him? Tom Lubbock, co-founder of pollsters J L Partners, joins Freddy Gray to discuss. They also analyse the dynamics at play in current polling: why is Trump doing better
So. Farewell then to the Covid parliament. It’s been a remarkable five years in British politics, what with the pandemic, Brexit, the change of monarch and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. But with the Commons due to dissolve next Thursday, one of the great features which Mr S will miss the most is the
Five down – how many more to go? As more and more senior Russian officers and defence officials are arrested on corruption charges, the rumour mill is in full spin as it cranks out claims that this is everything from a purge of potential coup plotters to a Federal Security Service (FSB) takeover of the
There is a distinct air of unreality about the position of the Scottish Labour party as it enters this election campaign. Frankly, many in the party don’t believe opinion polls suggesting, as YouGov did last week, that they are 10 per cent ahead of the SNP and could return up to 35 MPs on 4
This morning, Ofgem announced another reduction in the energy price cap from July. The new cap on the unit price of energy should see costs fall by another 7 per cent, taking £122 off the average household bill. And it didn’t take long for both the Tories and Labour to try to swing the news
When Rishi Sunak announced his decision to call a July election, he used his rain-soaked speech to list his apparent achievements in office. This included his plans for a ‘smoke-free generation’: We set out a comprehensive plan to reform our welfare system to make it fair to those who pay for it as well as those who need it. Immigration is finally coming down and we will stop the boats with our Rwanda partnership. We will ensure that the
Today’s report by the National Audit Office on the backlog of cases in the Crown Court is unlikely to feature much in the election campaign, but it examines an aspect of criminal justice policy which will need to be addressed very urgently by the next government. In April last year the Ministry of Justice had
Every now and then you see an event and you think to yourself: ‘This will go down in history.’ Last night’s revolt of the Jews of London against a ‘pro-Palestine’ mob is one such event. Jews and their allies gathered at the Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley to defend its showing of a film about
When Rishi Sunak told cabinet colleagues about his decision to call a general election, Michael Gove sought to raise spirits by declaring ‘who dares, wins!’. But a great many Tory MPs have been making a different calculation: that with Labour 20 points ahead in the polls, it may be better not to dare – and
The Scottish government under John Swinney and his deputy Kate Forbes could be on the verge of missing an opportunity to strengthen UK/Scottish shipbuilding while possibly failing islanders and the working communities of Glasgow’s Clyde area. This is according to the former head of Scotland’s nationalised shipyard, David Tydeman, who has decided to speak out.
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Both major party leaders are hitting the road today and campaigning in Scotland, which will be a major battleground in the coming election. Labour looks comfortably in the lead, but is that number accurate to what’s happening on the ground? Cindy Yu and Katy Balls talk to Focaldata’s James Kanagasooriam about their latest analysis. Produced
This morning’s retail sales figures are not what Rishi Sunak will have hoped for as he pitches his case for re-election on economic recovery. They are yet more indication that Britain has fallen out of love with shopping. Sales volumes were 2.3 per cent down in April compared with the previous month, while the March
Amidst the election drama it would be easy to forget about one rather eccentric politician. Today Jeremy Corbyn has announced today that he will stand as an independent candidate for the seat of Islington North — after significant speculation about whether he would be welcomed back into the Labour fold. After holding the seat for
Most people don’t belong to a political tribe. They vote pragmatically. When an election comes round, they ask themselves how well the party in power has performed in government and try to decide whether it looks likely to improve their living standards in the future. In next month’s general election, millions of pragmatic middle-of-the-road voters,
I’m old enough to remember the sense of optimism, hope and promise felt when Tony Blair was elected back in 1997; not by me, obviously, but I could at least appreciate that other people felt that ‘things can only get better’. Whether you think they did or not, Blair transformed the country in his own
When Rishi Sunak stood in the rain in Downing Street to announce a general election on 4 July, he made a speech which was unusually personal. Looking back on his steep rise to power – five years ago he was not even a cabinet minister – he spoke of the challenges the country has faced and
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New York Post writer Miranda Devine joins Freddy Gray to discuss Joe Biden’s unpopularity. Why are Americans increasingly not supporting him? And how have Biden family scandals and rumours affected trust in the President? In a week that Biden gave a commencement speech, they also discuss the recent controversy over NFL kicker Harrison Butker’s speech.
It’s a day that ends in ‘y’, which means more chaos for the beleaguered SNP. Now it transpires that Scotland’s Crown Office has finally received Peter Murrell’s charge sheet – after he was charged with embezzlement from the SNP over a month ago. The husband of former SNP leader and first minister of Scotland Nicola
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Less than 24 hours after Rishi Sunak’s surprise election announcement, we look ahead to the parties’ campaigns. What has been the fall out? How have Labour responded to the shock news? And why didn’t Rishi have an umbrella? James Heale is joined by Isabel Hardman and former Labour adviser John McTernan to discuss. Produced by
It’s the beginning of a general election campaign, which can only mean one thing: politicians pretending to care about football to connect with the punters. Rishi Sunak kicked things off, with his first campaign stop at a brewery in Wales this afternoon – a brave choice of venue for a politician many voters think really couldn’t
This evening French television broadcasts a live debate between prime minister Gabriel Attal and Jordan Bardella. The president of the National Rally is on course for a spectacular victory in the European elections on 9 June, but Emmanuel Macron hopes that his Boy Wonder might be able to close the gap tonight with a strong
It’s been a big morning on the right of British politics. First, net migration figures were published showing 685,000 people arrived in the 12 months between 2022 and 2023. Rishi Sunak then admitted that no flights to Rwanda will take off before polling day on 4 July. This was followed shortly after by Nigel Farage
Uh oh. In non-election news north of the border, the Scottish government’s former health secretary Michael Matheson has been handed both a suspension and salary ban after his rather humiliating £11,000 iPad scandal was exposed. As Mr S has written previously, Matheson has been in the doghouse for months after it was revealed he lied about
The last time John Swinney was leader of the SNP, 20 years ago, the party went on to return only six MPs in the next general election. Labour returned 41 north of the border. Swinney had resigned the year before, but this was his electoral legacy. The party has had a traumatic year since the precipitate
It more than doubled its sales. It unveiled a new line of microchips. It promised to keep rolling out new products for the next few years. In the end, Nvidia, the chip manufacturer, delivered the kind of blockbuster results that traders and investors had been waiting for. Yesterday’s ‘Nvidia Day’ (as the company’s quarterly results
Amidst all the election drama and hurried campaign launches, it would be easy to forget the public inquiries taking place at present. But fear not, Mr S has gathered together the most notable parts of today’s Covid Inquiry, where Cabinet Secretary Dr Simon Case is making a rather delayed appearance after he was unable to
Rwanda removals policy, for so long an anticipated cornerstone of the Tory re-election effort, has today officially become an ‘over the rainbow’ idea wide open to mockery from opposition parties. Not only will the deterrent impact on small boat crossings of the ‘regular drumbeat’ of flights that the Prime Minister promised us not have had