All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Cardinal Robert Sarah from Guinea in West Africa has been named among the potential successors to Pope Francis and the prospect is sending a jolt through the French establishment. He has accused the West of betraying its Christian roots and described mass migration as a form of ‘self destruction’. He has spoken of immigration as
It’s not just the SNP who can’t sort out their ferries. A new row has broken out much further south over the failure to provide affordable transport to the 140,000 residents on the Isle of Wight. The local Tory MP Joe Robertson is leading the charge over rocketing ferry prices, which mean a return trip
Theodore Roosevelt was a believer in speaking softly but carrying a big stick. But where does that leave Donald Trump, who today resorted to all-caps plea, or perhaps demand, that Putin ‘STOP!’ his offensive operations against Ukrainian cities – yet backed up his entreaty with precisely nothing? ‘I am not happy with the Russian strikes on
As the government’s Crime and Policing Bill makes its way through parliament, MPs on the Public Bill Committee are scrutinising its clauses today – including, potentially, Clause 86. If passed, this provision will make it a criminal offence to conceal your identity at a protest. For some people this may sound sensible enough. But for dissidents
Friedrich Merz, the victor of German elections in February is struggling even before he takes office. Outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) – the election losers – used coalition talks to ram through their policies in a 144-page pact to serve as junior partner to Merz’s Christian Democrats. The accord shies away from any big reforms of the economy, of the creaking social welfare state and even from the no-brainer of reinstating military conscription to help deter Russia. The agreement is so bad and
In the Scottish Borders, Earlston Primary School’s newly built campus has no single-sex toilet provision. This astonishing planning decision was reportedly made after undertaking training by LGBT Youth Scotland. It was also based on the Scottish government’s similar guidance, which one can easily assume may well be based on the same advice, so eager have the
Hold the front page, sound the alarm, remember where you were – the Lib Dems have come up with a good idea for once. Reinforcing the old adage that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, Ed Davey’s party has announced a genuinely sensible policy: that playing music out loud on public transport
Well, well, well. While Rachel Reeves enjoys a week in Washington DC at the International Monetary Fund spring talks, back in the UK concerns are mounting about what concessions Britain will have to make to enter into a trade deal with Donald Trump’s America. Fears are growing about what Trump’s current tariffs will means for
Machinery of government is not the sexiest of subjects – but it is a useful way of signalling a politician’s priorities. Rishi Sunak used his first reshuffle to rebrand the ‘Department for Energy Security’ and create a new ministry for science. Boris Johnson invented the Department for Levelling Up; Jeremy Corbyn proposed a ‘Minister for
The government is on a charm offensive in Washington. Tonight, Britain’s ambassador to the US, Lord Mandelson, will host officials from Donald Trump’s government and American business figures at the British embassy. Tomorrow, the Chancellor will meet her counterpart, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Rachel Reeves is looking to permanently end the punishing 25 per cent
Knife crime, shoplifting and fraud is on the rise in Britain. Fraud was up by a third in the last year, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which also reveal a 50 per cent increase (to around 483,000 incidents) in theft. Shoplifting offences rose by 20 per cent in 2024 –
On Wednesday, the lying in state for His Holiness Pope Francis began, with tens of thousands of mourners filing past his open casket in St Peter’s Basilica. In death before us, Pope Francis is still preaching his last sermon to the faithful; et tu in Arcadia ego. Death is always with us. When did you
It’s official: subjecting oil and gas companies to a 78 pence tax rate (which is corporation tax plus the government’s windfall tax) doesn’t increase energy prices in the UK. That is what Ed Miliband told us on Sky News this morning, so it must be true. He will no doubt be hoping that we don’t
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Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been in Washington D.C. this week at the IMF’s spring meetings, and will meet US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tomorrow. Cue the ususal talk of compromising on chlorinated chicken. Not so, reports the Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons, who explains that Reeves may offer a reduction in long-standing tariffs already imposed on
As the Chancellor Rachel Reeves flies into Washington for a series of high-level meetings, there is lots of spin from the Treasury that she is about to tie up a trade deal with the United States. The plan is that it would save the UK from tariffs and may even give a much needed boost
John Swinney’s cross-party civic gathering – or ‘anti-Reform summit’ – met in Glasgow on Wednesday, with political party leaders from across Holyrood prepared to discuss how to rid Scotland of the hard right. Yet what began as a ‘Democratic Resilience Summit’ rather backfired for those politicians keen to push back against Reform UK’s surge in
Welcome to this year’s BBC Proms, the self-styled ‘World’s Greatest Classical Music Festival’, whose programme was revealed today. Every year I write about how even The Proms, which bills itself unambiguously as a festival of classical music, can’t bring itself to be just that: a festival of classical music. And every year it gets worse,
The unfolding tale of incendiary devices planted in DHL packages across Europe not only highlights the dangers of Moscow’s campaign of direct measures against the West. It also suggests that, contrary to more alarmist claims, it is possible for such threats to be deterred and limited. In July of last year, a package bound for
Back to the curious case of Tulip Siddiq, Labour’s former anti-corruption minister who has been issued with an arrest warrant by Bangladesh over, um, corruption. Earlier this month, the Hampstead and Highgate MP was slapped with the warrant after the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) submitted a criminal charge sheet against the politician over investigations involving
Is Ed Miliband going to announce a move towards a zonal electricity market, where wholesale prices would vary between regions of Britain? It would appear to be on cards following the Energy and Climate Secretary’s interview on the Today programme in which he said he was considering the idea. Miliband’s apparent support for the plan
Keir Starmer thinks ‘this is the time now to lower the temperature’ on the gender debate. To ‘move forward’. To ‘conduct this debate with the care and compassion that it deserves’. That is what he said at Prime Minister’s Questions. What a shallow, hollow man he is. Now is the time to lower the temperature?
What does it mean to say ‘never again’? It is etched into memorials, inscribed in textbooks, whispered in the shadows of history’s darkest hour. It is a phrase uttered by world leaders at solemn ceremonies, by teachers guiding young minds through the horrors of the past, by those who stand in Auschwitz, tracing their fingers
An earthquake of 6.2 magnitude hit Istanbul in the early afternoon. Lasting around 20 seconds, the city was sent into panic, with most of the residents rushing to the streets, looking for some of the rare open areas in the densely built quarters. Although no deaths or major damage have been reported so far, the
On Monday this week, Ronen Bar, head of Israel’s security service Shin Bet, challenged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to fire him in the country’s Supreme Court, blocking it – at least temporarily. He was supported in his claim by a number of civic groups and former military generals, including the former senior air
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Freddy Gray is joined by Spectator US Editor-at-Large Ben Domenech to discuss defence secretary Pete Hegseth, whose job appears to be on the line. They explore Hegseth’s outsider status in Washington, his clashes with both hawkish and dovish factions, and the growing tensions over U.S. policy on Iran and Israel.
Has the moment arrived when Donald Trump abandons the last iota of his support for Ukraine in the war against Russia? Taking to his social media platform, Truth, the American President appeared to suggest so. Referring to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump wrote, ‘He can have peace, or he can fight for another three
Women and Sir Keir Starmer. That was the issue that dominated a fiery PMQs today. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch asked Sir Keir if he’d been ‘wrong to say trans women are women.’ His bland but careful answer expressed a wish that ‘service providers’ should obey the ruling. Then he loftily advised the house to ‘lower
What’s the point of parliament’s foreign affairs committee holding mock-trial style hearings about Israel’s defensive war against Iranian-backed terror groups? Do its members genuinely believe that such performative enquiries contribute to peace in the Middle East? One wonders how Britain might respond if the Israeli Knesset held public hearings into British issues – on Muslim
Christ is risen. Lent is over, Eastertide has begun. With it, my Lenten fast – and that of millions of others – has also reached its natural conclusion. This year, I sacrificed every kind of sweet treat I could think of: cakes, chocolate, biscuits, jam, pastries, ice cream. In doing so, I found myself grappling with the
It was an extraordinary statement, given all the bluster that had gone before it. Tariffs on Chinese goods will ‘come down substantially’ from their current level of 145 per cent, Donald Trump said on Tuesday, adding that ‘We are doing fine with China … We’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together’.
Britain used to be good at building nuclear power stations. Really good. We built the world’s first – and then another ten within a decade for good measure. As late as 1965, Britain had more nuclear power stations than the rest of the world combined. Britain used to be good at building nuclear power stations.
Keir Starmer was well aware that Kemi Badenoch would probably use Prime Minister’s Questions today to run a victory lap following the Supreme Court judgement on the definition of a woman. She has long been clear about the need to make biological sex the basis of such a definition, while Starmer has been on a
Reform UK are on manoeuvres in Scotland. Mr S can reveal today that not only did Nigel Farage’s party poach former Tory councillor Ross Lambie last month, now the right-wingers will rub salt in Conservative wounds by standing him in the Scottish constituency of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse in the June by-election – after incumbent