All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Are interest rates still heading ‘downwards’ as the Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said last week? Homeowners across the country will be hoping so as average two-year mortgages are again approaching 6 per cent. But the latest figures on the UK job market may dampen hopes of a cut coming soon. Britons have continued
Hurrah, the problem of plastic waste has been sorted – as of this summer all plastic water bottles sold in the EU have to come with a cap that is tethered to the rest of the bottle. If the cap comes attached to the bottle, goes the thinking, then consumers are less likely to discard
President Vladimir Putin’s appointment of the civilian economist Andrei Belousov as Russia’s defence minister in the third year of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is bad news for Kyiv and its allies. Replacing the unpopular Sergei Shoigu with Belousov marks a clear shift in Putin’s strategy: he views the war as a battle of economic attrition.
Nadhim Zahawi’s latest resignation letter was one of the all-time classics of the genre: unctuous, preening and pretentious even by the high standard of unctuousness, preeningness and pretentiousness set by his predecessors (including him). ‘Greatest honour of my life,’ he wrote. ‘Best country on earth…it was where I built a Great [capitalisation sic] British business,
The latest report on maternity care in the UK hasn’t told us anything new. The headline finding of the parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma is that poor care is ‘all-too frequently tolerated as normal’, with women’s concerns and requests for pain relief being dismissed, poor postnatal care where women who couldn’t move after surgery were
Is Catalonia’s independence movement dead in the water? Elections held in the region on Sunday reveal that support for separatist parties dropped significantly. Between them, the hard-line Junts per Catalunya, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and two small separatist parties only managed 61 seats – of which 35 went to Junts. In the regional parliament,
Will any woman who has given birth on the NHS be surprised by a damning report into maternity services? I wasn’t. I was horrified to read of babies born with cerebral palsy because of mistakes and failures made before and during labour. I was deeply saddened to read about mothers who were mocked, neglected, patronised, even shouted
I see JK Rowling is being cruel again. Her nasty streak is off its leash. She’s bullying random people and engaging in ‘unedifying’ behaviour. What monstrous utterance has she issued this time? What fresh bigotry has spewed from her tweeting fingers? Brace yourselves: she called a man a man. Yes, hold the front page: a
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Rishi Sunak delivered a pre-election speech this morning setting out the dividing lines at the next election: security with the Tories or risk with Labour. Will it be enough to shift the dial? And is the Natalie Elphicke defection still haunting Keir Starmer? Natasha Feroze speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson.
In the unedifying clash of heads between billionaire Twitter/X owner, Elon Musk, and Australia’s e-safety commissioner Julie Inman Grant, there could only be one rightful winner. Elon Musk. On Monday, Musk’s X succeeded in having a temporary injunction thrown out by Australia’s Federal Court preventing it and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta from posting images of last
Spain’s Socialist party (PSOE) won crucial elections in Catalonia over the weekend, beating a pro-independence bloc whose support has been declining steadily over the last few years. The Socialists were led by Salvador Illa, who served as Spain’s health minister during the pandemic. The party will now have the first shot at forming the region’s
The European Congress on Obesity is an annual treat for health journalists, because it guarantees a week of ready-made stories based on unpublished research announced at the conference. Although it only started yesterday, it has already produced such headlines as ‘Children who use smartphones at mealtimes more likely to be obese’ and ‘Children “bombarded by
Rishi Sunak has this morning given a speech aimed at framing the choice at the next election: security with the Tories or risk with Labour. The Prime Minister’s 30-minute address at the Policy Exchange think tank in London was centred on the idea that ‘the next few years will be some of the most dangerous
How time flies. Half a year has passed since former prime minister David Cameron made a shock return to frontline politics — and the House of Lords. His appointment as Foreign Secretary was a controversial one, with certain sections of the Tory party pretty sceptical at Dave’s big return. His ardent support for Remain ruffled
Another day, another development in the curious case of Angela Rayner’s tax affairs. It now transpires that the deputy Labour leader is set to face a police interview under caution in the next few weeks. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) will quiz Sir Keir Starmer’s second-in-command over which of her two homes was her primary residence
Even on the most optimistic reading, Rishi Sunak is drinking in the last-chance saloon. Today the Prime Minister is delivering a speech which is supposed to kick-start the general election campaign. Sunak wants to demonstrate that the Conservative party has the vision and policies to guide the country through a dangerous and uncertain future. But
Xi Jinping is a busy man. He holds down three jobs. As General Secretary of the Chinese Communist party (CCP), he rules 1.4 billion people and disciplines 100 million party members; as Chairman of the Military Commission, he commands and reforms the world’s largest army; and as president, he glad-hands a succession of Beijing-bound heads
Five days have passed since Keir Starmer’s masterstroke of getting Natalie Elphicke to defect from the Tories and join the Labour party. Yet in Starmer’s rush to secure a defective Tory, no-one in the Leader’s Office (Loto) seems to have wondered whether the Labour party would actually welcome into its ranks a scandal-prone, hardline Eurosceptic
The defection of Natalie Elphicke to Labour was, no doubt about it, a political coup de theatre. What wasn’t immediately clear, but is becoming clearer now the curtain is up and the players are stumbling around the footlights yelping and tripping over bits of the set, is what sort of theatre: farce. Elphicke looks like the gift nobody wants to find under their Christmas tree Natalie Elphicke was delivered
There was an expectation that the appointment of Vladimir Putin’s new government would see some change in the Russian security apparatus, but few predicted that Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu would be replaced by an economist, Andrey Belousov, with Shoigu becoming secretary of the Security Council. With an economist taking over the defence ministry, and the
The transgender debate has a habit of bringing out the worst in people. It’s no wonder, really. It’s an issue rooted in identity – and therefore close to people’s hearts – and spiced up with the fear that fundamental concepts like the meaning of the words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ might be redefined by others, and
To this day, many Remainers see the vote to leave the EU as an entirely self-inflicted wound. But is that truly the case? Senior European politicians are starting to reflect and acknowledge Europe’s own hand in Brexit – and the damage Brussels may have caused after the referendum result. During my time working in the European Parliament
It’s reshuffle time in Moscow and it seems that Sergei Shoigu, who has served as Vladimir Putin’s defence minister for the last 12 years, is out. He’s being replaced with Andrei Belousov, an academic economist who has been advising Putin for 20 years and spent the last four as deputy prime minister. It’s a surprise
Natalie Elphicke’s dramatic defection to Labour had already caused some controversy this week, with many in Labour feeling she should not have been welcome given her history on the right of the Tory party. Now there could be more trouble for Keir Starmer after the Sunday Times reported that Elphicke may have lobbied Justice Secretary
Two questions dominated last night’s Eurovision Song Contest final in Malmo, Sweden. First, whether 20-year-old Eden Golan, Israel’s entrant, would defy the odds and actually win. And secondly, whether some kind of security breach involving pro-Palestinian protesters would result in the final being disrupted. In the end, proceedings passed off relatively peacefully. The eventual winner
Winnie Ewing, SNP royalty – Madame Écosse to those who had served alongside her in the European Parliament – opened proceedings with a song in her voice and a twinkle in her eye. ‘The Scottish Parliament,’ said the oldest of its new members, ‘adjourned on 25th day of March in the year 1707, is hereby
Was Keir Starmer’s decision to welcome the Tory right wing MP Natalie Elphicke to the Labour party a genius strategic move by a ruthless leader ready for power or an unforced error? The calculation in the Leader’s Office was that the opportunity to have an MP in a key seat on small boats (Elphicke represents
In 18 months of campaigning to win the battle to be mayor of London – spoiler: I didn’t win – I met many thousands of people. One of the most frequent things said to me was, ‘You’re not like a Conservative’ or something similar. Comments like these baffled me from the first to the last. If
The reports in China’s state media speak about ‘advancing national defence education in the new era’, teaching students to be ‘disciplined’, and ‘promoting the spirit of hard work and inspiring patriotism’. But behind the stultifying Communist party jargon is a new law that will force school children to undergo miliary training and which marks another
A high-ranking member of the yakuza (Japanese mafia) has been arrested in Tokyo for selling stolen Pokemon cards. Keita Saito was taken into custody in April after the theft of goods worth 1,600 dollars, which included a stack of the popular ‘Pocket Monster’ trading cards. What a comedown for the once fearsome lords of the underworld
‘You’re gay.’ That was the first tip I got from a friend who writes applications for Arts Council grants. He was helping me bid for £15,000 to fund my new play on the London fringe. ‘I’m not gay,’ I said. ‘So what?’ he told me. ‘The Arts Council wants you gay. So be gay.’ My
Eden Golan has qualified for the final of tonight’s Eurovision Song Contest and will represent Israel in the world’s most-watched cultural event. How she’ll get there is another issue: the pro-Palestinian crowds outside the venue (including Greta Thunberg) are so formidable that at one point yesterday Golan’s security team said it was not safe for
Another day, another all time high. As the week closed, the FTSE 100 index hit 8,433 — the highest level it has ever reached — and this is turning into a regular occurrence. The FTSE has now hit 11 all-time-highs over the last month, and it is close to equalling the record set way back