All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
According to opinion polls, more Australians want to ditch the country’s ties with the British monarchy than retain it. The Labor government of prime minister Anthony Albanese includes an assistant minister for the republic. King Charles is being dropped from Australian banknotes. Most major Australian media outlets, including News Corp’s flagship newspaper the Australian, and
With ‘don’t mention the war!’ the order of the day, it felt as if Vladimir Putin’s message to his people this year was haunted by the ghost of Basil Fawlty. The New Year’s message is a Soviet and then Russian tradition dating back to the 1970s. It is watched widely across the country, sometimes with
Sadiq Khan was hoping to project a message of ‘unity to the world’ with this year’s New Year’s Eve fireworks in London, which of course included the customary genuflections to the NHS, Windrush and inclusivity. But for all the highfalutin spiel about London’s place in the world, the mayor seemed rather less comfortable talking about
New Year’s Eve passed off peacefully in France give or take the odd incident. There were 211 arrests in total, announced Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, but overall the country saw in 2024 with good cheer. In the days leading up to the last day of 2023, there were ominous warnings from the government about
In Italy if you are not careful, you are condemned to measure out your life in religious festivals. There are so many of them. Perhaps that’s why I find La Befana a bit of a pain coming as it does so hard on the heels of so many others. Or maybe it’s because it is
As hundreds of boats float elegantly down the Seine at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics this summer, one well-known and loved landmark will be absent. The bouquinistes, antique booksellers who have lined the banks for centuries, will have decamped for the duration of the games. For many Parisians who face the prospect of
A new year is a good time for nations, like families, to review the institutions they support. For 2024 I have a suggestion for the UK: it could do worse than standing back and considering hard how it should deal in future with the United Nations and its offshoots. We’re not talking here about leaving
The news that Tim Martin, the founder of JD Wetherspoon, has been given a knighthood in the New Year Honours list caused predictable outrage among the perpetually outraged. The gong was awarded for Sir Tim’s ‘services to hospitality and culture’, but the usual crybabies on social media asked whether it was really because he supported
Since 1973, much of global politics has been conducted in the long shadow of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) cartel. That was the year Opec first set its stamp on global affairs by engineering an oil crisis in response to Western governments’ support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Prices quadrupled and
Before the year ends, I’d like to tell the story of Karol Sikora and attempts to have him removed from a Spectator-sponsored discussion on the NHS at the last Tory conference. It offers an insight not just into how we work at 22 Old Queen Street but the dynamics of sponsored discussions. The Tory conference
As she faced her final press conference of 2022 last Christmas, the first minister of Scotland seemed unassailable. Nicola Sturgeon had negotiated the Covid pandemic with consummate skill – at least in terms of presentation. Her personal popularity, while not what it was, remained unnaturally high for the leader of a party that had been in
In just a few hours’ time, Bully XLs will be banned in England and Wales: breeding, selling, advertising, rehoming, or abandoning a Bully will become illegal. In February, the crackdown will continue: from 1 February 2024, it will also become illegal to own an XL Bully dog unless it is registered on the Index of
A French member of the board of Airbus – the giant European aircraft and aerospace group – once told me that the French thought of it as their company while the Germans thought it theirs. In reality, both countries own it: the French state owns 11 per cent of Airbus capital, Germany 10.9 per cent and
One test of great architecture is whether it, and the city it stands in, can be recognised from its silhouette alone. There is Spavento’s campanile – or bell tower – in Venice by St Marco’s Basilica and Giotto’s by the Duomo in Florence. London has a campanile too, perhaps more recognisable than its Italian precedents.
When Boris Johnson lost power, he didn’t just blame Dominic Cummings. He thought he was victim of a wider plot to replace him with Rishi Sunak who, he suspected, was in cahoots with his former adviser. ‘I heard that Cummings has said he started to plot to get rid of me in January 2020,’ he
This should have been the year when we could finally put Covid behind us and return to normal. But as far as public transport is concerned it has instead turned out to herald the realisation that paralysis has become the normal condition, not a product of the pandemic. Any Eurostar passengers who thought they had escaped
‘Up yours, Delors!’ It was the perfect headline for the Sun: crude, defiant, unambiguous and directed at a Frenchman. The paper’s front page on 1 November 1990 called on ‘its patriotic family of readers to tell the filthy French to FROG OFF!’ The tabloid was asking its readers to turn towards France at noon the following
The Cabinet Office is sometimes described as the ‘thinking brain of government’. So it’s a pity then that so little thought is applied to making it an open one. With a Freedom of Information (FOI) team that is infamous for their excuses, the ministry is frequently ranked as one of Whitehall’s worst-performing departments for transparency.
It’s gongs galore today as Liz Truss’s resignation honours’ list is published alongside the traditional new years’ one. And while the former is attracting more comment than the latter, Mr S couldn’t help but note the inclusion of one Tory favourite. The Prime Minister is a well-known lover of a Jilly Cooper bonkbuster – so
What a difference a decade makes. Exactly ten years ago, Russians celebrated New Year by watching Goluboi Ogoniek (‘Little Blue Light’) the traditional TV programme – full of glitz, music, Moët and laughter – which ushers in 1 January. Three men dominated Goluboi Ogoniek that particular year. On YouTube, anchorman Vladimir Soloviev can be seen
A ‘smurf’, a ‘plumber’, a ‘know-it-all’: Olaf Scholz has been called many things. But so far Germany’s chancellor has brushed off the criticism. ‘I like the smurf thing,’ he told German media, ‘they are small, cunning and they always win.’ Being associated with the ‘honourable craft of plumbing’ made him ‘proud’. And of all the
Looking back at the year’s West End theatre, a few shows stand out. First, the best. Vanya, starring Andrew Scott at the Duke of York’s Theatre, was an audacious and frankly barmy attempt to reimagine Chekhov’s sprawling family melodrama, Uncle Vanya, as a monologue. The risk was that it might come across as a lengthy
If ever Prince Harry writes another volume of memoir, he may choose to look back on 2023 as his annus horribilis. The year began in high-profile fashion, with the publication of his autobiography Spare. This book swiftly became the fastest-selling non-fiction work of all time; he marked its appearance with promotional interviews that alternated between
How is the idea that Nigel Farage might join the ‘broad church’ Conservative party going then? Given that he floated the notion mainly to troll the party’s high-ups and then they breathed life into it mainly to try and keep right-leaning voters on board, it’s going about as well as one might expect. Which is
Liz Truss has sent Matthew Elliott to the House of Lords in her resignation honours list. There are some obvious and predictable reactions to this. First, the sheer effrontery of our least successful PM in exercising her traditional right to an honours list. She lasted less time than that lettuce. She was awful. How dare she? Etc
Fourteen months after Liz Truss left Downing Street, her list of resignation honours has today finally been finally published. It contains eleven names, three of whom receive peerages and will take up seats in the House of Lords. Four of the recipients are, like Truss, sitting Conservative MPs in the House of Commons. Here is
Liz Truss’s resignation honours list has finally been published. After much speculation – and some outrage she was even doing one in the first place – Downing Street has opted to put out the former prime minister’s resignation list to match with the annual New Year Honours list. The intention is pretty obvious: No. 10
I am guessing that Tory MP James Daly has given up trying to defend his majority of 105 in Bury North, has accepted that he will need to find a new job in the next 12 months and has decided to go out in style. I can’t think why else he would say, in an interview
Back when Radio 4’s Thought for the Day was original and insightful, Lionel Blue was a regular source of rabbinical wisdom and dodgy jokes. Sometimes he’d come up with a phrase, a concept, that let you see the world in an entirely new way. One certainly changed how I see politics: his notion of ‘moral
These days parliament seems less like an episode of House of Cards and more like a Spooks reboot. Whether it’s Chinese spies or cyber-attacks, the good men and women who work in the Palace of Westminster have rarely felt more conscious of their safety – and that’s not to mention the collapsing roof and crumbling
It seems there is a side to the former prime minister, Sir Tony Blair, that few knew existed. Until now. Newly released government documents have bizarrely revealed Blair’s keen interest in football in Northern Ireland. So much so that during his time as prime minister, he was apparently prepared to go to quite extraordinary lengths
Cheers! You will soon once again be able to buy champagne and wine in pint bottles – Winston Churchill’s favourite measure. It will be possible for the first time since an overbearing Common Market (as it was then) effectively put an end to the practice in 1973. This is very good news, and I’m certainly looking forward
I would like to report a murder. It took place in the evening of 27 December in millions of homes around the UK simultaneously. The victim was Dame Agatha Christie – well, one of her works, and to an extent her posthumous reputation. But unlike in the great Dame’s novels, there was no beguiling mystery
‘What do you know about Keir Starmer?’ My friend’s question came as we sat in the pub. It was part of an experiment, based on something he’d noticed. ‘Used to be Director of Public Prosecutions,’ I replied. ‘That’s the first thing everyone says. Anything else?’ ‘Er …’ John gave me a prompt: ‘Is he married? Does