All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
If Ireland’s foreign affairs minister expected plaudits from EU leaders for the republic’s looming ban on Israeli settlement goods, he was sorely disappointed. Ireland, Simon Harris pontificated in Brussels, ‘is the only country in the entire European Union that has published any legislation ever in relation to banning trade with the occupied Palestinian territories, but
How do you solve a problem like modern fatherhood? According to Jonathan Reynolds, Secretary of State for Business and Trade, paternity leave is how. As he launched his new review looking into maternity, paternity, shared parental leave and financial support offered to new parents this week, Reynolds stated that he wanted it to become as
Displays of sheer physical bravery are always impressive. Having been in precisely one real fight in my life, I enormously admire those who put their lives on their line for the rest of us every day, so I almost found myself applauding when I saw last week the police bodycam footage of Inspector Molloy Campbell
For a gateway into hell, the innocuous brown wooden front door of 61 Freedom Street in downtown Riga is surprisingly narrow – just two feet across. Known as the Corner House, the two-foot-wide door into the old KGB Latvian HQ would be easy to miss amidst the wide boulevards and the ornate, art nouveau, balconied apartments
Supermarket staff in London are now serving customers from inside glass and metal cages. The unveiling of such desperate security measures, including at a Sainsbury’s store in Battersea, should shock us. Yet in Britain, we’ve become so accustomed to shoplifting and crime on our streets that its introduction generates barely a murmur. Our supermarkets and
Health Secretary Wes Streeting says that the changes to the Welfare Bill will ‘give people peace of mind’. Perhaps for some, but certainly not economists. Britain’s welfare crisis is staggering – £313 billion a year is spent on disability payments, Universal Credit, winter fuel payments, Motability, child benefit, and, most expensive of them all, the
This weekend, Formula One returns to where it all started 75 years ago: Silverstone. But although the first F1 Grand Prix took place in the UK, the sport was initially dominated by Italian cars and Latin drivers, rather than Brits. Dottore Giuseppe Farina, a lawyer turned racing driver, won that first F1 race in front
I was born in London. It’s where I built my life. It’s where I have core memories, good friends, a bike, a gym, my local shops. London is my home. But I no longer feel at home, so I’ve decided to stay away. I love you London. You’ve given me so much. But you’ve broken my
It is a year today that the survivors of the 2024 Tory election disaster began to make their way to Westminster. Among the 121 Conservative MPs were 26 first-timers. Having lost so much talent last July, many of these now represent the party’s best hopes for the future. But with the Tories down to just
Oh dear. Reform UK has made much of its recent progress. Having lost Rupert Lowe at the beginning of this year, Farage’s forces then gained Sarah Pochin at a stonking set of local elections. But now the parliamentary party is backed down to four MPs again, after James McMurdock chose to resign the whip, amid
Wimbledon is the highlight of the year for tennis fans. But for local residents it’s a fortnight of traffic chaos and misery. As a born-and-bred Wimbledonian, I think I have earned the right to ask this: hasn’t the tennis all got a bit much? If you have lived in Wimbledon for any stretch of time,
In 2022, Thailand became the first nation in Asia to lift its ban on cannabis (or ‘kancha’ in Thai) after decades of prohibition. A massive industry mushroomed practically overnight: you couldn’t turn a street corner in Bangkok without seeing a shopfront with ‘DOCTOR WEED’ in big, green, neon letters. But now, Bangkok’s hazy days might be
‘Defence needs to be our number one priority.’ This sounds like the sort of thing you’d hear at a Nato summit, or a Chatham House conference, but it was the plea of Colin Bell, a 104-year-old second world war RAF veteran, as he was interviewed at Chalke Valley History Festival last weekend. The Wiltshire festival
So now we know. Now we know that Bob Vylan’s sick chant at Glastonbury was not a colourfully worded call for the ‘dismantling’ of a military force, as the band’s leftish apologists claimed. No, it appears that this punk act really does want the soldiers of the Jewish nation to die. A new clip shows
22 min listen
Cast your mind back a year. Labour had just won a storming majority, promising ‘change’ to a stale Tory party that was struggling to govern. But have things got any better? In the magazine this week, Tim Shipman writes the cover piece to mark the occasion of Labour’s first year in government. He takes readers
Journalists at LeMan are in fear for their lives after the Turkish satirical magazine published cartoons appearing to depict the Prophet Muhammad. The publication’s editor-in-chief Tuncay Akgun denied that the picture showed Muhammad, but his pleas have fallen on deaf ears. A mob gathered outside the magazine’s office in Istanbul on Monday. In the days
Social media can still be a force for good, as I found out last weekend when we woke up with an unexpected visitor in our garden: a beautiful white, crested chicken. In the old days, reuniting lost animals with their owners could be a tricky task, involving phone calls to the RSPCA and local authorities,
A Myanmar military jet continued to fly sorties just over our hidden frontline hospital. Every time it screamed low over the tree line, the entire clinic would crouch down and pray that this wouldn’t be the strike that hit us. These hospitals are prime targets; the military has no qualms about bombing groups of wounded
In this week’s cover story, I revealed details of a memo written by Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff, written in May last year, before the general election, which predicted exactly how Labour would struggle in power, because of its historical tendency to want to ‘change the world’, rather than focusing on re-election
Vladimir Putin launched one of the largest air assaults of the war overnight, just hours after admitting to Donald Trump that Russia would not abandon its war aims in Ukraine. Some 550 missiles and drones were fired over more than 11 hours, most targeting Kyiv. Residents who endured another sleepless night were advised to keep
35 min listen
In this episode of Americano, Freddy Gray speaks with New York Times writer and debut author Michael Grynbaum about his new book Empire of the Elite, a sweeping history of Condé Nast – the media empire that once dictated American taste, fashion, and celebrity. From Anna Wintour’s carefully staged exit to the vanished world of
If at first you don’t succeed; deny, deflect, attack. This is apparently the mantra of Sadiq Khan and his Transport for London (TfL) Commissioner, Andy Lord. This week both men hit out at volunteers like me and my friends at the Looking for Growth (LfG) movement, who in recent weeks have taken it upon ourselves
It’s been a tumultuous first year for Sir Keir Starmer, and with backbenchers and opposition politicians alike becoming far more vocal, where better to take the temperature of Westminster then at The Spectator’s annual summer party? The party, always in early July, is typically a scene of political drama: it comes just days after Labour’s latest U-turn
13 min listen
Some sore heads on Coffee House Shots this morning, after last night’s Spectator summer party. But while we were having fun, a drama was brewing in the Labour party after it was finally confirmed that Jeremy Corbyn is starting a new left-wing party… or is he? The news was broken last night by another MP:
Mr Steerpike is a fan of Accidental Partridge moments, and this one was back of the net. Lefty actor Steve Coogan popped up on BBC Breakfast this morning to talk up his appearance at this weekend’s Co-op congress in Rochdale. Amid swipes at the government and big business, the comedian was becoming visibly exasperated by presenters Charlie
Ukraine has survived more than three years of Vladimir Putin’s war because of massive western arms supplies, an appreciation and exploitation of Russian military weaknesses, audacious special forces missions and an extraordinarily successful development of home-grown drones. All these ingredients have helped Kyiv hold off the Russian forces, saved Volodymyr Zelensky from having to capitulate
After months of discussion, it has finally been confirmed that Jeremy Corbyn is starting a new left-wing party. The news was broken last night by another MP: Zarah Sultana, a longtime admirer of Corbyn. Elected as a Labour MP in 2019, she lost the whip last July for voting to lift the two-child-benefit cap. This
On 1 August 2022, bleary-eyed England women football players danced around central London with the word ‘Home’ emblazoned across their t-shirts. They were celebrating being crowned European champions, becoming the first senior English team to win a major tournament since 1966. They had brought football home. Now the game is back: on Wednesday, Euro 2025
There could be no more deliciously appropriate start to the new party supposedly co-led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, than the news that the ex-Labour leader is said to be ‘furious and bewildered’ that it was launched without him even knowing that he is a member of the party, let alone that he is
Support for Nigel Farage’s Reform party is surging in the UK, and it appears the group is making waves across the pond too. As reported by the Telegraph, US Vice-President JD Vance is getting interested in Farage’s outfit, even quizzing UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson about the rise of Reform. It’s one sign
Labour has reacted with scorn to the news that Zarah Sultana has resigned from the party to create a new movement with Jeremy Corbyn. It’s reported that the MP for Coventry South, who has sat as an independent since July 2024, is still discussing the details of the new party with Corbyn – who is
The Home Office opened Britain’s doors to record numbers of migrants without properly assessing the risks or consequences, according to a damning new report from parliament’s Public Accounts Committee. The report, released overnight, finds that the department ‘made changes to the Skilled Worker Visa route without a full assessment of the risks or potential impacts,
When Suella Braverman wrote in April 2023 that ‘the perpetrators [of group-based child sexual exploitation] are groups of men, almost all British-Pakistani,’ the then-Home Secretary was roundly condemned. ‘Hacked Off’, a lobby group which seeks to tighten regulation of the press, said her article in the Mail on Sunday was part of a ‘toxic libel’. Guardian columnist Owen Jones went
Tenzin Gyatso, otherwise known as His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, will celebrate his 90th birthday on Sunday. Despite once predicting he would live to 110, the Dalai Lama has perhaps prudently decided that the time is right to discuss his succession. He will host a conference of Lamas and