All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Tomorrow, voters go to the polls for the last set of local elections in this parliament. After five tumultuous years, Rishi Sunak and his party look set to suffer big losses – including up to half the 985 council seats which the Tories are trying to hold. Some 2,600 council seats are up for grabs
More than four million women and girls live in London. They represent over half (51 per cent) of the capital’s population. But under Mayor Sadiq Khan they have been reduced to an afterthought. The nation’s capital has become a hostile environment where the incidence of rape has soared, female commuters are routinely harassed, working women
Could Russell Brand, who has just been baptised, become a significant Christian figure? I suppose he could become a sort of British televangelist, God help us. But significant in a good way? It’s not impossible: he’s sharp and charismatic, and taps in to a major English spiritual tradition. But it’s not likely either: our culture needs
Is that Monty Panesar? The old England spin bowler is stood in a crowd in Parliament Square, with a vacant, million-mile smile. George Galloway is standing in front, talking to the press. Galloway is meant to be revealing the 200 candidates that his new ‘Workers Party’ is putting up at the next election (Panesar is one of
Given the SNP’s abject disarray, it is no surprise to see Scottish Labour demanding a snap Holyrood election. After all, for the first time in more than a decade it is Anas Sarwar’s party – and not the Scottish Nationalists – who are most likely to gain by the ballot box. Sarwar himself summed up
17 min listen
As figures now show there are 2.8 million people claiming out-of-work benefits, Rishi Sunak gave a speech looking at welfare reform. But with more and more people off work for mental health related issues, could the Tories’ focus backfire if the public think they’re trivialising mental health? Also on the podcast, a look ahead to
Since first becoming Chairman of the 1922 Committee in 2010, Graham Brady has overseen the election of three Conservative leaders – Theresa May, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak – as well as votes of confidence in both May and Boris Johnson. Serving as the voice of the Tory backbenches to the party leadership, Brady’s views
To the Commons, where Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer this afternoon gave a ministerial statement on the future of the Telegraph Media Group. It follows this morning’s news that the Abu Dhabi-backed company RedBird IMI will put the Daily Telegraph and Spectator titles back up for sale, after parliament moved to block foreign state ownership of UK newspapers and magazines. Frazer gave
Illness, like death, is society’s greatest leveller, and so the news that the King had been affected by cancer led to an outpouring of sympathy and compassion that few other circumstances might prompt. Since he came forward earlier this year to share his diagnosis, Charles – sometimes seen as a remote and inaccessible figure, especially
Imagine that for the past 30 years all food entering Britain from EU countries had been subject to stringent sanitary checks and that today, for the first time, the government had decided to abolish those checks. It isn’t hard to guess how the Labour party would react. The government, it would be claiming, was throwing
Those waiting for the local election results before they look for evidence of Rishi Sunak’s fightback are running late: the Prime Minister has spent the past few weeks making announcements designed to keep his party happy and remind them that they’re supposed to be fighting Labour, not one another. There’s the defence spending announcement, the
Javier Milei was taking too many risks. Argentina’s president didn’t have enough political support. And his radical version of free market economics didn’t offer any solutions anyway, especially in a world where the state is more crucial than ever. When Milei won the presidency last year there were plenty of predictions that he would fare
‘We will not be used as a loophole in another country’s immigration challenges.’ Those were the angry words of Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris over the weekend, a further escalation in the war of words between Dublin and Downing Street which have seen diplomatic relations between the two nations reach their lowest point since the darkest
Rebellious Tory MPs, expecting a trouncing in Thursday’s locals, are apparently mooting a ‘100 days to save Britain!’ emergency turnaround strategy. A new leader, a payrise for doctors, defence spending up to 3 per cent. Having four prime ministers in one parliamentary term would be good for future pub quizzes, but who is apparently choice
None of the candidates for the SNP leadership has declared yet, but it is shaping up to be a classic two horse race between the former leader, and Nicola Sturgeon bag man, John Swinney and the socially conservative former finance secretary, Kate Forbes. But in this race, they are both losers before they start. To turn
Popping out to buy milk the other night, I saw how women die. My nearest local shop in south-west London, the place I go for last-minute and forgotten groceries, is an M&S at a petrol station. It sells fuel, overpriced food and coffee. It’s open late. As I queued to pay for my semi-skimmed just before
Emmanuel Macron is thinking and saying the unthinkable for a French President of the Republic. This weekend he suggested that French nuclear weapons – the holy grail of French security, intended to ensure that France never relives 1940 – could be put at the disposal of the European Union’s defence. For Macron this is a
Starmer Chameleon does it again. The publication of the Cass review brought about a period of reckoning for politicians previously willing to live in fantasyland — and now it’s Sir Keir who has been forced to swallow his words. After years of flip-flopping on the trans issue, the Labour leader this morning admitted that he
Sex is a biological fact, the NHS declared this morning. Seriously, if the health service was ever in any doubt about that then no wonder that we have ended up in such a mess over sex and gender. Personally, I would ban the word ‘gender’ from law and policy, and return it to what it
Britain’s Rwanda Bill has exposed the deep divisions in France between how the people and the political elite regard mass immigration. Asked if they would like France to adopt a Rwanda-style bill, 67 per cent of the French canvassed replied favourably to the idea. This figure is no surprise: for years, polls on the subject
It’s a gaffe a day with the SNP. Even with hapless Humza stepping down, the Nats are still slipping up. This time the deputy first minister Shona Robison is in the limelight, after Yousaf’s second-in-command made an on-air blunder just hours after the First Minister announced he would be quitting his job. In the world’s
Last week, the tiny Caribbean island of Tobago was left reeling after a British tourist staying there was attacked by a shark. Sixty-four-year-old Peter Smith from Hertfordshire was left with serious injuries to his left arm and leg, puncture wounds to his abdomen and injuries to his right hand after the attack. He is currently
Ireland is reaping the benefits of a Brexit bonus to the tune of €700 million (£600 million). It is not hard to understand why hardcore Remainers are gleefully reporting the news that the government in Dublin is collecting huge extra revenues, much of which comes from imposing tariffs on British goods. What is being reported
Following Humza Yousaf’s resignation as First Minister, a fresh leadership contest could soon be on the cards. His would-be successors face an uphill task: after 17 years in government, the SNP looks discredited and divided in the face of a resurgent Labour party. In a dizzyingly short space of time, Yousaf’s party has been reduced
How much can Mel Stride really do to cut the benefits bill? In the Commons today, the Work and Pensions Secretary argued that the ‘disability benefit system for adults of working age is not consistently providing support in the way that was intended’, and that it was now time for a ‘new conversation’ about how
After the tears, the recriminations. Just who scuppered the putative deal between Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan MSP that could have saved Yousaf’s bacon? The Alba leader, Alex Salmond, told the BBC’s World at One that Humza Yousaf had been on the phone to Regan at 7.30 a.m. today to say that her terms were ‘very
When Israel responded to Iran’s unprecedented missile and drone attack in a measured military fashion on 19 April, some believed that Israeli prime minister BenjaminNetanyahu had agreed to show restraint in return for Joe Biden’s support for a military operation in Rafah. These rumours were dispelled this weekend when the US president reiterated his objection
A First Minister on the ropes, facing questions about his judgement? No, it’s not hapless Hamza Yousaf this time. Instead, the latest legislator in the firing line is none other than Vaughan Gething, the recently-selected head of the Welsh government at Cardiff Bay. Gething has been in the job for less than six weeks but
14 min listen
Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf has just announced his intention to resign. Lucy Dunn speaks to Katy Balls and Spectator contributor Iain Macwhirter about how the past few weeks have led to this point and what to expect from an SNP leadership contest.
Pedro Sanchez has decided to stay on as Spain’s Socialist prime minister, despite announcing last week that he was considering resigning. Sanchez suspended his official duties for a few days to make the decision, following the launch of a judicial investigation into his wife, Begoña Gomez, for corruption and influence-peddling. (Sanchez has said the allegations are
Humza Yousaf has announced his resignation as First Minister and leader of the Scottish National Party. His time was short, but he’s overseen a dramatic change in the party he’ll now cease to lead: a discipline once revered by opponents has given way to a party in open dissent. As he prepares to leave the
Last week I stood here to announce the ending of the cooperation agreement between the SNP and the Greens: the Bute House Agreement, and that the SNP would seek to govern as a minority government. I made that decision as leader of the SNP because I believed the Bute House Agreement was the right one
Humza Yousaf is stepping down as first minister of Scotland. After feverish speculation over the weekend, Yousaf has announced this lunchtime in a press conference at Bute House that he intends to stand down from the role once an SNP leadership contest has taken place to find his successor. Acknowledging the events that had led