All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
An 18-month investigation into allegations of rape against former Justice Minister Crispin Blunt has now been dropped. In October 2023, the-then Tory MP was arrested by Surrey Police, prompting the removal of the party whip. He confirmed he was the subject of the probe at the time following reports of a Conservative parliamentarian being arrested. Blunt was
To NHS Fife, which is once again making headlines for all the wrong reasons. The Scottish health board has been slammed by the country’s information tsar for failing to publish its spend on an ongoing employment tribunal brought against it by nurse Sandie Peggie. Whatever happened to transparency, eh? After nurse Peggie questioned a transgender
Egad! Uproar in clubland. The reason? Nigel Farage. Yes, it seems that the veteran Brexiteer is still capable of causing a fuss among t’great and t’good – even when he is pledging to, er, lift the two child benefit cap. The Reform UK leader gave a big speech on Tuesday in Whitehall, talking about his
It is beginning to feel a bit like 1998 all over again. That was the year of the first countryside march when it – supposedly – rose up in anger at the Blair government over its plan to abolish hunting, introduce the right to roam and build some houses for people to live in. Landowning
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Dissatisfaction with the established political parties is driving a ‘tartan bounce’ in Scotland for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Far from being an English phenomenon, Reform is polling favourably with Scottish voters. There will be a by-election next week for the Scottish Parliament seat of Hamilton, in what will be Reform’s first big test inside the
I managed to sit through most of Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius the other night. I endured luvvies and minor academics and even Cherie Blair, all wide-eyed at the brilliance of their heroine. She was inevitably presented as edgy and funny and brave and ground-breaking and mould-breaking and ball-breaking and oozing girl power. One of
During the last Conservative government, it was common to hear the refrain that the prime minister of the day was waging a ‘war on nature’. As someone who played a role in advising a string of environment ministers, I always thought that to be somewhat hyperbolic. I always admire the passion of campaigners, and I share with
Donald Trump did not get to where he is today by taking no for an answer. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, could scarcely have been clearer when he visited the White House earlier this month that the President’s notion of Canada becoming America’s 51st state was not even being entertained. ‘Canada is not
Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, is being lined up for one of the world’s most powerful humanitarian jobs: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. With Emmanuel Macron’s backing, she hopes to swap the Hôtel de Ville in Paris for Geneva, taking charge of a $10 billion global operation that defines who counts as stateless,
“I’ll never insult or belittle someone who votes Reform,” Mike Tapp, the Labour MP for Dover and Deal, tells me. “We need to deliver.” It’s a message Labour is increasingly keen to project – but Tapp sound like he really means it. Where others Labour MPs prevaricate on immigration, Tapp supports “return hubs” (for failed
21 min listen
Labour’s spending review is expected on the 11th of June, when we will find out which government departments face cuts and which costs have been ringfenced. This can set the tone for politics for months to come as it gives a clue to which priorities matter most – especially in times of fiscal restraint – and
The National Health Service is struggling under increasing patient demand to provide quick appointments, A&E support or hospital beds – yet its managers have still found the time to issue a memo to staff struggling to cope with, er, the Supreme Court’s trans ruling. As if its staff didn’t have more pressing problems to deal
Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, has called for the possession of cannabis to be decriminalised, because he believes that the police disproportionately target black Londoners when policing drug possession. This announcement by Khan is in response to a report by the ‘London Drugs Commission’ (LDC), a body set-up by City Hall, chaired by Tony Blair’s old
To the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who is now calling on forces to routinely release information on suspects’ ethnicities – even if it ’emboldens’ racists. In the wake of a recent attack in Liverpool, Sir Mark Rowley has urged police to be ‘realistic’ about handling information surrounding a crime and has made the case for earlier
I like King Charles. I visited him at Windsor Castle recently as Mrs Miller picked up a gong. The castle has been beautifully restored. It is full of treasures, looted from the Empire. There were no refreshments, only a porcelain water bowl for the guide dog of one of the honourees. The King was charming,
Animal rights campaigners are up in arms because Disney+ is able to use a legal loophole to broadcast a scene of a rat being forcibly immersed in liquid. The RSPCA has slammed Disney for showing a controversial scene from the 1989 thriller The Abyss where a live rat is deliberately submerged in fluorocarbon liquid. The
The sentencing reforms announced by Labour last week were primarily an attempt to address a capacity crisis. This is something we need to be clear on, however much David Gauke’s report is embellished by talking points borrowed from the progressive criminal justice commentariat. Eliminating short sentences of twelve months or less is not about community
If the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is sincere in wishing to deprive Nigel Farage of the ‘oxygen of publicity’, he’s got a funny way of going about it. In a vituperative interview on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland today, he gave the Reform leader another blast of oxygen by offering a public debate on the eve
Another day, another bad poll for Sir Keir Starmer’s party. Now YouGov has revealed that Labour has recorded its lowest poll rating since before the 2019 general election, with just over a fifth of Brits saying they would vote for the reds tomorrow, while Nigel Farage’s Reform UK sees its largest lead to date on
That should teach it a lesson. The utility giant Thames Water has today been hit with a massive £122.7 million fine for failing to deal with sewage properly, and for paying out excessive dividends. No doubt the regulator Ofwat thinks that will focus the minds of the company’s management and force it to sharpen up
Who would have guessed that caving into union militancy and paying a whacking above-inflation pay rise, with no strings attached, would lead to even bigger pay demands? In one of its first acts after coming to power last July the Starmer government awarded junior doctors a 22 per cent pay rise, which they accepted and
France will increase its surveillance of all critical infrastructure after saboteurs wrecked two electricity sub-stations in Nice and Cannes last weekend. The arsonists deprived nearly 200,000 homes on the Cote d’Azur of electricity, disrupted traffic lights, interrupted the Cannes film festival, shut down cash distributors and brought Nice airport to a temporary standstill. Addressing parliament
Germany’s new interior minister, Alexander Dobrint of the Christian Social Union (CSU), has made quite a stir with his proposals to end family reunification and ‘turbo citizenship’, which allowed people to become citizens after as little as three years in Germany. However, as usual in Germany, under the outrage is a more prosaic reality. Only
If you think the Tories’ problems would be solved if they ditched Kemi Badenoch and turned to any of the mooted replacements – or indeed to anyone else – then I have a bridge to sell you. When you’re booted out of office less than a year ago because the public despise you – because
It’s time for Marine Le Pen to quit and spend more time with her Bengal cats. More importantly, it’s time for the third of French voters who support her to face the reality that her programme is incoherent and unachievable. Her election to the presidency in 2027 would be a disaster for France and a
Nigel Farage’s party is taking heat for a Meta ad it has run as part of the Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse by-election. (The incumbent MSP, the SNP’s Christina McKelvie, died from breast cancer in March.) Reform is pushing its candidate, local councillor Ross Lambie, and claims it stands a chance of capturing the seat, which would have
Ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe is no stranger to the spotlight. Nigel Farage’s former colleague has made headlines in recent months after he was suspended from the party following a rather unflattering interview he gave to the Daily Mail about Reform’s leadership. It quickly emerged that chairman Zia Yusuf and chief whip Lee Anderson had referred
To Scotland, where in just over a week’s time, the first Holyrood by-election for six years will take place. It’s set to a be a tight race in the constituency of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse and tensions between the political parties in the running are rising. Now Nigel Farage has hit out at Scottish Labour
King Charles III and Queen Camilla are in Canada for a two-day visit. It’s their first trip to my country since the coronation. They’ve enjoyed touring parts of the nation’s capital, Ottawa. They’ve met with dignitaries and political leaders, and been greeted by large crowds that, in the words of the Ottawa Citizen, would be described as ‘exuberant.’ The
As his younger son conducts an attention-seeking trip to China, it was King Charles, addressing Canada’s House of Commons and Senate, who showed how a calm, dignified approach to public life pays far greater dividends than empty point-scoring. The King has been a popular and welcome figure in Canada since he arrived with the Queen
Exports would be impossible. The supply chains would be snarled up. And trade restrictions would destroy the economics of the industry. We have been lectured endlessly on how our departure from the EU would destroy the British car industry. But hold on. It is now finding a new niche as an offshore manufacturing hub for
27 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to writer and author Karen Hao, whose new book Empire of AI looks at a new, ominous age of empire with OpenAI. On the podcast they discuss the impacts of artificial intelligence on society and democracy and how Open AI founder Sam Altman has become a controversial figure.
Alasdair MacIntyre, who died last week, was one of the most influential thinkers of the past 50 years. It is hard to think of any other philosopher writing in the late 20th-century who has had such an impact. He might be less famous than Foucault or Derrida, but it is his conservative brand of postmodernism