All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Here we go. Ever since 11 Tory MPs voted against the Safety of Rwanda Bill last week, talk has resurfaced that the party has a death wish. The problem is that different MPs define that as different things. While a mass of Conservative MPs say the rebellion over Sunak’s plan to stop the boats amounts
Predictably, the US/UK military coalition that attacked Houthi forces twelve days ago has been in action again. ‘Predictably’ because the initial strike was always unlikely to dismantle the Houthis now extensive capacity to attack shipping in the Red Sea. But, more importantly, because it is currently in their interests to keep up the belligerence, as
Oh dear. It seems the blessed Nicola has slipped up again. Away from the high sea shenanigans of the fuity Houthi rebels, up in Edinburgh the extent of Sturgeon’s secret state is well and truly being exposed. Today the Scottish Covid Inquiry published text messages from the former First Minister to her onetime advisor, the
Sometimes a politician says something that makes you wonder if they’re living on a different planet. This week it was Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf. He said there is a dearth of political concern for the poor people of Gaza. It feels like ‘Palestinian blood is very cheap’, he said. It seems to me that
I’m old enough to remember when ‘it’s a free country’ was a phrase people used in conversation. It feels like it was the kind of thing they said regularly, either when someone asked permission to do something or when commenting on some particular eccentricity. Can I sit there? It’s a free country. You want to
What happens if the latest round of strikes against the Houthis don’t deter them? That was the big question as Rishi Sunak made his statement to the Commons on yesterday’s attacks. The Prime Minister stuck to his two key lines from last week, that the strikes were targeted, and that the Houthis’ attacks are no
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The UK launched a new set of strikes on eight Houthi targets last night. Typoon jets dropped £30,000 Paveway bombs on an underground storage site and surveillance and missile capabilities controlled by the Yemeni rebel group. But are the strikes working? The Houthis have continued to attack ships in the Red Sea, and a row
Spain has approved a pointless amendment to its constitution, replacing the word ‘handicapped’ with the phrase ‘persons with a disability’. Not only did Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez, who never says sorry for genuine oversights, apologise for the delay in making this happen, but he also announced that he regards himself as having thereby paid a ‘moral
Is the BBC biased? Some Tories, including transport minister Huw Merriman, think so. But while there is plenty of evidence to suggest Merriman is correct, he might want to use a different example to the one he used when quizzed on the subject of BBC bias this morning. Sky News’ Kay Burley asked Merriman for
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Freddy Gray is joined in New Hampshire by Ben Domenech, editor at large of Spectator World. On the podcast they discuss the pro-Trump establishment of the Republican party; how the Republican cohort have changed since the Obama election and what issues Trump can identify that appeal to voters.
It’s only Tuesday, and already Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had one of the worst weeks since the war against Hamas started last October. Israelis are losing patience with him and his band of self-serving extremist ministers. Netanyahu, whose approval rates were low before the war and have only got lower since it started,
This morning, ministers woke up to the news of a second joint airstrike against the Houthis in Yemen – and some in Westminster have been left reeling that the attacks came as a surprise. Some eight targets were struck, according to the Pentagon, in a UK and US effort to deter continued interference with shipping
The religious and political symbolism was unmistakable, as the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi led the consecration of a controversial new Hindu temple in Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh state, built on the ruins of a 16th century mosque. The Babri Masjid was torn down by Hindu nationalist mobs in 1992, sparking riots across the country that
Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, has one of the most glittering CVs in European politics. The ex finance minister of France, and former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, earns £365,000 a year for running the show at the ECB. But is she any good? An internal poll of staff
It’s an outrage! The dictionary definition of ‘outrage’ in this sense is ‘something that is grossly offensive to decency, morality or good taste’, or resentful anger caused by this. The frequency of outrages these days seems to have gone up by multiples. But is that really the case? It often feels these days that there
On the face of it, this morning’s public sector finance update is good news. The government borrowed £7.8 billion in December last year. This is well below the £11 billion that economists had expected and almost half the £14 billion last forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). These are the lowest borrowing figures for December
Of all the reasons why the Conservatives deserve to lose the next general election, their nonsensical childcare policy is among the most convincing. Labour had needlessly meddled in this sector, with little positive effect on affordability, accessibility, or maternal employment. The Tories could have taken on the vested interests and trades unions, scaled back the
Just last week Rishi Sunak held a special Downing Street press conference to warn peers not to ignore ‘the will of the people’ and block his Rwanda plan. Fast forward a few days and Sunak’s warning appears to have fallen on deaf ears, with the Prime Minister suffering his first Lords defeat on the topic
Are Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak asking the right question as they approach the spring Budget? For the Chancellor and Prime Minister, the key issue is ‘how can we cut taxes in a way that will get us credit with voters?’ But polling by YouGov for today’s Times suggests voters might want them to ask
Today is Ukraine’s Day of Unity which necessarily had to be marked with an expression of national pride. However, president Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to issue a decree ‘On the Territories of the Russian Federation Historically Inhabited by Ukrainians’ represented not simply that, but an open political challenge to Moscow, and one which strangely echoed Putin’s
Having endured months of restrictions on our freedoms to deal with Covid-19, we now face a major health threat entirely of our own making: vaccine hesitancy. Measles – a centuries-old contagious disease which can lead to serious complications – is on the rise. Hospitals in Birmingham are dealing with their biggest outbreak in years. Health
New Hampshire votes tomorrow and today Nikki Haley has just two planned events. She has a morning meet-and-greet in the city of Franklin and a ‘get out the vote rally’ in Salem this evening. Nobody could accuse Haley of not working hard. She’s famously an industrious woman. But given the make-or-break nature of tomorrow’s vote,
It’s the question every political strategist asks themselves. What is something that the public wants, is incredibly popular – and free? The answer, of course, is a good old-fashioned culture war. Amid ongoing questions about Labour’s commitment to its £28 billion ‘green new deal’, Sir Keir Starmer’s speech this morning eschewed talk of spending commitments.
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Jeremy Hunt said he would look to cut taxes in the March budget. In the Mail on Sunday, he said he would look to emulate the late Nigel Lawson, who as Margaret Thatcher’s chancellor slashed rates. But Hunt has been promising tax cuts, and hardly delivering, for a while. Will this time be any different?
Ravenna You’re not supposed to mock the afflicted, I know, but I laughed when I read the news that the left-wing citadel of Bologna has introduced a 30 kph (19 mph) speed limit. Forcing the Italians – a nation of famously crazy drivers who make fabulous sports cars – to drive no faster than cyclists is
If you thought senior Conservatives giving evidence to the UK Covid inquiry in London was rough then you should watch the footage now emerging from Edinburgh, where the Inquiry’s lawyers have moved to take evidence. It’s a bloodbath. Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon and current first minister Humza Yousaf are yet to even take the
Keir Starmer is drawing up his battle-lines for the next election. First, he came for the public schools, pledging to whack VAT on school fees. Now he’s going for the traditionalist wing of National Trust members. In a speech today, he accuses the Tories of ‘waging a war’ on charities and civic society. He claims
Professor Dame Theresa Marteau seems to have something of an obsession about glasses and tableware. In the last ten years, she and her team at Cambridge university have carried out numerous experiments in the bars and restaurants of Cambridgeshire to see whether restricting the size of wine glasses reduces the amount of wine consumed. This
Poor old BBC. It’s been another torrid year for the Corporation after being embarrassed by Gary Lineker, lambasted over Richard Sharp and humiliated over various Hamas howlers. And now, even the mild-mannered Culture Secretary is having a pop at them. Lucy Frazer – never the most natural of culture warriors – was out on the
The farmers of France are mobilising. Their anger will be an early test for Gabriel Attal; the countryside is unknown territory for the new prime minister, a young man raised in the affluent suburbs of Paris, like the majority of Emmanuel Macron’s government. The first dissent was on Friday in the south-west of France, in and
A century ago today, the first ever Labour government was formed. Yet even many Labour members will probably be ignorant of the anniversary. To be fair, most historians of the party (this one included) have overlooked the government in favour of the superficially more consequential post-war administrations, especially that of 1945. After all, the 1924
Katharine Birbalsingh is back in the papers again. The head teacher at Michaela, a free school whose outstanding academic record and ultra-strict behaviour policy have made it a culture-wars lightning rod, tells the Sunday Times that she and her staff have been getting death threats ever since her board of governors imposed a policy banning any
The Florida governor has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race
