All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
With Keir Starmer at Nato, the hospital pass of this week’s PMQs was handed instead to Angela Rayner. The welfare row is tearing apart the Labour party, with more than 120 MPs now committed to voting against the changes to disability benefit next Tuesday. In such circumstances, the obvious choice to fill in for Kemi
Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary-general, has two jobs. The first is to lead the 32-member alliance at a time of unprecedented threat and challenges. His other equally significant task is to keep America, and in particular President Donald Trump, on side. Rutte’s ability to sweet talk Trump is one of the reasons why he got
One of the most notable features of Keir Starmer’s otherwise undistinguished premiership is the bromance that he seems to have formed with King Charles. Both men seem to have a shared sense of moral values and a reticence of character that appears to have served them well in what, up until now, has been a
Oh dear. It’s not been a good year for the Scottish Conservatives, who have seen multiple councillors defect to Reform UK ahead of next year’s Scottish parliament elections. Now, in a further blow to the Tories, it transpires a former Conservative MP has jumped ship to Nigel Farage’s party. Talk about a sinking ship, eh?
Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick has insisted that the Conservatives must not beat around the bush about what they stand for – even if it means pushing more liberal members out. The shadow justice secretary made his comments to Popular Conservatism director Mark Littlewood. Jenrick told Littlewood: I’ve always said that a political party can
The right-wing UDR group in the French parliament, led by Eric Ciotti, has called for a parliamentary commission to calculate the true cost of immigration. Ciotti is demanding a line-by-line accounting of France’s spending on healthcare, housing, education, and emergency aid for migrants, alongside their economic contributions. The French left recoiled instantly and predictably. To
Having only a short time ago been synonymous with the terrors of its Wahabiist regime, the temptations and pleasures of Saudi Arabia now seem to know no bounds. Whether it’s Emily Maitlis crooning over the feel of her all-covering abaya as she slips into the Jeddah market, Boris and Carrie Johnson posting pics of their brood in
With the ceasefire between Iran and Israel so far holding, a preliminary assessment of the 12-day campaign is now possible. Jerusalem and its US ally achieved a considerable amount. Iran’s deficiencies on a tactical level were laid bare. Structural flaws in Tehran’s strategy of war by proxy have been made apparent. Both the nuclear and ballistic missile programmes have
Rachel Reeves does not have many supporters left. The bond markets don’t think much of the Chancellor. Business groups have rubbished her policies, and so have many of the UK’s largest companies. Meanwhile, Labour backbenchers are furious about both the chaos over the winter fuel allowance and the cuts to the welfare budget. Now, it
The poorest Brits now owe £6.6 billion in unpaid council tax – a record high and up some 85 per cent since before the pandemic. That’s according to data released this morning by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which suggests Britain is plunging back into a cost-of-living crisis. What’s more, a report
A more gracious person would refrain from saying, ‘I told you so’, but I’m not a gracious person. So, as George Galloway announces his backing for another Scottish independence referendum, allow me to say – nay, crow – I told you so. Galloway, leader of the Workers party, says he and his party ‘support the right of the Scots to self-determination’ and that ‘the time
Sometimes it feels as if the government’s approach to defence and security could be summed up by the venerable punchline of the Irish farmer, ‘I wouldn’t have started from here’. Despite having had more than four years as Leader of the Opposition to prepare, Sir Keir Starmer never quite seems able to seize the initiative
In what looks like an act of remarkable stinginess, bosses at ITV have reportedly cancelled the traditional freebie summer party for the cast and crew of Coronation Street. The show is still one of the network’s top-rated programmes, and the beleaguered staff are said to be ‘furious’, according to the report in the Sun. I
It remains to be seen whether Trump’s ceasefire between Iran and Israel will hold, but on the other side of the world he has showcased his deal-making prowess in a very different conflict. In a few days, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo are set to sign a peace agreement, under US auspices, to
There was a unique focus on life and death in parliament last week, with critical votes on the decriminalisation of abortion and legalisation of assisted dying. Both propositions affect the interests of the most vulnerable. So what, I wondered, was the Established Church’s take on them? In recalling the now-retired Archbishop of Canterbury’s strident interventions
This week’s Nato summit could not come at a more pivotal moment. As recent months have shown, the challenges to contemporary global security are no longer limited to the individual threats posed by Moscow, Tehran, or Pyongyang. What makes the current situation even more concerning for the West is the multiple threats posed by the
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It is rare to see the President so visibly frustrated (see The Apprentice, circa 2004), but after Iran and Israel seemingly ignored his ceasefire announcement – and his plea on Truth Social, ‘PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!’ – Donald Trump has come down hard on both sides. In a clip taken this afternoon he exclaimed:
After President Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran on Monday, Iran launched missiles at the Jewish state. To justify this, Iran accused Israel of conducting an assault on Iranian territory until 9 a.m. on Tuesday, after the ceasefire went into effect. Later, Israel undertook a symbolic strike on a radar installation north of
US President Donald Trump is taking no prisoners today. Just hours after Trump announced a ceasefire had come into place between Israel and Iran – following the Iranian strikes yesterday evening on Doha – now the President has sent a message to Israel, warning against further strikes in a rather, um, explicit fashion. Taking first
We are not the fastest growing economy in the G7, even though the Labour party promised that we would be. We are not topping any tables for inward investment, and we have fallen to the bottom of the league for new companies listed on the stock market. Still, it is good to know that there
While Britain’s NHS remains on its knees, with A&E waiting times still unacceptably long and bed-blocked preventing sick patients from accessing wards, you’d think that all hands would be on deck to help make patient passages through hospital even a little more comfortable. Not in the County Durham and Darlington hospital trust. The trust’s LGBT
Well, well, well. At long last, the Westminster parliament has issued an update on where it stands over the Supreme Court ruling, which saw judges unanimously backed the biological definition of a woman. But despite the ruling being announced in April, it is only now that the UK parliament has published guidance on the subject
Palestine Action’s attempt to defy a ban on their protest outside parliament yesterday was one of the most vital tests of Sir Mark Rowley’s five-year term as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. It was a test he passed and the Met should be applauded – but the police’s robust response to this dangerous far-left extremist group
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on Monday afternoon that the UK government had decided to proscribe activist group Palestine Action – and now it transpires that officials are investigating its funding over concerns that there may be an Iran link. As reported by the Times, Palestine Action’s donations are being probed amid worries that the
It is a year next week since the general election and Labour is marking the occasion with the biggest backbench rebellion of Keir Starmer’s premiership. Overnight, scores of Starmer’s MPs have signed a reasoned amendment to the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) Bill. This would effectively kill the Bill at its second reading
Donald Trump’s presidency is often compared to a reality TV show. Yet that conceit barely captures the radical strangeness of his leadership. Trump is a hypnotist, a master of persuasion who tries to shape world events through CONFUSION, BIG BOMBS and CAPITAL LETTERS. ‘THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!’ he
Britain will lose 16,500 millionaires this year, taking $90 billion of wealth with them. That’s according to a new report from Henley & Partners. If their projections are right, that’s more than double the number of dollar millionaires expected to leave China in 2025. As I wrote for the magazine last month, changes to the non-dom regime –
Last week, I had the privilege of interning with the broadcast team at The Spectator – a magazine that has been stirring up debate since 1828. True to form, my arrival seemed to do the same. A Scottish newspaper managed to spin my internship into something resembling a scandal because I’m currently a sitting councillor in Renfrewshire.
Today is the first day of Nato’s annual summit. Some have billed it as potentially the most important meeting in the alliance’s recent history, while others have played down any expectations of major announcements. One issue which will undoubtedly concern the 32 Nato heads of state and government is the level of defence spending. Nineteen
Last night began with dramatic news: the Islamic Republic of Iran had launched a volley of ballistic missiles at the US-run Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, a retaliatory gesture following the devastating American strikes on the Iranian regime’s nuclear facilities. In Washington, President Trump entered the National Security Council, according to some reports accompanied by
The government’s hotly-anticipated industrial strategy has at last arrived. In it are a handful of bold new announcements, and a lot of old recycled ones. There are some big shiny spending commitments – a couple of billion pledged here, a few hundred million spent there. But perhaps the most consequential element, especially for the tech
It is a fair bet that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s ‘so-called supreme leader’ in the words of president Trump, didn’t expect it to end like this. Holed up in a bunker somewhere in Tehran, exchanging messages with a small and ever-diminishing group of allies, and impotently raging against the West, namely America and Israel. Khamenei is no
The winner of the contest to design a memorial to the late Elizabeth II has been announced, and it’s not very good. When the shortlist of five designs was unveiled last month, the most striking feature of the various hopefuls was how little they had to say about the much-loved Queen, or the country she
The vexed issue of compulsory ID is, once again, on the cards. ‘BritCard’ is being billed as a ‘progressive digital identity for Britain’ by Labour Together, the think tank that put forward the scheme earlier this month. The digital ID card has been endorsed by dozens of Labour MPs, and No. 10 is said to be