All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
There are probably worse things a senior banker could do. Taking all the money and running off to the Bahamas, or rescuing Credit Suisse, for example. But leaking confidential information about a client to the BBC is right up there with the worst sins imaginable. After it became clear that the NatWest boss Alison Rose
The NatWest saga is fast becoming a textbook example of what some consider to be an ‘establishment’ attack on minority (and often right-leaning) viewpoints. The fast U-turn from the NatWest board which now sees Dame Alison Rose out of a job (Mr Steerpike has the details here) confirms that this was not a nuanced or two-sided
A week is a long time in politics and a day is a long time in banking. On Tuesday afternoon, NatWest chief Dame Alison Rose admitted that she had ‘made a serious error of judgment’ and was the BBC source who discussed Nigel Farage’s bank details with Simon Jack at a charity dinner. The senior
Anurag Thakur, India’s information and broadcasting minister, is hopping mad about a sex scene in Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster film Oppenheimer. The offending segment shows Cillian Murphy, who plays the American physicist Robert Oppenheimer, reciting a famous line from the sacred Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita while making love. ‘I am become death, destroyer of worlds,’
Last night, the board of NatWest announced that it had ‘full confidence’ in Dame Alison Rose as its chief executive. But just after 2 a.m. it announced she was leaving by mutual consent. Rose had admitted she was the source of the inaccurate briefing to the BBC about Nigel Farage’s Coutts account and she apologised.
Scottish Labour lined up behind the SNP’s bungled attempt to reform the Gender Recognition Act last year and in doing so the party set itself firmly against the majority of voters. Around two-thirds of Scots are opposed to the SNP’s gender bill, but Labour chose to ignore their views and back the nationalists’ controversial legislation
The latest shock to hit the nationalist blogosphere is the revelation that the First Minister Humza Yousaf has recently broken bread with the billionaire Sir Brian Souter, the Stagecoach bus magnate. The encounter took place at a prayer breakfast last month and is regarded by some as a sign that Yousaf is trying to build
The story of NatWest Group’s rogue behaviour goes far deeper than Nigel Farage. It now emerges that many more customers have been de-banked, had their lives turned upside down, and businesses destroyed as a result of a rogue and rotten culture affecting the financial system. Take Baz Melia, army veteran and decorated war hero. The consulting business
Not for the first time in his colourful life, the perennial rebel Nigel Farage has the establishment on the run. This time it is the financial establishment and its media allies. The former Ukip leader has already garnered apologies over conduct or coverage from NatWest, which owns Coutts bank, the high-profile podcaster and former BBC
Hold on: I thought it was the wimpish new left that loses its rag over ‘offensive’ culture. Aren’t snowflakes usually self-styled radicals, with multicoloured hair and pronouns in their bios, who rage like overgrown children against movies or books or jokes that rattle their fragile sensibilities? Yet now it’s men on the right, blokes who
Sorry doesn’t seem to be the hardest word over at the BBC. The Corporation has had to issue another grovelling apology – after a BBC reporter asked Morocco’s captain Ghizlane Chebbak whether any of the Women’s World Cup Squad are lesbians. In Morocco, it is illegal to have a gay relationship. Do you have any gay players in
All is not well in Labour land. After last week’s row over Ulez, the dispute between Sadiq Khan and Keir Starmer shows no sign of relenting. This time, the casus belli is, surprise, surprise, Brexit. In a veiled swipe at his boss, Khan criticised the UK’s policy towards Europe in comments to (who else?) the
It’s a safe bet to say that, with her spectacular implosion at the beginning of the year, Nicola Sturgeon may have sounded the death knell for the SNP. But it appears that, when it comes to the independence party’s support base, that might be much more literal than anyone had imagined. Analysis of SNP donation
Mr S likes Manchester. It’s a fun, fetching and successful city. But is it the best place for a game of cricket? On Sunday, Australia retained the Ashes after the Old Trafford Test was drawn thanks to Manchester’s infamous rain. Down south, there would have been enough sun on Sunday for England to level the
The Uxbridge by-election has thrown Labour into a civil war, or at least a civil skirmish. Keir Starmer has told Sadiq Khan to think again on Ulez, and Khan has shown great reluctance to do so. But it has exposed a schism in the Conservatives, too. Yesterday, Rishi Sunak declared that efforts to reach the government’s
Have Just Stop Oil finally met their match? The splendidly named counter-organisation ‘Just Stop Pissing People Off’ have pulled off two bracing publicity coups in the last week. First, in Elephant & Castle in south London last Wednesday JSPPO ‘kettled’ JSO activists who were planning one of their slow marches down the public highway, forming
If you U-turn on a U-turn, does that make it an O-turn? That’s the question Mr S is wondering this morning given the mess ministers have managed to get themselves into on plans to ban new diesel and petrol cars. The ban is due to come into effect from 2030 but yesterday Andrew Mitchell, the Foreign
It’s ten years this month since legislation to legalise same-sex marriage was passed by parliament. So what better way to mark the occasion than a reception with the man who was Prime Minister at the time? David Cameron was on sparkling form last night at a drinks party hosted by the LGBT+ Conservatives – one
Today, Anneliese Dodds, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, has pledged in a Guardian article that ‘Labour will lead on reform of transgender rights.’ At first glance, you could be fooled into thinking this is a positive intervention. For starters, Dodds has rowed back on the policy of self-ID, perhaps after seeing the chaotic collapse
Dogs bark, cows moo and the BBC makes a hash of it. After holding out for a week, the Corporation has today thrown in the towel and issued a belated and grovelling apology to Nigel Farage for misreporting the reason his bank account at Coutts was closed. The Beeb’s original report by its Business Editor Simon Jack
While golden oldies battle for the presidency, the age of those in Westminster seems to be getting younger and younger. Last week, we had a new ‘Baby of the House’ when 25-year-old Keir Mather was elected as MP for Selby and Ainsty. And today, 29-year-old Charlotte Owen is being sworn in as the youngest life
Michael Gove, one of the few ministers with a track record of getting stuff done, set out the government’s new housebuilding plans this morning. But will his policies actually help solve the housing crisis? The British Dream is largely a suburban one, and Gove’s plan fails to address it Gove’s plans have focused on streamlining
It will trash the brand. It will alienate its core users. And relaunching and rebranding a failing business almost never works. As Elon Musk drops the Twitter blue bird and swaps it for an X, we will hear plenty of arguments about why the world’s second richest man has made another critical commercial mistake. In
Depending on how you look at the result of yesterday’s general election in Spain, either everyone won or no one won. It had been called five months early by outgoing Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez, who hoped to block a resurgent Spanish right after its emphatic victories in regional elections on 28 May. The vote
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Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson speak to James Heale about Labour’s infighting over issues such as ULEZ and the child benefits cap. Whilst not in government yet, is this something Keir Starmer will need to get a grip on in order to become the next Prime Minister? Produced by Natasha Feroze.
Sunday’s general election in Spain was supposed to answer the question: will Spain be governed for the next four years by a right-wing coalition or by a left-wing coalition? If the question was easy to understand, the answer certainly isn’t. Like the four previous general elections, this one was inconclusive – only even more so.
The rise of artificial intelligence may be rescuing the tech oligarchy, but its current trajectory could hasten our steps towards what virtual reality guru Rony Abovitz calls ‘computational autocracy’. The new possibilities posed by AI represent a force multiplier for the large tech firms. Musk, Apple, Meta, Google and Microsoft already seem poised to dominate
Summer wouldn’t be complete without hordes of disgruntled British tourists being evacuated from their hotels, flown home early or spending their holidays sprawled on the floor of an international airport. But are the scenes of Rhodes really a symptom of a the world ‘being on fire’, as Greta Thunberg would put it? Actually, in spite
It’s a month since the Farage Coutts row blew up and there’s no sign of it calming down any time soon. The asinine decision of the bank to close the Brexiteer’s account because they didn’t like his politics and then to tell the BBC that it was down to commercial reasons now looks to be
Hurrah! The government, it was reported yesterday, is working on getting some more migrants. To plug a million-strong post-Brexit labour shortage in the hospitality sector, Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick have been instructed by Downing Street to start talks to open the doors to young French, German, Spanish and Swiss nationals. If it goes well, the plan
For the fifth time in three months, Moscow has once again been targeted by drones. In what is fast becoming a regular occurrence, the Russian ministry of defence reported that two drones attacked the city in the early hours of this morning. Despite the ministry’s claims to have intercepted and jammed the drones, they were
The world is waking up to pictures of fresh destruction in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, which has been under constant Russian fire since the grain export deal collapsed last week. At least one person has been killed and 19 more injured following missile strikes overnight. The roof of the recently-rebuilt Transfiguration Cathedral has
