All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
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As mortgage rates surge and a new Opinium poll finds Labour’s lead has jumped to 18 points, Rishi Sunak appeared on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC show to insist that his plan is the right one. But was his slightly cranky reaction to some of the questions a reflection of how the party is really feeling about
After a bruising week, perhaps Andrew Bailey could take some solace in Rishi Sunak’s interview with Laura Kuenssberg this weekend. For a start, the Prime Minister threw his support behind the Bank of England governor, after senior figures within the Conservative party accused Bailey of being ‘asleep at the wheel’. But it was also a
It’s a sign, possibly, of my increasing age and bad temper that I find myself harking back to an imaginary past in which tradesmen could be relied upon to know what they were about. A time when people took pride in their work. You know the sort of thing: back in the good old days a plumber
Orcas – killer whales no less – are on the attack. They have declared war on humanity. They are systematically destroying boats in uncannily coordinated attacks. They are taking revenge because White Gladis, an orca matriarch, was traumatised after being hit by a ship. The attacks began in the seas off Spain and Portugal but
Breaking: Sadiq Khan is a big fan of grass – and not the kind you can decriminalise. The Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority have been forced to shell out a whopping £200,000 to re-turf Parliament Square Gardens – a site often favoured by the unwashed masses of eco-protestors like Extinction Rebellion. City
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion against the Russian military and political leadership may have stopped some 200 km short of Moscow, but its reverberations will be felt in the Kremlin for a long time. The march, and the images of people in Rostov cheering Wagner fighters and hissing at the police, was a rare and unwelcome insight into
The inevitable is at last beginning to dawn on Emmanuel Macron. The extravagant spending spree initiated after the violent and year-long 2018 ‘gilets jaunes’ protests will have to be reversed. With the coffers empty, France is not only at the mercy of international finance, she is now highly vulnerable to the next social or political
A common stereotype about Germans is that they love to complain – and there is certainly a kernel of truth to that. Grumbling is part and parcel of everyday German life, often with complete strangers. But on my recent trips to Germany, I felt that general expressions of dissatisfaction have acquired a new sharpness. Whole communities
Both Vladimir Putin and the mercenary Wagner Group have been dramatically weakened by yesterday’s attempted coup. Wagner’s nominal leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, goes into exile while his group will no doubt lose its privileged status. Putin, meanwhile, has been publicly and massively humiliated, a dangerous position for an autocrat. Firstly, Putin’s famed security forces proved completely
As rebel tanks trundled up the highway towards Moscow yesterday morning, Vladimir Putin labelled the mutinous mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin a ‘traitor’ – and vowed to crush him. But hours later Putin capitulated, allowing Prigozhin to retire to an honourable exile in Belarus and pardoning the 25,000-strong Wagner force which had spent the day in
Another day brings with it another difficult morning with Rishi Sunak. With Labour’s lead now stretching to 18 points, the Prime Minister did a tetchy interview with Laura Kuenssberg saw the pair clash over inflation and mortgages. And Sunak will no doubt be delighted to know that the person whose reaction which Kuenssberg sought straight
As mortgage rates surge and a new Opinium poll finds Labour’s lead has jumped to 18 points, Rishi Sunak appeared on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC show to insist that his plan is the right one. The interview was pre-recorded in the Downing Street garden yesterday, with Sunak commenting on the – now failed – attempted coup
What to make of the strange Prigozhin interlude? The putsch that was and wasn’t. The facts are simple. After an alleged attack on Wagner troops by the Russian army ordered by defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of general staff Valery Gerasimov, Prigozhin’s private army of 25,000 took control of the garrison town Rostov-on-Don and
As soon as the Wagner coup started, Ukrainian social media was full of memes of Vladimir Putin saying ‘I don’t need ammo, I need a ride’ – the inverse of Volodymyr Zelensky’s quip when tanks moved towards Kyiv. But is there any truth in it? Did Putin – or his allies – flee Moscow at
Ah, the perils of hosting an international jamboree. You know what it’s like: you stump up for the hotel rooms, roll out the red carpet, shake hands with an assortment of autocrats, only for your own unappreciative electorate to let you down once again. Such misfortune befell Emmanuel Macron this week, when he invited the
Up until this point, it was possible to believe that Putin was tolerating, or even orchestrating Yevgeny Prigozhin’s increasingly outspoken attacks on the military leadership and ‘the elites’ in Moscow. Vladimir Putin himself didn’t seem especially pleased with his generals. Only a few days ago, he turned his back on his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu,
During her eight years as Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon perfected the art of false promises. She consistently told SNP supporters that a second independence referendum was within reach, but the truth was that she had no power to deliver one. All Sturgeon was able to do was lead her troops halfway up the hill
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Fraser Nelson is joined by Svitlana Morenets and Mark Galeotti as Vladimir Putin faces an armed insurrection from the Wagner mercenary group – what could happen next?
Civil war broke on Russia like a thunderstorm, replacing weeks of mounting political heat with a deluge of fire and fury. The sound of rifles and mortars echoed around Rostov-on-Don hours after mercenaries of the Wagner private military company took over the headquarters of the Russian Army’s Southern command. Wagner troops were filmed placing anti-tank
British rule over South Africa ended in 1910, but now parliament is busy with legislation that could have a devastating effect on its old colony. A landmark law to ban trophy hunting imports is making its way through the Lords. The Hunting Trophies Bill would prevent tourists importing animal skins, severed heads and carcasses of certain animals
The scene in the German port was like a vision of hell. As the incendiary bombs rained down on Hamburg that hot summer evening, the centre of the city was engulfed by a conflagration so intense that it seemed to herald the Apocalypse. Trees were uprooted, buildings demolished, trains ripped from their tracks, roadways turned to
As famous capital cities of world-straddling superpowers go, Washington DC is somewhat disappointing. The grandiose urbanism is surely meant to resemble the boulevards of Paris, with the parks of London, but in reality the dreary post-modern/neo-classical bombast makes it looks like Tashkent married to Milton Keynes. A city that is planned to project power actually
It’s finally here. The SNP independence convention has been in the works for quite some time – it was initially supposed to be Nicola Sturgeon’s de facto referendum conference – so you’d think that its execution would be slick, its planning well organised. Think again. It will come of no surprise to readers, Mr S
It took a characteristically long time for Vladimir Putin to respond to the coup-that-dare-not-speak-its-name launched by Yevgeny Prigozhin, but when his statement came, it was steeped in bitterness. And no wonder, for Prigozhin was essentially Putin’s creation, and we know that Putin’s greatest venom is reserved for those he considers traitors. An ex-con who moved
The main thoroughfare of Rostov-on-Don is today crawling with military vehicles and masked soldiers carrying automatics, and the entrance to that circus – which backs onto the Rostov military headquarters – is blocked aggressively by a tank. The city is now controlled by the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private army out on the rampage and
With Vladimir Putin facing armed insurrection from Prigozhin’s Wagner Group, the exiled opposition in Belarus has called for its military to assert independence from Russia. Valery Sakhashchyk, Opposition defence spokesman, has released a video where he addressed his countrymen and the 38th Airborne Brigade, which he once commanded and is regarded as still loyal to
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Kate Andrews is joined by Fraser Nelson and Johan Norberg, author of The Capitalist Manifesto: why the global free market will save the world. On the podcast Johan talks about its why lockdown societies never worked; whether he finds the word capitalism useful and his endless optimism for a better future.
Yevgeny Prigozhin has just exposed the full extent of Vladimir Putin’s weakness. In less than 24 hours, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group made extraordinary progress – taking control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the headquarters of the Southern Miliary District, and posing the most serious challenge to Putin’s leadership. The president
Vladimir Putin has just released a speech to Russians after the Wagner mercenary group took over Russian military headquarters in the south of the country in what is described by the Kremlin as an attempted coup. Full text below. ‘We are fighting for the life and security of our people, for our sovereignty and independence,
Bella is a three-year-old dog of indeterminate breed. I found her by the side of the road. She is fearless, affectionate and cute, like many dogs, but her place in history is assured because as far as I can tell, she is the first dog in history to have been cancelled for failure to kowtow
A Japanese government report has revealed that over a 50-year period, under a policy of forced sterilisation, 16,500 people were operated on without their consent. The youngest, a boy and a girl, were just nine. Another 8,000 apparently gave their consent, though under what sort of pressure is unclear. A further 60,000 women had abortions
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, has left Rostov-on-Don and ended the armed insurrection against Vladimir Putin. After one of the most extraordinary days in Russian history, he said he marched within 125 miles of Moscow but said he decided to go no further to avoid bloodshed. Putin, who had ordered his
These are heady times for Britain’s smaller political parties. Seldom has there been as much interest from voters in breaking away from the stale embrace of the entity known to many as the ‘LibLabCon’. On the left, the Greens keep growing – though their addiction to identity politics in general and the militant trans movement
