All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Even with the force of the mighty SNP establishment behind him, Humza Yousaf’s premiership is still struggling. So when your own side fails you, who better to call in than your arch-nemesis’s second-in-command? Kevin Pringle, Alex Salmond’s one-time spin doctor, has today been conscripted to help keep Yousaf’s sinking ship afloat. Keep your friends close,
What’s wrong with the government’s AI strategy? Labour has been claiming today that it is ‘already out of date’, with shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell arguing that developers should be licensed by the government before they can work on advanced AI. Powell has suggested that an arms-length body could run the licensing regime in the
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Such is the axiom underpinning North Korea’s (DPRK) approach towards its nuclear and missile development. The hermit kingdom’s acceleration in its nuclear and missile capabilities demonstrates how Kim Jong-un is working down his wish list of expanding his country’s conventional and unconventional weapons, which he declared
Prince Harry is in the High Court today, being cross-examined as he sues the publisher of the Daily Mirror over alleged phone hacking (you can follow proceedings throughout this afternoon here). Here is his witness statement: I, PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX, of [address available to the trial judge] WILL STATE AS FOLLOWS: My Background My Relationship
So. Farwell then. Margaret ‘plague’ Ferrier. The least-loved Covid carrier in all of Westminster today suffered the ignominy of watching her colleagues vote to turf her out of parliament. Back in March, the Commons’ Standards Committee recommended that she should be suspended for breaching lockdown rules. And this afternoon MPs voted 185 to 40 to
Prince Harry has finished his first day being cross examined in the High Court as part of his case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN). The Duke of Sussex – the first member of the royal family to give evidence in court in more than 130 years – says reporters used unlawful means, including phone hacking,
Margaret Ferrier has received a 30-day suspension from the Commons for breaching the Code of Conduct for MPs when she broke Covid rules. As the suspension is for longer than ten days, she is now at the mercy of a recall petition and by-election: it’s almost certain that the constituents of Rutherglen and Hamilton West
Has there ever been a positive sentence that contains both ‘the SNP’ and ‘waiting lists’? New data reveals that under Scotland’s SNP government list lengths for children and young adults’ mental health services have risen this year, leaving just under 8,000 young people in limbo. Waiting lists nosedived in 2022, going from over 10,000 people
It’s forty years since the Smiths released their first single ‘Hand In Glove’. We’ve already seen a slew of articles on the anniversary, and the clichés about this most singular, most wonderful pop group are doing their weary rounds yet again. The Guardian tells us that the Smiths are incredibly influential. But this is sadly
Some vintage blue-on-blue today over at the European Scrutiny Committee (ESC). Kemi Badenoch, the Business and Trade Secretary, was up before MPs to face a grilling on her department’s Retained EU Law (REUL) bill. The legislation was introduced under Liz Truss when Jacob Rees-Mogg was Business Secretary, with the aim of removing all EU legislation from
Prince Harry is on a mission. ‘How much more blood will stain their typing fingers before someone can put a stop to this madness’?’ Harry asks of journalists in his witness statement in his case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN). After the prince became the first member of the royal family to give evidence in
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The Prime Minister will be flying stateside tonight to visit Joe Biden. Top of the agenda will be AI regulation and Britain’s role in it (they may also talk about Ben Wallace’s bid to become the next Secretary General of Nato). It’s a tricky issue and famously fast moving, so can the two leaders crack
As Rishi Sunak faces concern at home that his five priorities are slipping out of reach, he is flying to Washington tonight for another foray on the world stage. The Prime Minister will spend two days in the USA where he will meet President Joe Biden for his first bilateral in America (and the fifth
What a surprise: the ultimate Whitehall insider looks set to be cleared by Whitehall. Sue Gray, the keeper of ministers’ secrets, caused outcry back in March when it was revealed she was lined up to become Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. How, asked outraged Tories, could a supposedly impartial mandarin defect from being the government’s
Is Rishi Sunak stopping the boats? He’d certainly like us to think so. He spent much of yesterday in Dover parading the news revealed on The Spectator data hub last week that small boats crossing the Channel were down a fifth compared with the same time last year. By the end of May, the Ministry of Defence
Hours after the Ukrainian army finally launched its long-awaited counter-offensive, the Nova Kakhovka dam has been blown up – which Zelensky blamed on ‘Russian terrorists’. It belongs to the fifth largest hydroelectric plant in Ukraine, in the occupied part of the Kherson region, which was completely destroyed in the explosion. The flooding has been immediate:
Tilting a statue. That’s the solution now. At least, that’s what a jury appointed by Vienna city council has recommended as the best way to deal with a controversial likeness of Karl Lueger, the early 20th-century mayor who shaped the modern city, but also happened to be an antisemite. Dr Lueger was a social reformer,
If you thought American book-banning couldn’t get any more ridiculous, think again. A school district in Utah, one of the most religious states in the country, has banned the Bible. The Bible – fundamental to the state’s Protestant, Catholic and Mormon churches – is to be removed from elementary and middle school libraries for containing
Today is the 79th anniversary of D-Day, 6 June 1944, when Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy to begin the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe and the end of the Second World War. Despite the fears of prime minister Winston Churchill and others that the Anglo-American and Canadian landings would be a bloody fiasco,
If you think nothing works in Britain now, just wait. Wait, that is, until a future government (I’ll guess a Labour one, but can never tell with the Conservatives any more) introduces a universal basic income – that is a guaranteed, unconditional income for everyone, regardless of means, and regardless of whether they are working,
‘I was in two minds about accepting this acknowledgment,’ says the now Dame Jacinda Ardern, reflecting on how ‘humbled’ she feels today to receive the Dame Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. ‘For me this is a way to say thank you – to my family, to my colleagues, and to the
Recently, much light has been shone on the way LGBTQ+ campaign groups have been able to influence school sex and relationships classes. Lurid examples of highly sexualised and age-inappropriate content have shocked parents. Now, the Prime Minister has ordered a review of the curriculum, much to the disgust of teaching unions and campaigners. But lessons
I was in my fondly forgotten twenties when I made it to 53 Christopher Street, site of the 1969 Stonewall riots and, since 1994, the second most historic address in Greenwich Village. (The apartment building from Friends is three blocks over.) The Stonewall Inn that stands there now is only the latest establishment to bear that name,
Has the BBC been taking diversity hiring tips from the RAF? Leaked emails released last week showed RAF officials urging the recruitment of fewer ‘useless white male pilots’. Now it appears BBC 5 Live might be just as done with white men. Steerpike notes a tweet from Rick Edwards, co-presenter of the radio station’s breakfast programme, calling
When Rishi Sunak replaced Liz Truss in Downing Street last autumn, fundamentalism gave way to incrementalism. So far, the results have been suitably unspectacular: a nudging down of the inflation number more slowly than anyone envisaged; the bare avoidance of outright recession; debt at best stuck as a share of GDP; NHS waiting times that
If politics is showbiz for ugly people, then showbiz is surely just politics by uglier means. By media standards, Mr S has barely covered the Phillip Schofield saga – penning just two articles on it – but given the skullduggery going on at This Morning, how could he not return to the fray? Especially when
For a man who says that his ‘life’s work’ is to change the British ‘media landscape’, Prince Harry has a funny way of showing it. The Duke of Sussex skipped the first day of proceedings in his case against the Mirror because, er, he was celebrating his daughter’s birthday. Talk about getting off to a
How many memorable quotes has the Russia-Ukraine war produced so far? Along with Snake Island’s defiant ‘F*** you Russian warship’, we’ve had president Zelensky’s refusal to leave Kyiv at the beginning of the war with the words: ‘I need ammunition, not a ride.’ We also have his ‘Bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships
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James Heale is joined by Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls to discuss Rishi Sunak’s visit to Dover in a bid to tackle small boats. Also, following a clash between Keir Starmer and members on the left of the party, how much of a problem has Andy Burnham become for the Labour leader?
According to Moscow, Ukraine’s long-awaited counter-offensive has begun, and has begun badly for Kyiv. Of course, we need to treat the Russian account with all necessary scepticism, but the evidence is that the droney, phony war stage of this campaign season is ending and the real fighting is beginning. The unverified Russian claim is that
I’d kind of hoped, until recently, that Phillip Schofield would not trouble my consciousness in any big way again. I had vague memories of his grinning, chipmunk-like face getting up to antics with Gordon the Gopher in the 1990s. I noticed when he was in Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, because that was all over the
These days our sex scandals seem like another symbol of Britain’s national decline. They are diminished, petty and tawdry, certainly compared to the grand affair that took its name from its main actor: John Profumo. Sixty years ago today, on 5 June 1963, Profumo rose in the House of Commons to admit that he had lied
Oh dear. The long-running feud between Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham has blown up again this weekend, this time over a row about the decision to block a sitting mayor from standing for a new role in the North East. Jamie Driscoll, the serving North of Tyne mayor, revealed on Friday that he has been
