All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The president of Guyana will take centre stage at the United Nations today – but before doing so he had to take on ITV’s Richard Madeley. President Irfaan Ali, who has said descendants of European slave traders should offer to pay reparations to right historical wrongs, came to blows with the Good Morning Britain host
13 min listen
Rishi Sunak is set to give a speech this week outlining changes to the government’s environmental policies. The plans to phase out new petrol and diesel cars, and gas boilers, will likely be delayed. What does the Prime Minister stand to gain? James Heale speaks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to Lampedusa at the weekend – at the invitation of Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – is a clear sign that the Euro establishment has abandoned its Pontius Pilate policy on the illegal migrant emergency in the central Mediterranean. In the past week, around 12,000 migrants have arrived in several
The idea of the United Kingdom becoming an ‘associate member’ of the European Union is a non-starter because it would settle nothing and satisfy almost nobody politically. For Brexiteers it would involve a future British government – presumably one led by Sir Keir Starmer – breaking its word by setting off on a mission to
Ukraine is reported to have rejected a consignment of Germany’s Leopard 1 tanks – on the grounds that they are technically flawed, and that Ukrainian engineers lack the skills and training to fix them. Embarrassingly for Germany, this is the second time that Ukraine has turned its collective nose up at a delivery of German
It can’t be coincidence that led Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron to unveil their proposals for a new class of associate membership of the EU while Keir Starmer was visiting the latter in Paris. In the Labour leader, they are presumably hoping they will find a receptive ear. With a UK election due next year
Jeremy Hunt has been warning for weeks that inflation could rise over the summer due to an increase in fuel prices. Economists said much the same: the consensus was that the headline rate would jump to 7.1 per cent on the year in August. But this morning the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that the rate
Rishi Sunak hasn’t even formally announced his plans to water down the government’s net zero pledges, but already the backlash has begun. Tory peer Zac Goldsmith, who stormed out of Sunak’s government this summer, described the u-turn as a ‘moment of shame’ for Britain. He called for an ‘election now’ and said the PM’s time
Rishi Sunak will reportedly make a speech later this week watering down some of the targets the government has set itself on achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, although that target itself will not be touched). The proposed ban on new petrol and diesel cars will be put back by five years to 2035,
As King Charles’ state visit to France begins, it is clear that France is not as republican as it claims. The death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022 gave way to an outpouring of French national grief. Speaking for his people, President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: ‘Her death leaves us with a sense of emptiness’.
As doctors down stethoscopes and walk out of hospitals in their ongoing strike for better pay and working conditions, the public might reasonably conclude that the NHS is underfunded. How, then, do we make sense of this week’s revelation that NHS England is set to open three new departments focusing on equality and diversity? Either
Here we go. As Rishi Sunak prepares for next year’s election, the government has been on the hunt for dividing lines with Labour. One of the areas in focus is net zero. When the Tories narrowly held on in the Uxbridge by-election, Tory MPs largely put it down to the campaign against Ulez (ultra low
Canada has accused India of being behind the assassination of a Sikh-Canadian citizen on its soil – an unprecedented charge to make against a democracy and fellow G7 nation. The Canadians claim to be investigating ‘credible allegations’ that Indian agents were behind the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader. Nijjar, a Canadian citizen,
Twelve months after Sir Mark Rowley embarked on a mission to re-boot the Metropolitan Police following a wave of scandals, the force has revealed that it has suspended or placed work restrictions on a thousand of its officers. More than 200 are currently suspended and 860 are on ‘restricted duties’ while criminal or misconduct allegations are investigated – taken
13 min listen
Keir Starmer is in Paris today. It’s a bid to ‘look statesman-like’, Katy Balls says, but also underlines where a Labour government would take British relations with the EU. Oscar Edmondson talks to Katy and Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Cindy Yu.
It is often on the back of public fury that dangerous new precedents are set. Authoritarianism can sneak in when we’re all hopping mad about something or someone. So mad that we don’t even notice that society’s rules are being rewritten in an illiberal way. I fear it’s happening again, with YouTube’s demonetisation of Russell
When the Scottish writer Gillian Philip posted a tweet in 2020, she could not have imagined the devastating consequences that would follow. At the time, her fellow author JK Rowling was under relentless attack for her view that a conflict exists between women’s right to use single sex spaces, such as refuges, and moves to
The Russell Brand revelations have prompted much soul-searching in recent days from hand-wringing hacks fretting about the norms of the noughties. Leading the charge today is Marina Hyde, the toast of centrist dads everywhere. She has written in the Guardian about her angst concerning the infamous ‘Sachsgate’ episode of Brand’s career. Back in October 2008,
One small trip on the Eurostar for Keir Starmer is one giant kick in the teeth for Rishi Sunak. The Labour leader’s Grand Tour today descended on Paris, after his trips last week to Canada, where he was received by Justin Trudeau, and the Hague, where the prime minister in waiting consulted Europol, the
Up before the Court of Session in Edinburgh today is a legal question: was Scottish Secretary Alister Jack’s decision to block the SNP’s gender reforms a lawful exercise of his statutory powers? In January, Jack invoked a relatively obscure power to block the Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill. The GRR Bill – the brainchild of
You’d struggle to describe the start of 2023 as anything like ‘good economic times’. But according to the OECD’s economic outlook interim report, it’s better than what’s to come. The report, published this morning, expects rising rates around the world to take their toll on economic growth. Global growth has been downgraded for next year –
It’s only a matter of time before Russell Brand, backed as he is by Elon Musk, releases his first show on X. I say that because YouTube has just announced that it has ‘suspended monetisation’ on Brand’s channel for ‘violating’ something it calls its ‘creator responsibility policy’. Brand has 6.6 million followers on YouTube, which makes
Just when you thought it was safe to go to back in the gender-neutral loo, back comes the row about the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. It lands in Scotland’s highest court today, the Court of Session. Lady Haldane will hear three days of argument on the UK government’s unprecedented veto under the Section 35 of the
It is a testament to the extraordinary changes underway in Scottish politics that the latest YouGov poll showing the Labour party winning 11 seats north of the border is viewed as a setback. Even six months ago, such findings would have been welcomed with jubilation at the party’s Glasgow headquarters as evidence that voters were,
In his promised review of net zero policies, Rishi Sunak has already ruled out postponing the proposed ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. Indeed, from the end of the year manufacturers are going to be under a mandate to make sure that a certain proportion of their sales are
I love the BBC’s Horrible Histories; in fact, I’m on record as saying it’s among the best things about being a parent. The show, which in its first five seasons starred the six actors who went on to make Ghosts, has engaged children and adults alike with a dry wit that owes much to Blackadder. Go and have
Who knew a high-speed rail network involved so many U-turns? It’s not just the government who are flip-flopping on HS2 expansion: anything they can do, Labour can do better! The Opposition have now tried three different positions in 48 hours on suggestions that HS2’s planned route could be cut back. On Sunday, frontbencher Pat McFadden
Radio 4 show In Our Time celebrates its landmark 1,000th episode this week. Host Melvyn Bragg is one of the Beeb’s biggest stars, but it seems his salary hardly puts him on level pegging with some of the corporation’s other big names. In an interview marking In Our Time‘s millennial episode, Bragg gently points out that
Every now and again, my alma mater is in the news, and why wouldn’t it be? Britain is obsessed with schools and class. Bedales provides ample fodder for both: the boarding school in Hampshire is famously ‘liberal’ – and was so even when England was famously illiberal. Bedales, whose graduates include Lily Allen, Kirstie Allsopp
The clock is ticking on a bill to ban conversion therapy, at least for this year. Let’s hope that time runs out before it becomes law. The Tories had previously promised to ban the practice of attempting to change someone’s sexuality or gender identity, but the government appears to have had second thoughts. When Lib
It is Keir Starmer’s misfortune that he arrives in Paris today for a meeting with Emmanuel Macron at the moment Europe faces one of its gravest challenges of recent years. More than 11,000 migrants have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa in the last week, an unprecedented influx that has exposed the deep divisions within
There’s nothing the Nats wouldn’t do to give their independence obsession a little more airtime. They’ll take the publicity from wherever they can get it – and that includes the pro-Putin Russia Today programme. It has emerged that First Minister Humza Yousaf appeared on the controversial channel twice in the past, first in 2013 and
For the first time more than 10 per cent of the Japanese population are aged 80 or older, according to new official data. This reinforces Japan’s reputation as the world’s oldest society with 29 per cent of the population now aged 65 or more, a full 5 per cent ahead of Italy in second place.
