All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Today in Sydney, Australia’s most decorated soldier, former Special Air Services corporal Ben Roberts-Smith VC, was found by a civil court, on a balance of probabilities, to be a likely war criminal, a murderer, a liar and a bully. Roberts-Smith is a huge man, towering over all around him. When he was presented alongside other
Labour has been clapping themselves on the back today after suspending backbencher Geraint Davies following claims of ‘completely unacceptable behaviour.’ It followed a report by Politico, which claimed the Swansea West MP had subjected younger colleagues to unwanted sexual attention. Politico said it had spoken to more than 20 people who worked with Davies in
Are Scotland and England drifting inexorably apart? To find out if that’s true, at Our Scottish Future, we carried out extensive polling of people across Scotland, Wales and England, asking if they feel negatively or positively about our governing system. Did they feel invisible to people in Westminster? Two thirds of those polled in Scotland
Not for the first time, a gulf has opened up between house price indices. This morning, Nationwide reports that average prices fell by 0.1 per cent in May (following a surprise rise of 0.4 per cent in April), taking annual house price inflation down to minus 3.4 per cent. That will surprise no-one, given the
Nominations for the Tory mayoral race closed last week, with a final shortlist of two or three expected to be published a week on Sunday. So far nine candidates have declared their interest in taking on Sadiq Khan, with Paul Scully, the Minister for London, the early favourite. But Mr S wonders if the real
The government has paid a whacking out-of-court settlement of £100,000 to Anna Thomas, a whistleblower sacked after she tried to warn them about the infiltration of the DWP by political activists. Baroness Falkner, chair of the equality watchdog, was placed under investigation after a spurious ‘dossier’ of complaints was compiled by staff, which just so
You only have to hear the words of Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian President and Vladimir Putin’s long term chief sidekick, to realise just how far Russia has propelled itself from the circle of civilised nations. Putin’s Russia not only uses state assassinations as an instrument of policy, but jokes and boasts about it too Dmitry
A few months back I asked a question of Donald Trump: does he know why he’s running to be president again? He made one major speech of which even some of his most ardent followers questioned the enthusiasm. Since then he has occupied the depths of Truth Social and not much more. After his announcement
Rishi Sunak’s pet theory that voters are relaxed about the level of legal immigration – so long as the government is in charge of it – and only really care about illegal immigration has just collapsed. New polling from YouGov shows that among 2019 Conservative voters, concern about immigration and asylum is now running nip
In the mid-90s when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate I did work experience at the now defunct The Face magazine. They put me in what they called the fashion cupboard. Looking back on it now, I recall I spent a hot fortnight in August either hoiking large volumes of clothing around London for various photoshoots
It’s 2023 and a lesbian requires security guards to speak at the Oxford Union. That image of Kathleen Stock arriving in Oxford yesterday, looking badass in shades and a baseball cap, surrounded by burly blokes who were tasked with protecting her from assault, shames Oxford university. This is meant to be one of the highest
One of the great parts of my job is that you get to meet the people you’ve always wanted to. When I first became editor, I used this a lot – mainly abusing my expenses account. Then we acquired an events department and with it, the facility to invite others along too. So next month, we’ll
8 min listen
Boris Johnson’s team today suggested that they would be happy to hand over his WhatsApp messages from during the pandemic to help the Covid enquiry. Why has the civil service got itself in such a muddle over this, and why have the Tories failed to reform Whitehall? Max Jeffery speaks to James Heale and Kate
Why do we have inquiries? The late Geoffrey Howe suggested six principal reasons: to establish the facts, to learn from the events, to provide catharsis for those affected, to reassure the public that matters are being resolved, to allocate accountability and blame, and the political urge to show something is being done. By those metrics,
Talk about going down to the wire. With today’s deadline fast approaching, the SNP Westminster group has made, at the eleventh hour, a significant announcement: they have finally submitted their audited accounts. Had the group been unable to do so, they would have missed out on £1.2 million of public funds, so-called ‘Short money’, making
It is nearly a year now since the latest round of rail strikes began. They have cost union members thousands of pounds in lost income. But according to Mick Whelan, general secretary of Aslef, on the Today programme this morning the union has made ‘zero progress’ in its negotiations with the Rail Delivery Group, which
It is hard not to be increasingly concerned about the safeguarding of children at Childline, an arm of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). I believe that young, vulnerable and impressionable children are being exposed to worrying material, grounded in ideology, on the charity’s website. Childline runs a message board which children can use to
It has been a pathetic sight to watch politicians pleading with the supermarkets to lower food prices. Inflation has yet again proven to be more persistent than the government expected and it will do almost anything to bring it down. The Chancellor has even said that a recession would be a price worth paying to
Where have Boris Johnson’s diaries and WhatsApp messages gone? The row over the demands of the Covid Inquiry for evidence from the former prime minister and his aide Henry Cook took another twist yesterday, with his team insisting that he has already handed over all the relevant material to the Cabinet Office and that it
When it comes to dealings with their political opponents, Scottish nationalists have only one setting: furious outrage. No matter the subject, Scotland’s ruling parties – the SNP and the Greens – may be depended upon to move swiftly to apoplexy. Everything the Conservatives and Labour say, no matter how benign, must be twisted and reshaped into
As we pass the 15-month mark of Russia’s war against Ukraine, it’s clear the Putin government is in a fix. It cannot win this war nor afford to lose or stop it. But with another mobilisation politically risky and tens of thousands of Russian citizens now fallen on the battlefield, it’s evident they will need all the
Last night, Professor Kathleen Stock told the Oxford Union that we need to talk about ‘reality’. She is absolutely right. Make no mistake, Stock is a reasonable voice in a political debate where many appear to be living in some sort of fantasy world. Her views are what many would consider to be mainstream. For
Oh dear. It seems the dreaming spires are having a nightmare. Professor Kathleen Stock is addressing the Oxford Union tonight, but not all students approve. One trans activist, Riz Possnett, glued themselves to the floor of the Union in protest before Stock even began speaking. Wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘No More Dead
For some time now, critics of the Tories’ strategy of soaking millennials to buy votes from boomers have been pointing out its fatal flaw: a generation with nothing to conserve will have no reason to vote Conservative. This argument has typically been waved away with some bromide about how everyone becomes more conservative as they
Scotland’s NHS has seen its waiting lists, once again, reach record levels. New figures from Public Health Scotland reveal that the equivalent of one in every seven Scots is on a waiting list. Care targets aren’t being met either, and the NHS is falling short on targets set for inpatient and day case waits. A
Joseph Robinette Biden, a practising Catholic, has travelled a long way when it comes to gay rights. In 1996, as Senator for Delaware, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which blocked the federal recognition of same-sex unions. Two years earlier he voted to cut funding to schools that taught the acceptance of homosexuality. In
The arrival of super intelligent artificial intelligence (AI) could wipe out humanity. That’s the fear of leading AI figures, who have today signed an open letter calling for AI safety to be a ‘global priority’. Geoffrey Hinton, a legendary figure among AI researchers, recently left Google and sounded the alarm. ‘It’s the first time in mankind’s history
Natasha Feroze is joined by James Heale and Fraser Nelson to discuss the Covid inquiry’s requested release of Boris Johnson’s unredacted Whatsapp messages and diary entries. Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak has spent the day in Kent looking at ways to clamp down unsafe vaping. But he won’t go as far as other countries who intend to
Every successful digital publication has one thing in common: brilliant analytical people working hand-in-glove with editors. We’re looking to hire such a person. We have a strong data team at The Spectator which allowed us to scrutinise Sage in lockdown and allows us, now, to look at how we can better serve our own readers.
Remarkable as it may sound, it looks as if a border skirmish this week between Iranian and Afghan border guards, which involved at least three deaths, was about water. This is not the first border clash as tensions grow over scarce water resources between Iran and the 20-month old Taliban regime, although it is the
Britain is paying a terrible price for two decades of fiscal incontinence. Our borrowing costs have risen to the highest amongst advanced economies. Core inflation (which excludes food and energy) is actually rising. Mortgage costs are spiking as expectations mount that interest rates will be raised once again. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has conceded he would be
Life is not terribly good these days for most university teachers. Colleges, once centres of collegiate administration run on a principle of de facto equality and open expression of opinion, are now top-down managed by a cadre of bosses more interested in spreadsheets than seminars, and image more than erudition, where an injudicious word can