All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Well, that didn’t take long, did it? Less than a month after presenting his credentials to President Trump, His Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador in Washington was being accused by an MP in the House of Commons of ‘freelancing on US TV’. The UK armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, had earlier distanced himself from comments made by
When you’ve got a majority of 167, how do you keep control? The answer, it seems, is jobs for the boys (and girls). Another round of government appointments made a week ago has seen yet more new MPs promoted. Alex Barros-Curtis, Joe Morris and Jack Abbott are among the 2024 intake who ascended the first rung
Keir Starmer was careful in his Commons statement about Ukraine to distance himself from what happened in the Oval Office on Friday, while also insisting that Britain needs to maintain a strong relationship with the US. He told MPs that Friday’s public spat between Volodymyr Zelensky, Donald Trump and JD Vance was ‘something nobody in
It was reported over the weekend that the government has dropped ‘the right to switch off’ from its Employment Rights Bill. Such a right, it has been widely asserted, had appeared in Labour’s manifesto for last year’s general election, promising that employees would be granted a legal right to ignore their boss’s emails outside their
Days after the disastrous White House showdown between Volodymir Zelensky and Donald Trump, Sir Keir Starmer has done an undoubtedly impressive job in quickly rallying western leaders to Kyiv’s cause. The ‘Europe Plus’ partnership suggested by Starmer will be a ‘coalition of the willing’ to protect Ukraine that includes major non-European players such as Canada
During the early days of the Gaza crisis, there was an unofficial refrain doing the rounds in the Foreign Office: ‘Foreign policy doesn’t win votes – but it can lose them.’ In recent days, the same could be said of Ukraine’s peace negotiations. The drama between Presidents Trump and Zelensky which played out in the
There’s a drama a day in Westminster. Today’s bust-up is between Reform MP Lee Anderson and the party’s former deputy leader Ben Habib who accused him of plagiarism. Following the jibe, the Ashfield MP took to Twitter to brand Habib a ‘pathetic little man’ trying to ‘smear’ Reform. And you thought Mike Amesbury was punchy… Early this morning Anderson posted online a long list of Labour failures
In May 1940, days after the Dunkirk evacuation, the Churchill defender Andreas Koureas recalls how the great British war leader was, ‘informed by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, of more dreadful news. Roosevelt had no faith in Churchill nor Britain, and wanted Canada to give up on her. Roosevelt thought that Britain would likely
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Along with the French President Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer seems to be spearheading Europe’s diplomatic efforts to secure a lasting peace deal for Ukraine in light of the new American administration’s animosity towards Zelensky. Among the proposals being discussed are a peace-keeping force in the country, as a part of efforts to show the Trump
Perusing the Zelensky-bashing of the Very Online right, I found myself thinking: ‘This reminds me of something.’ The branding of Ukraine’s president as a ‘welfare queen’ who is draining America’s coffers. The libelling of Ukraine as a uniquely corrupt nation whose thirst for war threatens to damn all of mankind to disaster. The shameful blaming
The extraordinary scenes that came from the White House on Friday were the talk of the weekend – and relations between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump remain under the spotlight this week too. As Sir Keir Starmer prepares to address MPs this afternoon on Ukraine, Reform leader Nigel Farage has this morning offered up his
President Trump was very bullish about his decision over the weekend to create a ‘crypto reserve’. It will legitimise crypto currencies, he said. It will turn the United States into the global hub for trade. And it will build the national wealth. In effect, the American government will build up a stock of Bitcoin and
Oh dear. It has only been 22 days since Peter Mandelson formally became Britain’s Ambassador to Washington – and he is already causing controversy. As European talks over Ukraine negotiations raged over the weekend, up popped the Labour peer on ABC to offer his take on things. In response to comments by Marco Rubio, the
It is always nice to have a personal connection to the Oscars, however slight and fleeting it might be; hearing Conclave screenwriter give a shout-out to my daughter’s godfather Simon during his acceptance speech for Best Adapted Screenplay was a deeply pleasurable moment. Yet this joyful touch aside, what had initially looked like one of
James Harrison, who died in his sleep at a care home in Australia last month at the age of 88, possibly did more good and saved more lives, pound for pound, than almost anyone else born in the last century. His blood plasma contained a rare antibody, Rho(D) immune globulin (called Anti-D), which can be
It’s hard to overstate just how shocking, how grotesque and shaming, was President Trump’s outburst against Ukraine’s President Zelensky in the Oval Office. Pop went the last soap-bubble of hope any of us had that US diplomatic policy for the next four years would cleave to anything other than the mad king’s personal whims and
We were twice transported back to the early 1970s this weekend, our memories snagged on the deaths of Roberta Flack and David Johansen. One of the two was afforded quite a send off by the media, the other wasn’t. I think they got it the wrong way around. Flack, who died aged 88 on 24
Even Keir Starmer’s fiercest detractors (and there are a fair few) must concede that he has had a very good week on the international stage: the best by a long chalk since he entered Downing Street. The Prime Minister, derided by critics as a political plodder, lacking in ideas and charisma-free, is a leader transformed. The
I was once a fan of The Archers, to the extent that the Guardian quoted me in 2007 outlining how ‘an unlikely combination of support from the Queen and Julie Burchill led to the transformation of Britain’s ‘everyday story of country folk’ from a dull and tired format to its present cult status.’ Apparently I
Artificial intelligence (AI) really is the next industrial revolution. In fact, it’s already started, and the technology’s capability is developing faster than anything we’ve seen before. Its benefits mean there is so much more to be excited, than fearful, about. But such is the extent of the technology’s power and potential, it is essential we
This weekend marks perhaps the most turbulent 48 hours that Ukraine’s President Zelensky has ever experienced – and, given the events of the past three years, that is saying an awful lot. After his already notorious reception in Washington at the White House in Friday, and rather more emollient greeting by Keir Starmer in Britain
Keir Starmer today attempted to make the debate about Ukraine’s future one primarily held by Ukraine and European countries. This came after Donald Trump had suggested at the end of last week that it was for the US and Russia to decide. In his press conference after the summit of European leaders in London, the
Well, you can’t say they don’t try. With Europe still reeling from Donald Trump’s oval office bust-up with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, over in Scotland the SNP have piped up to make their feelings known about the American President. Never ones to miss a chance to try and stay relevant, the party’s leader
There is only one story dominating the news this weekend following Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous meeting on Friday with the US President in the Oval office. After the Ukrainian president’s conversation with Donald Trump and JD Vance descended into a war of words, Zelensky’s trip to the White House was cut short and a planned minerals
Month after month, it just kept plummeting. The South Korean birth rate last year earned the not-so-holy prize for being the lowest in the world. The demographic crisis faced by South Korea seems hardly the hallmark of the country’s self-proclaimed status as a ‘global pivotal state’. That said, the country’s fertility rate rose incrementally to
Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP in charge of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill currently going through its committee stage, has repeatedly called on Tory MP Danny Kruger not to use the term ‘suicide’ in relation to proposed new laws on assisted dying. This is not the first time proponents of assisted suicide
Is Britain going back to the 1970s? Even under the Conservatives in 2022, the Financial Times was warning we were in danger of reliving that ‘relentlessly awful decade’. Since Starmer’s accession to power, the similarities have become only clearer. Millionaire hotelier Rocco Forte drew the same comparison in the autumn, saying we’d ‘come full
Henry Kelly was a well-loved personality in Britain. The Irish television and radio presenter, who died this week, came to prominence in this country in the 1980s in the ITV show Game For A Laugh, consolidating his popularity on BBC’s Going For Gold and on the airwaves as a presenter on Classic FM. And intrinsic
Is Ireland a powder keg of racist, anti-immigrant sentiment, ready to explode at any moment? That was certainly the dominant narrative after a night of rioting in Dublin city centre in November 2023 that left a trail of destruction along O’Connell Street. On that occasion, politicians and elements of the Irish media were quick to
The end of February, which coincides with the start of Ramadan, was meant to mark the conclusion of the initial exchange of Israeli hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. However, rather than engaging as planned on what should happen, how, and when in the second phase, the ceasefire appears to be
Witchcraft, and accusations of witchcraft, are returning to Britain. We might think of witchcraft as a thing of the past; sadly, this isn’t the case. In multicultural Britain, folk practices like witchcraft and sorcery are more common than you might expect. Alongside the practice of witchcraft, there is also its opposite: accusations that others, particularly
‘Berlin is more East than West’, said Thilo Sarrazin. A member of the centre-left SPD, in 2010 he published Germany Abolishes Itself, a book which warned about the impact of mass immigration. It sold over one million copies in a year but it went down less well with his own party, which tried to kick
The Trump-Zelensky summit is a geopolitical Rashomon. Some saw a lying, maniacal bully and his snarling sidekick berate a patriot for telling the truth about his nation’s attacker and refusing to surrender to him. Others witnessed a bratty ingrate haughtily shaking his begging bowl while dictating to his benefactors the terms on which he would
Volodymyr Zelensky fought for Ukraine’s security guarantees so fiercely last night, it was as if he’d been invited to sign a surrender to Russia, not a mineral deal with the US. It was neither the time nor the place to take on Donald Trump and JD Vance for parroting Kremlin talking points – a fact