All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Rishi Sunak is a big fan of a ‘crack down’. He has previously vowed to crack down on migration, anti-social behaviour and climate protests. ‘Rip off’ university courses that ‘don’t offer the prospect of a decent job at the end of it’ are the PM’s latest target. But Sunak’s tough talk and aggressive rhetoric smacks of over-compensating for any lack
OK, what did you make of the new series of University Challenge then, with Amol Rajan occupying the seat that Jeremy Paxman once graced? Actually, if it was the same chair, it was a bit big for Amol, and I’m sure there’s a metaphor there somewhere. But really, the whole thing was just fine. Amol
Clive Myrie, now probably the top face of the BBC, and host of their television coverage of the Proms, had a strange one on Twitter this weekend. A fan gushed at him that ‘[the Proms are] completely accessible – no formal dress code and you can buy a Prom ticket on the day for the
Sparks flew at tonight’s Parliamentary Labour party (PLP) meeting. Deputy leader Angela Rayner had been due to speak to MPs as part of an end of term pep talk. Instead, the ongoing row over Keir Starmer’s decision to maintain the two child benefit cap if Labour enters government dominated the entire session. Rayner herself has
Barbara Amiel was right that one private jet isn’t enough. One jet is always in the wrong place, or undergoing maintenance, or perhaps these days being attacked by eco-activists. So two is the absolute minimum. Needless to say, the very idea of private jets sends environmentalists insane. Just last week, Just Stop Oil types attacked private jets
The other day, I found myself at a large event in a posh garden where David Cameron was present. Being a polite sort of person, he smiled and mouthed some sort of greeting as we passed. And being an impolite sort of person, I ignored him and walked on. When someone asked me why I’d
So. Farewell then. Jamie Driscoll. The left-wing North of Tyne mayor – widely described as the ‘last Corbynista in power’ – has today quit the Labour party with a double-barrelled blast at Keir Starmer. Driscoll was last month barred from the longlist to run in the new expanded north east authority after appearing at an
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Keir Starmer has said that Labour will not be reversing the two-child benefits cap, after Angela Rayner said it was ‘obscene and inhumane’. But will he continue to back the policy, which allegedly saves the Treasury £1.3 billion, or change his mind in the face of pressure from his shadow front bench? James Heale speaks
Rishi Sunak is not wrong to write, as he does in the Telegraph today, that too many young people are being ‘ripped off’ by poor-quality university courses, and that many would be better signing up for apprenticeships. But should a Conservative government really be threatening to tell the universities what to do? David Cameron’s tuition
In fairness to Keir Starmer, he only U-turns when his lips move. In an impressive double yesterday, the Labour leader managed to U-turn twice in one interview with Laura Kuenssberg. Starmer managed to both float and then, er, reject the notion that Labour would change the Bank of England’s inflation target (nice one!) while also
The Kerch bridge, Russia’s only road link to Crimea, has been targeted once again in what seems to have been a drone attack. The damage appears to be extensive may take weeks, if not months, to repair. The Russian-installed head of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstatinov, has blamed the ‘terrorist regime in Kyiv’ for a ‘new
Is New Zealand’s prime minister changing his tune on China? Chris Hipkins said this morning that China’s greater assertiveness has led to the Pacific region becoming ‘more contested, less predictable, and less secure.’ New Zealand is reliant upon China, a country that makes up about a third of its export market. So, when Hipkins, visited
Another day, another Keir Starmer U-turn. The Labour leader is facing a backlash from his own side after Starmer used an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg’s to say that a Labour government would keep the two-child benefits cap. When asked whether he would scrap the cap – which has been blamed by Labour politicians
Apart from the 96 arrests and 255 burned cars, Bastille Day passed off without a hitch in France. A bullish Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin, expressed his satisfaction in a tweet, thanking the 45,000 policemen and women who had been deployed across the country. It says much for the state of France that avoiding a riot on
When I look back over my life, a decade or two from now, when I finally succumb to the strontium smog, I’ll at least be able to pinpoint the moment when I first knew human civilisation was doomed. Ah yes, I’ll think, as I hear scavengers scuttling towards my body across the trashscape, grunting and hooting for meat: that was the moment. That Friday evening,
Cerberus, the record-breaking heatwave that struck the Mediterranean, was followed this week by another one called Charon – after the mythical boatman who ferried the dead across the Styx to Hades. Meanwhile illegal migrants continue to be ferried across the Mediterranean in record numbers to Italy – thus to Europe – by people traffickers. Relatives placed a
It’s been a truly surreal, disturbing and darkly comic week at the BBC. Much remains obscured, but one thing is crystal clear: longstanding institutional failings over the way the Corporation handles serious complaints remain unaddressed. On a more positive note, however, the events of the last few days have again showcased one of the BBC’s
During the lockdown, there was a cohort of workers who toiled through the night in what was described as a ‘fairly thankless job that is taken for granted day to day.’ Those workers were cleaners, who decontaminated buses and trains so that commuters could remain safe. We didn’t clap for them on our doorsteps, nor did they even
‘This is the government’s mess, and it’s for them to sort it out’ In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg this morning, Keir Starmer was keen to emphasise Labour’s commitment to change and reform. When Kuenssberg pressed him on a few specific issues however, he deflected the questions, saying they were the current government’s problem. He
Vilnius, Lithuania This week, the world’s eyes were on the Lithuanian capital Vilnius as it welcomed global leaders for Nato’s 74th summit. The event was a logistical challenge not helped by the fact that Vilnius is only 30km away from the border with Belarus, which is now home to Russian nuclear weapons. Commercial flights were
The announcement by Ben Wallace that he will stand down as Defence Secretary at the next Cabinet reshuffle and then give up being an MP at the general election hardly counts as a sensational turn of events. There are at least a dozen happenings at the top end of the Tory party from the past
If during the 80s and 90s you were any kind of book lover, Milan Kundera – who died this week aged 94 – was one of that small clutch of modern novelists you absolutely had to read. In the late stages of the Cold War, the Czech-born Kundera not only gave us news about what was
The Labour party should be experiencing its best time in recent politics with victory very much expected at the next election. Yet it’s not all plain sailing at Labour HQ. Not only does the party still lack a convincing agenda, there is disquiet about the nature of the Starmer leadership, in terms of what it
Last week, Jeremy Vine shared a video of a motorist being abusive to a cyclist. Nothing new there, I hear you say. After all, the light-footed BBC presenter is famous for cruising around London with a sophisticated camera rig on his head. But on this occasion, it was very much the cyclist who was at
Voters in Spain’s general election on 23 July have a clear-cut choice. They can choose to continue with the left-wing coalition currently in power or they can replace it with a staunchly right-wing government. Since 2019 Spain has been governed by a minority coalition consisting of PSOE, Spain’s main left-wing party, with 120 seats, and Podemos, further to the left, with 35.
Seven years ago on Friday, a 31-year-old man got behind the wheel of a 19-tonne lorry and purposefully drove it down Nice’s Promenade des Anglais at speed as crowds celebrated France’s Bastille Day. Eighty-six people were killed, including 14 children, the image of an infant’s corpse wrapped in foil beside a toy shocking a country
In April this year, a sombre looking Vladimir Putin attended a midnight Orthodox Easter Service in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral. Holding a lit red candle, the Russian President crossed himself several times during the ceremony, known as the Divine Liturgy. When Father Kirill declared ‘Christ has risen’, Putin duly responded with the congregation: ‘Truly
Ben Wallace has announced that he will be leaving frontline politics at the next cabinet reshuffle. In an interview with the Sunday Times, the Defence Secretary confirmed reports in the media that he will be stepping down at the next election – and also bowing out of the a cabinet ahead of polling day: ‘I’m not
I have been playing a game with myself recently: asking just what would it take for me to vote Labour at the next election? The gossip out of No. 10 has answered it for me: if, as rumoured, the Prime Minister toys with the idea of abolishing inheritance tax – at a time when the
Angus MacNeil’s attempt to hold the SNP to ransom on the matter of independence has played out both predictably and rather entertainingly. After the SNP MP was suspended for a week over an unseemly public spat with Chief Whip Brendan O’Hara, MacNeil announced he would not consider seeking readmission to SNP ranks until October. Once
The Conservative party, over the course of its lengthy history, has been defined by two particular traditions. One emphasis the duty of care to the past. It nurtures a suspicion of grandiose and ill-founded schemes. It never forgets that the responsibility of a conservative is ultimately to conserve. Then, parallel to this, there is a
Mohammed bin Salman, the heir to the Saudi throne, certainly leads a charmed life. He spent several days in Paris last month meeting the French president Emmanuel Macron. This has now been followed up with a reported invitation from Rishi Sunak to visit Britain this autumn. It would be the first such high-level diplomatic trip
It is not pleasant to think of a poor bunch of creatures in distress, but the passengers who visited the Faeroes last Sunday aboard an Ambassador cruise liner have at least received an apology for their upset. Some 78 pilot whales were driven into a bay and slaughtered in front of them in a traditional