All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Did retail sales really fall in March because of the wet weather? This is the excuse being trotted out by the ONS and many others this morning. Or is it really more a case of February’s surprise rise in sales being too good to be true, and the economy not being as perky as we
Adam Tolley’s report has finally been published, with Dominic Raab firing off an angry letter to mark his resignation. And that sense of anger has not been restricted to just the former Justice Secretary. A steady stream of Conservative MPs have been tweeting their disgust this morning, arguing that the claims in Tolley’s report were
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This morning Dominic Raab has resigned from Rishi Sunak’s government following the findings of an investigation into bullying claims against him. Raab has been one of Sunak’s closest allies, serving as deputy PM and justice secretary. Where does this leave the prime minister? Natasha Feroze speaks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Natasha
In the last few minutes Dominic Raab has announced that he has resigned from government following the findings of an investigation into allegations of bullying against him. Rishi Sunak received the report – by the barrister Adam Tolley KC – on Thursday morning and spent the evening consulting advisers on the best path forward as
Dear Prime Minister, I am writing to resign from your government, following receipt of the report arising from the inquiry conducted by Adam Tolley KC. I called for the inquiry and undertook to resign, if it made any finding of bullying whatsoever. I believe it is important to keep my word. It has been a
When the Rwanda migrant removals programme was torpedoed by a European judge at a hastily-convened hearing one evening last summer, the notion that Britain had ‘taken back control’ of its borders crawled away to die. The anonymous judge at the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights issued a controversial ‘Rule 39’ instant order. This blocked
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Today was meant to be judgement day for Dominic Raab as we learnt the outcome of Adam Tolley’s investigation into historic bullying claims made against the deputy PM. His fate now rests squarely in Rishi Sunak’s hands. Will he resign? Also on the podcast, there have been a couple of amendments tabled today on the
Does Humza Yousaf really want to be ‘focusing relentlessly on the day job’, as he claimed at First Minister’s Questions today? It’s not a fun day job to focus on. The First Minister naturally had to face questions on the crisis in his own party when he faced MSPs today, with both Douglas Ross and
How committed is Keir Starmer to protecting women’s rights? Earlier this month, the Labour leader dismissed the sex and gender identity debate as trivial and irrelevant to the next election, only to backtrack following an intervention by the Prime Minister. In an LBC interview earlier this month, Starmer stated: ‘I do sometimes just wonder why on
After a five-month investigation Adam Tolley KC has today given Downing Street his report into the bullying claims against Dominic Raab. Rishi Sunak is now considering its findings before deciding whether Raab broke ministerial rules. However, Raab has some time to wait – with a Downing Street source suggesting that there will be no further
The news that Russian spy ships appear to be mapping British and other underwater cables and pipelines in the North Sea sounds very Cold War. But in fact it reflects the realities of modern conflict, and also the ways Moscow is playing psychological games with the West. In November, The Admiral Vladimirsky, an Akademik Krylov-class ship
Ten days before Adolf Hitler died, the Führer turned 56. Just after midnight on 20 April 1945 his personal assistants gathered outside his room to offer him their congratulations. Hours later the political leadership of the Third Reich did likewise. Men responsible for mass death, including Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring and Albert Speer, stood inline
Once again gamers appear to be behind a dramatic leak of classified military intelligence. Documents originally emanating from the Pentagon appear to have been shared on the video game chat platform Discord by a 21-year-old air national guardsman – in an effort to win an esoteric argument involving the highly popular video game Minecraft Maps and
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary never has exactly been the master of tact, but will his latest outburst make his customers finally ask themselves: do they really want to travel in his planes? Speaking at a Bloomberg event he asserted that Britain will one day rejoin the single market because ‘in the next five to ten
Humza Yousaf is not a leader with troubles to seek. In the three weeks since his election as First Minister, the SNP has been rocked by a series of arrests and accusations of mismanagement. Meanwhile, the Scottish Nationalists’ poll ratings have continued to slide as Yousaf’s attempts to regain the initiative have inevitably been overshadowed
Striking was part of my childhood. One of my first memories is of walking through Middlesbrough town centre and seeing people with ‘Coal Not Dole’ badges, holding buckets and asking us to ‘Dig Deep for the Miners’. Long before I left primary school, I knew what it meant to be a ‘scab’ and why it
Ministers have agreed to back two amendments to its flagship Illegal Migration Bill as part of No. 10’s attempt to ward off the latest Tory rebellion. The first is an agreement to change the law so that judges can no longer block migrant deportations. An amendment will give the Home Secretary the power to ‘disregard’
Six months after he became Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has finally honoured one of the smaller, but more eye-catching, promises he made during his party leadership campaign. He has announced an end to the building of so-called ‘smart’ motorways, citing the economic cost and safety concerns. In doing so, Sunak has halted a near 20-year
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Prime Minister’s Questions was a punchy affair today. Rishi Sunak fought back against accusations that the Conservatives have failed on tackling crime, calling Keir Starmer ‘Sir Softy’ to turn the attack back around on Starmer, for his track record as the Director of Public Prosecutions. But was it an effective attack? Cindy Yu talks to
‘Sir Softie.’ That’s Rishi’s new nickname for Sir Keir Starmer. ‘Sir Softie,’ he called out twice at PMQs. ‘He’s soft on crime!’ The insult works because it’s easy to remember and pleasantly alliterative. And it builds on an existing perception of Sir Keir as a criminal-hugging lawyer. Sir Keir set out to overturn that impression
It seems that not even MPs’ offices are exempt from the nation’s employment crisis. Ahead of next year’s general election, Mr S hears that many bright young things on the Tory side are leaving parliament – with their elected members now finding it difficult to hire suitable replacements. Some quitting the Commons fear a Labour
The idea that Donald Trump was denied victory in the 2020 presidential election by conspirators determined to fiddle with the electoral system was never more than a fiction dreamed up by a frustrated losing candidate. At such times, the role of the media is crucial. If there were genuine evidence of vote-rigging then it should
Just what would it take to induce a housing price crash in Britain? Evidently, more than a Bank of England base rate of 4.25 per cent combined with a cost of living crisis. The Office for National Statistics’ House Price Index – the most comprehensive of the house pries indices – shows that prices fell
Keir Starmer had a much better Prime Minister’s Questions than Rishi Sunak today. The main reason for this was that the Labour leader had come with a clear thesis about the Tories breaking public services and Sunak not noticing. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister had brought along a bizarre insult for his opponent. While Starmer ridiculed
I see it is acceptable again for men to tell women what to do. And to snap ‘Get over it!’ if any of the little dears dares to quibble or speak back. How else do we explain William Hague taking to the airwaves to wag a patriarchal finger at the Women’s Institute and instruct it
Amidst the veneration of the Belfast Agreement taking place at Queen’s University this week, there has been a less than subtle message: that the DUP should get back to work and re-join the devolved executive at Stormont. One of the many banging that particular drum – and unlikely to feature in any Orange parade this
WhatsApp, Signal and five other messaging services have joined forces to attack the government’s Online Safety Bill. They fear the bill will kill end-to-end encryption and say, in an open letter, that this could open the door to ‘routine, general and indiscriminate surveillance of personal messages’. The stakes are high: WhatsApp and Signal are threatening to leave the
The rate of inflation has come down, barely. This morning’s update from the Office for National Statistics shows inflation fell to 10.1 per cent on the year in March, down from 10.4 per cent in February. The rate remains in the double digits, where it has hovered since September 2022. Today’s update takes the rate back down
With Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine showing no signs of reaching a conclusion, a recent study by the country’s main state-run pollster, VTsIOM, revealed that 91 per cent of Russians consider themselves patriots. On the face of it, these numbers seem to vindicate two camps with a strikingly similar worldview. On the one hand, there
‘Poor taste,’ said Julie, ‘Really desperate,’ added Shawn. Mark thought it was ‘A low blow’ and Becky was simply ‘gobsmacked’. That was the verdict of our focus group participants in Erewash in Derbyshire last week when they were shown Labour’s controversial advert suggesting Rishi Sunak did not believe that those convicted of sexually assaulting children should
Now that Dominion Voting Systems has settled for $787.5 million (£633 million) – less than half the $1.6 billion (£1.3 billion) they were asking for in damages from Fox News – the circus must pack up and move elsewhere. There’s nothing the media likes to cover more than itself, and there is no media target juicier than
Talk about denying us a grand finale. Moments before the defamation ‘trial of the century’ was due to begin, media giant Fox News announced last night it had settled the lawsuit from the voting machine company, Dominion, over its reporting of the 2020 presidential election. In a last-minute settlement before trial, the network agreed to
All political careers end in failure but Humza Yousaf has managed to begin his there. Three weeks ago, he clinched the leadership of the SNP in a 52-48 per cent photo finish. Since then, he has deepened divisions within his party by shunning MSPs who failed to support his leadership bid, launched a legal challenge
