All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Boris, Brexit and the Northern Ireland Protocol – all are dominating the news agenda yet again. So it only seems right then that Matt Hancock takes his rightful place once more at the heart of public life. The Sunday People yesterday splashed the news that the former Health Secretary has set up his own TV
Imagine living in a country so religiously uptight that even making a smudge on a copy of the Quran could turn into a police matter. A country so nervous of offending Islam that even kids could be punished for allegedly disrespecting that religion. A country so determined to ringfence certain religious beliefs from scrutiny or
It’s funny how powerful a concrete example of something can be, isn’t it? The thing that brings a situation home to where you live. It’s a reminder of how basic, for all our theoretical sophistication, humans really are. Tell someone that bond yields are increasing at an alarming rate, and unless they are a bond trader they won’t feel that alarm in their
A new deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol is imminent. Today, Rishi Sunak will meet with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen as the Prime Minister prepares to announce changes to the Protocol. In a joint statement between the two sides yesterday, a meeting has been confirmed: Today, President of the European Commission Ursula
Luciana Berger’s return to the Labour party is not only a restoration but a supreme act of forgiveness. The former MP was hounded out of the party in 2019 because she was Jewish at a point where the whole rotten institution had become infested with antisemites. Berger fought to hold on to her party, not
It’s Groundhog Day in Westminster. A week ago, many were braced for the grand unveiling of the new, improved Northern Ireland Protocol – only for it, er, to be shelved at the last moment. The key actors of various Brexit-related factions have been out all over the airwaves in recent days. And Mark Francois, the
Dominic Raab – ‘There is a degree of quiet confidence’ about a Northern Ireland Protocol deal Brexit dominated the news once again this morning, with government officials making positive noises about an imminent deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol. Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab sat down with Laura Kuenssberg to discuss the likelihood of the
Andriy Zagorodnyuk was Ukraine’s minister of defence from 2019 to 2020. He is Chairman of the Centre for Defence Strategies and is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. To mark the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, he spoke with Russian Cold War historian Sergey Radchenko. The pair disagreed on Russia’s
There’s a fourth person in this SNP leadership race, only he’s not on the ticket and he can’t be elected as leader. The former SNP leader and First Minister, Alex Salmond is using this chaotic leadership election to engineer his rehabilitation. Ash Regan, the former community safety minister, who launched her leadership campaign on Friday
At the heart of Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation statement there came a moment of self-awareness that one does not often encounter among those at the top of the political tree. While Sturgeon insisted that there was majority support in Scotland for independence, she acknowledged that it needed to grow further in order to prevail. ‘To achieve
It has taken only three years for Lee Anderson to rise from fledgling Tory MP to deputy chairman of his party. It’s a remarkable achievement for a man who, until 2018, was a Labour politician. Since his election, Anderson has frequently hit the headlines – not least after an interview in The Spectator earlier this
Many expected the abrupt resignation of Jacinda Ardern to fatefully deprive New Zealand’s government of its best asset. However, the moderate pragmatism of her successor, Chris Hipkins, may in fact have allowed many Kiwis to give themselves permission to return to Labour. Within a fortnight of taking over, Hipkins has been confronted with a quick
Newcastle United play their first cup final for over 20 years this afternoon. Facing Manchester United in the Carabao Cup is a big moment for the club and the city and is a mark of Newcastle’s recent success. But these achievements are tainted because it is built with money from a bloodthirsty Saudi Arabian regime,
Until a few years ago, Hollywood dominated Chinese cinemas. In the People’s Republic, Marvel’s superhero romps were the people’s favourite. In 2019, Avengers: Endgame took more than 4 billion RMB (£510 million) at Chinese box offices. That success might partly explain why the Chinese Communist party went on to effectively ban Marvel films for the next three years. Real heroes should be Chinese. Other Hollywood smash-hits such as Top
The Six Nations season is well underway, which means the return of the parliamentary tournament too. Two weeks ago the Westminster team delivered the sporting equivalent of a Section 35 order, when they beat their Holyrood equivalent 17-10 in a feisty match that saw multiple yellow cards awarded for the first time in a Commons
Will China send arms to support Russia? That was the possibility that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised at the Munich Security Conference, accusing Beijing of considering doing so. China has officially rejected this claim and, as of last night, so has President Biden. ‘I don’t anticipate a major initiative on the part of
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Today marks one year since Putin sent the Russian army into Kyiv. Since then, what has been the experience of the Ukrainians who fled their homes and came over to the UK? Svitlana Morenets, a staff writer at The Spectator speaks to Kate Andrews about the year reporting on her war-torn country from Britain. Also joining the
‘Who wrote it?’ asks the Times, of Dom: The Play. I’ll let you in on a secret: it was me. If you’re selling a product, you need to advertise what you’re flogging, rather than its creator. That’s why, when my satire about Dominic Cummings launched at The Other Palace in Victoria this week, I withheld
If you don’t live online, you may have missed the controversy over Hogwarts Legacy, the latest computer game to have been spun out of the multi-billion Harry Potter franchise. A small but amazingly vocal band of activists launched a vicious campaign against the game because of its connection to ‘transphobe’ J.K. Rowling. Then the game came out
The apparently irresistible rise of Humza Yousaf, the SNP politician seen as the frontrunner to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as Scotland’s first minister, reveals much about the dearth of talent at the very top of Scottish politics. Yousaf is a politician with almost no discernible achievements to his name despite almost a decade in senior ministerial
Humza Yousaf, the favourite to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as Scottish First Minister, has been ticking all the right boxes in his campaign so far. Last week, he declared: ‘As your SNP First Minister, and as someone from a minority background myself, I will stand up and champion equal rights for all.’ I don’t imagine he’ll
For three and a half years, between Autumn 2018 and 2022, the most thrilling words I could say to anyone – especially myself – were ‘I live in Russia.’ I had read about the country since I was a child – obsessively from my mid-twenties onwards – and it was Holy Land for me. Other
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the businessman behind Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries, is hardly a man to keep a low profile. He is at his loudest and most vitriolic, though, either when he feels he has the upper hand over his (many) enemies or when he is on the ropes. He’s pretty outspoken these days, and no one
Some late-night Friday drama in the West Midlands. The selection committee of the Stafford Conservative Association have tonight passed a motion to prevent incumbent MP Theo Clarke from being their candidate next time around. Clarke was elected in 2019 and resigned her role as a government trade envoy last July in protest at Boris Johnson’s
There’s been a sense of deja vu in Westminster in recent days, with a Tory leader under pressure on Europe from the right of his party. As Rishi Sunak tries to finalise a new deal on the Northern Ireland protocol, Tory Brexiteers have been questioning the wisdom of the Prime Minister’s strategy. But now there
Growing up as a Ukrainian means being acquainted with death when you are too young to know much about life. When I was a teenager, I saw dozens of coffins being brought to my hometown from Vladimir Putin’s war in the Donbas. Now, I am seeing my friends go to war – and, like so
‘Watch the Sahel,’ warned Tony Blair in an article marking the first year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Because of Russian influence, the region ‘will be the source of the next wave of extremism and migration to Europe,’ the former PM forecast in the Daily Telegraph. As the increased numbers crossing the Mediterranean from Africa
For many years, it seemed like the SNP were immune from the normal rules of politics. Their unity was unshakeable, its leader unquestioned. Message discipline was rigid; disputes played out privately, away from the cameras. But all that has now crumbled following last month’s trans debacle and Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation. The race to replace her
If you read the Russian newspapers this morning, you would be forgiven for thinking today was a day like any other. You would have almost no clue that 24 February marks the one year anniversary of Putin’s bloody, stalling invasion of Ukraine, in which nearly 200,000 of the country’s men have so far been killed or injured. Not a single Russian newspaper
Rishi Sunak hoped to end the week with a new agreement on the Northern Ireland Protocol. Instead, the Prime Minister delayed his plans to announce a fresh agreement in the face of concerns from the DUP – and members of the European Research Group. As I say in this week’s politics column in the magazine,
As the world marks the grim first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin should give thanks that there appears to be at least one of what Lenin called ‘useful idiots’ left in the West. Step forward – after removing your foot from its usual place in your mouth – the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Embellishing job applications is a well-honed skill. At the stroke of a pen, two months as an intern becomes four months in a junior position. Being in charge of paper clips is demonstrating leadership. The assistant to the regional manager becomes the assistant regional manager. But no matter how commonplace this exaggeration is, few of