All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
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New GDP figures show that the UK economy narrowly avoided recession at the end of 2022. Between the final quarter and the third quarter of last year, there was no change in the economy’s output. Is this really good news? And do GDP figures matter if people still feel poorer? Max Jeffery speaks to Kate
Before Monday’s earthquake, the old town of Antakya, known historically as Antioch, had been a wonderfully preserved labyrinth of narrow cobbled streets on a gentle hill rising from the river. Beautiful houses with peaceful courtyards had been turned into restaurants and hotels, where people sipped tea and smoked under the shade of trees. I had
The reaction in some quarters to William Shawcross’s review of Prevent, the UK’s counter-extremism programme, has been predictable. The Muslim Council of Britain, Amnesty International, the Guardian and Cage have all criticised the report and the author, with Amnesty launching a particularly unpleasant ad hominem attack on Shawcross, describing him as ‘bigoted’. None of the
Labour last night held the seat of West Lancashire on a ten-point swing from the Tories. The constituency has gone red since 1992 and was mostly recently represented by Rosie Cooper, who chose to resign to become chair of the Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust. Turnout was just over 31 per cent, with Labour winning with
Joe Biden was heckled by Republicans during the US president’s State of the Union address this week. But that reception was warm compared with the one faced by his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa during his State of the Nation speech last night. Ramaphosa faced a record number of interjections from the floor, as he
The whole point about making five key pledges, as Rishi Sunak did at the start of the year, is to give the average voter a consistent message. The idea is that such pledges, which should have been judiciously drawn-up based upon extensive opinion research, are hammered home again and again until the typical person far
It’s the reshuffle move that everyone is talking about. The promotion of Lee Anderson to Tory deputy chairman has excited the Westminster press pack no end, with the Ashfield MP making headlines within his first 24 hours in the job. A run-in with a local radio station and his support for capital punishment have prompted
Lee Anderson, the recently-appointed Tory party deputy chairman, has sparked a political row with his comments on capital punishment. ‘Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed. 100 per cent success rate,’ he said in an interview with The Spectator. Rishi Sunak says he disagrees, and is not in favour of the death penalty.
The breaking news is that Sandi Toksvig has demanded a meeting with God, over a friendly cup of tea. The BBC broadcaster has grown impatient with his vacillating human intermediaries and wants to explain to him what should happen in the religion that he allegedly launched. Love should come first, she plans to tell him.
Britain has avoided recession – for now. This morning’s update from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveals that there was no overall GDP growth between October and December last year. The UK has swerved the technical definition of recession – two consecutive quarters of negative growth – in the least glamorous way possible. It
Plop! That was the sound of another rat leaving the sinking Tory ship as Nadine Dorries announced on her Talk TV show that she will quit parliament at the next election. The former Culture Secretary and unashamed Boris Johnson fan joins a lengthening list of departing Tory MPs who have read the writing on the
It is vanishingly rare for the SNP-supporting paper The National – a publication that makes Pravda look like the Washington Post – to place anything remotely critical of Nicola Sturgeon on its front page. Yet on Wednesday it warned that the Dear Leader’s ploy to turn the 2024 general election into a ‘de facto referendum’
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The chatter in Westminster has been dominated by comments the new deputy chairman of the Conservative Party gave to James Heale, The Spectator’s diary editor, in an interview published today. When asked if he was in support of the death penalty, Lee Anderson said: ‘Yes. Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed. You know that,
It seems Liz isn’t the only Trussite returning to public life. Her former chief of staff Mark Fullbrook has returned to the world of political lobbying, fresh from masterminding her 49-day regime in No. 10. Fullbrook’s previous activities in this field were a regular feature of news reporting during Truss’s seven weeks in office. And
It would raise the money needed to fix the health service. It would make sure the burden of paying for Covid fell on the broadest shoulders. And because it would do little more than bring the UK back into line with its major industrial rivals, it wouldn’t even have any impact on our competitiveness. When
Treasury select committee meetings are not usually the stuff of great television. But this morning, it was. The Bank of England’s governor Andrew Bailey was up as a witness to give evidence on recent Monetary Policy reports. And the committee’s new chair, Harriett Baldwin, came ready to highlight where (many) mistakes had been made. Starting
The middle-class left cracks me up. They’re always wringing their hands over the lack of working-class people in politics. And yet the minute a man from a working-class background – a former miner, no less – starts to soar in the political realm, they launch a hate campaign against him. They brand him thick, an
China is back on the agenda in Westminster, with Liz Truss expected to make a speech on the subject later this month. This week, MPs have been rocked by the news that the Foreign Office has asked the governor of the Xinjiang region for talks. Erkin Tuniyaz – who has been sanctioned by the US – is
Does the CBI want higher taxes or lower taxes? This morning its director general, Tony Danker, complained that the rise in corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent is in danger of killing off economic growth. He also demanded at the very minimum that a ‘super-deduction’ – where businesses can cut their
This week Mark Steyn became the latest star to leave GB News, following a lengthy leave of absence for health reasons. The TV shock jock has made a name for himself with his diatribes about the Covid vaccine. But it seems that not all at the channel welcomed Steyn’s multiple Ofcom investigations. The presenter uploaded
Emma Pattison and her seven-year-old daughter Lettie were almost certainly killed by her husband George Pattison. As so often happens with cases of family annihilation, George Pattison escaped any criminal sanctions by shooting himself. Emma, who was 45, called a close relative last Saturday, hours before she and her daughter died, sounding ‘distressed’. We also
Has the NHS turned a corner? The winter crisis may be over, with pressure on the health service beginning to ease, but the pace of improvement is glacial. The latest performance figures for NHS England, published this morning, point to small improvements: waiting lists have flattened off and remain at 7.2 million; 12 hour waits
Putin’s war has finally made its way to the Russian home front. A leak from the Kremlin reveals that Russia’s regional governments are being ordered to conduct surveys of and update bomb shelters across the country. Speaking to the independent newspaper the Moscow Times, one Kremlin source said this audit had been going on since at least last spring. Renovating
Ding, ding, ding! It’s been such a busy week in Westminster with the reshuffle and President Zelenskyy popping in that Mr S missed a particularly combative clash at the Senedd on Tuesday. Undeterred by the recent woes of the nationalists at Holyrood, the Welsh government in Cardiff Bay has pressed on with its own controversial
The Church of England will soon launch a commission on the question of gendered language in relation to God. Is this big news? It depends what the commission proposes. Even if it proposes big changes, the synod would have to vote them through. And a two-thirds majority, voting in favour of removing the word ‘father’ from
In this week’s issue of The Spectator, Katy Balls reveals what Liz Truss would have done in her quest for growth had her mini-Budget not blown up. She would have gone on to launch an eight-point ‘autumn of action’. There were to be eight ‘follow-up moments’ revealing Truss and her Chancellor’s plans for supply-side reforms
University lecture halls are empty once again this morning – and students left to fend for themselves as they prepare for their summer exams. Yes, it’s another strike day on campus: the University and College Union (UCU) has announced 18 days of walkouts across February and March in a row over pay, working conditions and
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President Zelensky was in Westminster today to address Parliament. The Ukrainian leader came to London to ask MPs to give Ukraine fighter jets. Will Rishi Sunak agree to? Max Jeffery speaks to Svitlana Morenets and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Max Jeffery.
William Shawcross’s long-awaited review of Prevent – the Government’s counter-radicalisation programme – is one of the boldest official documents of recent times. As such, it constitutes a radical reappraisal of a key state policy which has gone seriously off-piste and is in urgent need of rebalancing. Much of the critique of Prevent has historically come
One of the most surprising things to come out of today’s independent review of Prevent, the government’s flagship counter-terrorism programme, is how much of its activities have nothing to do with terrorism. The scheme was created by politicians to stop people from being radicalised into terrorism. Yet according to William Shawcross’s landmark review, the reality is that
PMQs looked like a comedy routine. But there was nothing funny about it. President Zelensky, AKA Uncle Volod, has come to town to address a joint session of both houses. As a warm-up act, MPs behaved like a gang of armchair Rambos and competed to fawn over Uncle Volod while pledging taxpayers’ cash to the
Each time an American institution commits a new corruption of the English language in the name of ‘social justice,’ US wire services, assisted by the internet, circulate the latest absurdity to the four corners of the world. Nearly everyone I know has commented on the University of Southern California School of Social Work’s recent ban on the use of ‘the field’ when
Received wisdom has it that Scotland’s embattled First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is considering her position. ‘She’s finished’ has become a mantra in political circles over the last few days. And not without justification: her absence from a key debate in Holyrood last week did suggest an announcement of some kind might be imminent; perhaps a