All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Sky Atlantic’s eight-part biopic, Mussolini: Son of the Century, is a great missed opportunity to tell the truth about fascism. Director Joe Wright could have told us something truly instructive about Benito Mussolini, the rebel from the foothills of the Apennines who invented fascism. Sadly, he has not. The series fails to explain to viewers the
While Donald Trump may be threatening Moscow with major new sanctions, as it continues to hammer Ukraine with drones and missiles, the Russians seem unfazed. They assume this is just rhetorical for now – and they are probably right. This week has seen the US progressively cutting off its support for Ukraine, first suspending arms
China does not like tariffs, but big money in America likes them even less. If one thing has become clear amid the fog of the past week, it is that what will contain Donald Trump are the financial markets. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, attacked Trump on Friday for his imposition of tariffs, adding that
Historically, the richest and poorest men on the planet tend to father a lot more children than the men in the middle. With the former, its because there’s so much for the spawn to inherit, hence all the aristocratic Fitzes; the latter, because so many offspring die in infancy. The men in the middle tend
Make no mistake: whatever higher moral authority they may have invoked in their defence, Soviet and Russian spies have never been good or honourable people. Kim Philby, the suave Martini-sipping traitor sent dozens of brave anti-Communist volunteers to their deaths. Konon Molody – alias Gordon Lonsdale, Canadian vending machine salesman and kingpin of the Portland
There is a new Islamist terror threat in Europe that the French describe as ‘low-cost terrorism’. The expression was deployed in a television interview at the start of this week by Bruno Retailleau, the Minister of the Interior. Warning France that Islamic State is ‘reconstituting themselves in Africa and elsewhere’, Retailleau said that the other
25 min listen
It’s a special (and emotional) edition of Coffee House Shots this Saturday because it is the last with Kate Andrews on this side of the Atlantic. She joins our editor Michael Gove and political correspondent James Heale for a debate on ideology. Kate – a liberal, in the classical British sense – explains exactly why she is
Sadiq Khan is exceedingly fond of ‘diversity’, not least the word itself. Perhaps as a result, London’s Mayor is willing to overcome his aversion to Donald Trump, even when the US president is looking increasingly like a menace to global peace and stability. “I think it’s important to show those people who believe the contrary
While the UK government struggles to deliver reliable mobile coverage across some rural communities, Somalia – a country that hasn’t had a functioning central government for three decades – has built one of Africa’s most resilient telecommunications networks. As a British researcher who conducts fieldwork in Somalia, I’m often struck by an ironic reality: I
The welfare bill currently unsustainably stands at £314 billion. It is forecast to reach nearly £380 billion by the end of the decade. Rumoured Labour cuts, set to be announced as part of the Spring Statement on 26 March, have just been reported by ITV News and include plans for £6 billion of welfare cuts.
After months of leading in the polls, Reform UK is now in meltdown. This afternoon, the party chairman, Zia Yusuf, and the chief whip, Lee Anderson, released a joint statement which says that they have now referred Rupert Lowe to the police. The pair say that they have ‘received complaints from two female employees about
Andrew Roberts gave the following speech in the House of Lords, following the publication of the report ‘Ukraine: A Wake Up Call’ from the International Relations and Defence Committee. We must not underestimate the gravity of what has happened, which is that during a war against totalitarian dictatorship, the United States has effectively changed sides.
Another week, another peace plan for a seemingly intractable conflict. This time it’s Gaza’s turn, with the launch of a new peace and reconstruction plan for the rubble-strewn Strip. The proposal, created by Egypt and endorsed by the Arab League (a 22-strong group of Arab states) at a summit in Cairo, provides an alternative to
It is now only a matter of days before the 52 million-strong population in South Korea will know the fate of their suspended president, Yoon Suk Yeol. Since his first impeachment hearing at the end of 2024, after which he was arrested and indicted on charges of insurrection, the President has continued to defend his
It’s a day ending in ‘y’, which means the Scottish Nats are arguing amongst themselves again. Ex-SNP MP Mhairi Black has taken a pop at the party’s former Dear Leader Nicola Sturgeon in a new BBC documentary released this week about her time in politics. In the programme – in which Black blasts Westminster culture
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Trump has been stealing the headlines when it comes to Ukraine this week, but Europe – and whether it can stay united in the face of the US pulling its support – remains an important subplot. At a summit yesterday, 27 countries backed the plan to increase spending on defence, but when will the cracks
Will this finally be the government which gets on top of the voracious financial monster that is the NHS and tackles its chronic over-spending? No, I can’t quite see that, either. But it has to be said that the new interim Chief Executive of NHS England – Sir Jim Mackey, who has replaced Amanda Pritchard
Some good news for Kemi Badenoch today. The latest donation figures for the end of 2024 are out – and they make for happy reading for the beancounters in CCHQ. The Tories reported £3.8 million in donations between October and December, compared to £1.6 million for the Liberal Democrats, £1.4 million for Labour and £336,800
It was so predictable as to be almost inevitable: a massive row has erupted within the leadership of Reform UK. Rupert Lowe, one of Reform’s five MPs and the Member for Great Yarmouth – an outspoken keyboard warrior on social media and popular with many grassroots party members for his outspoken online comments – kicked off
Donald Trump is intent on shaking things up in the White House and no one knows that better than neighbouring Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The US President ramped up his tariff war this week – and tensions between the pair seem to have taken their toll on Trudeau, even reducing him to tears during
Is it about to become illegal for parents to smack their child? We might have known that the already top-heavy Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill would be hijacked by those with an agenda to push. Labour MP Jess Asato has tabled an amendment, backed by 26 MPs (including surprisingly one Tory), that would abolish the
Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Business Secretary Jonathon Reynolds are in Tokyo for ‘2+2’ (two ministers for the price of one) talks with their Japanese counterparts. The sessions are expected to be at least superficially productive, with hopeful talk of enhanced cooperation on security and strengthened economic ties (particularly on AI). Apparently, details of a
In the eight months since he was appointed Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey has undertaken so many foreign visits that his residency status must be dubious. The Yorkshireman, who turned 65 last month, has travelled to Ukraine, Estonia, Poland, Germany, Belgium, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Norway and the United States. On Wednesday,
Two years ago, few had heard of the term ‘two-tier justice’. Indeed, Ministers and leaders across the criminal justice system have spent much of that time vigorously denying its existence. Yet the examples of a justice system which is failing to deliver ‘equality before the law’ are numerous: the failures of the police and prosecutors to act
I’ve always been something of a news addict, but recent events in America and Ukraine have turned me into the kind of junkie films get made about. ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome,’ an affliction you once sniggered at in others, is now sweeping the world faster than Covid-19, and is oddly easy, at the moment, to fall
An animal rights activist has exposed extreme cruelty at a slaughterhouse in Arley, Warwickshire. Joey Carbstrong’s secretly recorded footage shows staff slamming sheep hard onto concrete floors, dismembering sheep while they are still alive and playing recordings of wolves to the terrified animals as they were dying. The shock here is not just the cruelty itself: repeated
It has a whiff of the old trailer for Jaws 2, the one where viewers were disabused of the idea that it was safe to go back into the water. In January, Matt Wrack, the left-wing, Corbyn-supporting general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) lost his attempt for re-election. But if anyone thought it
The UK signed up to a UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of GNP on aid way back in 1970, but didn’t hit that level until 2013. In 2020, aid spending was cut to 0.5 per cent and last week Keir Starmer reduced it further to 0.3 per cent. This will save about £4
What do the Tories do with a problem like Reform? Kemi Badenoch’s party in Westminster has some time to consider this, with over four years to go until it has to put her strategy – whatever that is – to the test. But the same cannot be said of Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative party
European leaders are in Brussels today for an emergency summit on defence, and the future of both Ukraine and the continent. In a further attempt to hash out a peace plan for Ukraine, the 27 EU heads of state are joined by Volodymyr Zelensky. Arriving this morning, Zelensky declared, ‘It’s great we are not alone’.
Oh dear. Poor Richard Tice is the latest politician to have an embarrassing memory lapse. During his first trip to Scotland of 2025, the Boston and Skegness MP appeared in Glasgow this morning to reveal his party’s newest defectors. Except, er, he couldn’t quite remember their names… When he was grilled by one Scottish hack