All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The number of abortions taking place in Ireland is more than 8,000 a year, up from the memorable figure of 6,666 abortions in the first year after the law legalising abortion came into force in January 2019. It’s all rather a far cry from the situation that abortion campaigners talked about during the referendum campaign,
Today, MPs will get the chance to debate and vote on the Privileges Committee report on Boris Johnson. This will not be whipped by the government, allowing Tory MPs to vote how they wish. So far more than a dozen of Johnson’s supporters in parliament have expressed public criticism of the report but some stop
Members of the Scottish Labour party may be forgiven for feelings of jubilation following publication of a new poll. Sir Keir Starmer arrived in Leith near Edinburgh this morning to be met by comrades cheered by the suggestion their party is on course to defeat the SNP at a general election for the first time since
Everyone giving evidence to the Covid Inquiry has their own corner to defend. And every ex-prime minister has a part of their premiership that they spend the rest of their life talking about and trying to justify. For David Cameron, it was his public spending cuts. Experts blame them for the health service being in
When Antony Blinken got on the plane to Beijing two days ago, the US Secretary of State didn’t even know if he’d be meeting with Xi Jinping. Blinken’s visit was originally planned for February before the US withdrew, at the last minute, after a Chinese spy balloon was spotted over Montana. Beijing has always insisted there was nothing untoward about
Any hope Rishi Sunak had to use Boris Johnson’s resignation to turn the page on partygate is dwindling fast. The Prime Minister is likely to miss the debate on the Privileges Committee report this afternoon and the hope in government is that a vote isn’t even called. But even if ministers get their wish, the
It’s crunch time in the Commons today. After five days of speculation, MPs today get the chance to approve the Privileges Committee report on Boris Johnson misleading the House. But will there even be a vote on it? Despite much talk of Boris backers lining up to defend their former leader, it seems there’s been
The average two-year fixed mortgage now sits at 6 per cent, according to financial data group Moneyfacts – just below the 6.65 per cent reached in December last year, after the fallout from Liz Truss’s mini-Budget. Five-year fixed rates aren’t too far behind, at 5.7 per cent. For many of the 2.4 million homeowners whose
It will create lots of well-paid jobs, especially in Scotland. It will reduce our electricity bills. And it will make sure the lights can still be switched on regardless of what is happening in the rest of the world. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has made a big pitch today for ‘energy security’, promising to
Want to avoid Pride month? Bit tired of the, almost literally, in your face, carnival of uninhibited sexual freedom we see on our streets throughout June? Then come to Japan. It’s not that Pride doesn’t happen here at all, just that the Japanese for various cultural and historic reasons, don’t make a song and dance
11 min listen
Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and Fraser Nelson about the developments in the mortgage markets and how Tory MPs are expected to vote on Partygate.
As Ukraine pushes forward its long-anticipated counteroffensive, Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu seems more concerned with reeling in his institutional rivals, not least the wildcard Wagner group. But internecine institutional tensions are not the only affliction plaguing Russian occupation forces. As temperatures rise and the Ukrainians press the frontline, infectious diseases remain another challenge for Russian forces.
Another week, another round of partygate stories. Leaked footage over the weekend of Tory aides working on the London mayoral campaign in 2020 partying despite strict covid rules at the time meant that the top news line from the Sunday government media round was Michael Gove apologising on behalf of the Conservative party. Later today,
Does a woman have a penis? Of course not. Until recently, that basic biological fact was accepted by almost everyone. Perhaps it still is but, with the transgender thought police waiting in the wings, it is a truth that few politicians are willing to articulate. After a leaked recording emerged – allegedly from a meeting
Scottish Nationalists are putting a brave face on the latest opinion poll showing Scottish Labour apparently winning the race for Westminster. The Times/Panelbase survey suggests that Labour is on course to return 26 Scottish seats at the next general election against the SNP’s 21. The nationalist are currently the third largest party in Westminster with
At the end of the 1920s, Erich Maria Remarque’s novel Im Westen nichts Neues appeared in English as All Quiet On The Western Front. For its readership in this country a devastating, grinding war against an enemy they had been encouraged to think of as bestial and inhuman huns was in recent memory. Here was
Will Partygate ever be over? Today’s front page of the Sunday Mirror splashes on leaked footage of Shaun Bailey’s mayoral campaign team enjoying an illicit Christmas party in December 2020. At least two dozen revellers were filmed drinking and laughing while two even twirled past a sign that reads ‘Please keep your distance’. The news hook for
There is a rare outbreak of unanimity on social media. Save a few lawyers who – correctly – point out that it is not currently against the law, nobody thinks there is a moral case to allow Levi Bellfield to marry in prison. For many I am sure it is simple. He is serving four
The mob has claimed another scalp. This time it’s Howard Donald’s. The Take That star has been found guilty of likecrimes. That is, he liked some ‘problematic’ tweets, including a tweet that said – brace yourselves – ‘Only women have periods’. For this, for giving his approval to a statement of biological fact, he’s been
With the return of Tory psychodrama and the leak of CCHQ lockdown party videos, Rishi Sunak needs something to go badly right for him. His best hope will be the Court of Appeal green-lighting his Rwanda deportation plan which he hopes will show major progress towards his pledge to ‘stop the boats’. The latest data
On 17 June 1948, seventy-five years ago this weekend, the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee declared war on the ethnic Chinese Malayan Communist party (MCP). Except he did not call it a war; he called it an ‘Emergency’. It seems that the British plantation and trading companies in Malaya, such as Sime Darby, Guthrie, Harrisons
There is a growing sense of unease in France that a new wave of Islamist terrorism will soon break over Europe. In February, Adel Bakawan, a Franco-Iranian specialist in Islamic extremism, said that the Islamic State is regrouping and is planning a mass casualty attack in ‘Berlin, London or Paris’. This week Thibault de Montbrial, president
Ultra-processed food is back under the spotlight. ‘In the last decade, the evidence has been slowly growing that ultra-processed food is harmful for us in ways we hadn’t thought. We’re talking about a whole variety of cancers, heart disease, strokes, dementia,’ Tim Spector, a professor of epidemiology at King’s College London, told a recent BBC
You never forget your first corpse, do you? Cold, visceral, mute, lying there immune from the world and its cares. But, for many people in Britain, seeing a dead body has become a rare spectacle – something that many of us may never see at all. Given that we will all one day die, this
Not another one. Less than a week after the resignations of Boris Johnson and Nigel Adams prompted by-elections in their respective constituencies of Uxbridge and Selby, another contest now looms in Somerton and Frome. David Warburton, suspended as a Tory MP since April 2022, has tonight said he will shortly stand down from parliament too.
Boris Johnson’s dwindling brigade of supporters point to the Conservatives’ landslide election win of 2019 as evidence he’s too gifted a politician for his party to lose. But they conveniently ignore the fact his charm stopped working at the border with Scotland. Voters across much of England may have flocked to Johnson but he repelled
It seems the Americans are belatedly waking up to the reality of the Sussexes. Bill Simmons, Spotify’s head of podcast innovation and monetisation, has finally cottoned on to the fact that Harry and Meghan aren’t exactly model Stakhanovite grafters. He has this week come out and attacked them as ‘fucking grifters’, after their £15.6m Archetypes podcast deal with Spotify
Can a political leader keep getting exposed for conveying obvious untruths and yet be judged a fit person to occupy 10 Downing Street or even just a seat in the House of Commons? That’s been the theme of a week at Westminster which has seen Boris Johnson excoriated as someone not fit even to hold
15 min listen
In his politics column for The Spectator this week James Heale profiles the three candidates that the Tories have shortlisted for London mayor. With the seventh London mayoral election coming up, can the Tories capitalise on Sadiq Khan’s declining popularity recently, and offer some answers in the ongoing Ulez debate? Cindy Yu speaks to James Heale and
Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Germany’s far-right populist party, is enjoying a surge in support. A poll by broadcaster ARD this month revealed that 18 per cent of voters backed the AfD – its highest rating since the party was founded in 2013. This level of support – which puts the AfD on level pegging with
When the Aukus trilateral security pact was signed between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom in September 2021, Emmanuel Macron was furious. France’s president took Australia’s decision to terminate France’s ‘contract of the century’ to supply diesel-powered submarines to Canberra personally. The French have since declared the incident officially closed, although Macron –
The meth and heroin addicts were still gathering in their hundreds in a squalid encampment under the Pul-e-Sokhta bridge in the Afghan capital of Kabul. It was a sorry sight to see them squatting beside bonfires while stray dogs ran around them, barking. Many were homeless and had nowhere else to go. ‘It’s easier to