All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Now that Morse has cracked his final case, Oxford’s streets will be freed from the annual disruption caused by successive Jaguars and their attendant film crews. But that’s of little comfort to residents facing a new source of gridlock – one, ironically, caused by those protesting efforts to reduce the city’s notorious congestion. Last month 2,000 eclectic
The end of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency has been predicted so many times that it is tempting to nod along with Jay Powell, Federal Reserve chairman, who pronounced last week that there is no immediate threat. But with high inflation in the US and China cuddling up with Russia, is it something
A promotional clip for New Zealand uploaded to social media the other day looked like the usual decorous fare churned out by the country’s tourism agency: all deep-blue skies, golden sands and soaring mountains. The words were another matter. There was no come-hither voice enjoining visitors to experience ‘pure New Zealand’. Rather there was the miserable
The magic grandpa is back in the headlines. Keir Starmer’s decision to move against his predecessor means an unwelcome return to the spotlight for Jeremy Corbyn, who has never been a great fan of the fourth estate. Starmer has proposed a motion to Labour’s ruling body to bar Jezza for standing for the party again,
Humza Yousaf, the new First Minister of Scotland after his victory in the SNP leadership election, deserves his moment in the sun. Yousaf is Scotland’s first ethnic minority leader and the first Muslim leader of the governing party. Legitimate questions about whether he is up to the job must wait while credit is given for
Laughing gas appears initially to be a fairly harmless drug. It doesn’t have a giveaway smell or any obvious adverse side effects – and it’s cheap. Post-pandemic there has been a huge rise in the number of teenagers and young adults taking it: today there are more than 600,000 regular users in the UK. After the Notting Hill
Scotland has been deprived of the opportunity for a fresh start. Humza Yousaf has been elected leader of the Scottish National party, and he is set to be confirmed as first minister today in the Scottish parliament. Yousaf defeated runner-up Kate Forbes by 52 to 48 per cent on second preference votes. The margin of
It’s been 60 years since Muswell Hill brothers Ray and Dave Davies – then 19 and 15 respectively – formed The Kinks. What is now known as the ‘catalogue’ division of record companies love an anniversary, particularly when fans of the band are likely to be edging into pensionable disposable-income territory. And so, a new compilation titled The Journey has
When Rishi Sunak presented the latest attempt by a prime minister to get tough on anti-social behaviour, it wasn’t the graffiti-cleaning or the ‘gotcha’ fly-tip cameras or the labelled jumpsuits that caught my eye. It was the inclusion of begging. Admittedly, you had to go pretty far down his pledge list before you found it. Perhaps someone
It was announced to a particularly tense room at 2 p.m. that Humza Yousaf had won the SNP leadership race. The contest was expected to be close and many people assumed that if second preferences were accounted for, Kate Forbes would most likely prevail. Ash Regan’s voters didn’t quite manage to swing it in Forbes’s
Five weeks ago, Kate Forbes’ leadership campaign looked to be dead and buried. She had set her campaign on fire, Scottish political commentators said, by launching her socially conservative views on gay marriage on the nation. Today, despite the widespread opprobrium by her party colleagues, nearly half of the SNP membership voted for her to
Humza Yousaf has a reputation for being a bit of a crowd-pleaser and, true to form, everyone seemed inordinately happy at his installation as SNP leader – especially the opposition parties. The Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross purred like an overstuffed tabby cat. Yousaf had just scraped home by 52 to 48 per cent –
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Humza Yousaf has been announced as the new leader of the SNP after a narrow victory over second placed Kate Forbes. What will this mean for the cause of Scottish independence? Katy Balls speaks to Michael Simmons, Stephen Daisley and Fraser Nelson. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
As expected, Humza Yousaf has won the SNP leadership election and, barring something extraordinary, will become the next First Minister of Scotland. Yousaf may have been the bookies’ choice but that’s about as far as the favourability extends. Yousaf had a -20 rating with the general public of Scotland and only +11 with his own
Humza Yousaf has won the race to become the next leader of the Scottish National party. Yousaf defeated his rival Kate Forbes by 52 per cent to 48 per cent after Ash Regan was eliminated in the first round of voting. Yousaf has been the SNP establishment’s preferred candidate from the outset; he received the
Humza Yousaf is the new leader of the SNP and in the coming days will be sworn in at the Court of Session in Edinburgh as the county’s sixth first minister. He inherits a bickering party and almost a decade of electoral stalemate over independence. It is far from clear what legacy his predecessor leaves in her
How touching. Several weeks after Gary Lineker’s sporting colleagues boycotted the BBC in solidarity during a row over his tweets, the Match of the Day presenter has revealed the whole affair moved him to tears. Lineker, who is, he says ‘still bewildered’ by the scandal, revealed his reaction in a cosy chat with former Labour spin doctor
Chaos reigns in Israel, a country in the throes of an ad hoc general strike called by trade unions, university students, numerous industries across the country, and many military and civil defence reservists. Demonstrators are storming buildings and fighting the police. Some council leaders say they are beginning a hunger strike. If you wanted to fly into
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Tory party divisions over the small boats policy are starting to appear. Although the bill sailed through its second reading in parliament, now Rishi Sunak is facing amendments to the legislation. Where are the dividing lines? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and James Heale.
Sir Keir Starmer was determined to upset Rishi Sunak’s big speech this morning, exhibiting the cynicism which secured him the Labour leadership. Starmer announced midway through Sunak’s speech that he was submitting a motion to the party’s ruling body to confirm that Corbyn will not be the official Labour candidate in Islington North at the
Dan Snow, the TV historian, is anxious about his ‘privilege’. One of many ‘nepo babies’ in the British media, Snow’s debut came when he was 23 years old, fresh out of Oxford, co-presenting with his father Peter. Having benefited from his well-heeled upbringing, Snow now excitedly foresees the end of ‘inherited monarchy’ and ‘organised religion’.
The Prime Minister was in Essex this morning, unveiling his much-briefed antisocial behaviour plan. In recent weeks he and Keir Starmer have been giving a foretaste of what is to come in next year’s general election by trading blows on a range of policy areas. Last week Starmer gave a big speech on law and
New Zealand has, until recently, dwelt in splendid isolation during the culture wars. Kiwis have typically been reluctant to discuss social issues, the raising of which usually causes a kind of social static and brings down the mood. The antipathy, tribalism and performative outrage of identity politics hasn’t been much of a problem Down Under.
When No. 10 first devised the Illegal Migration Bill, the hope was that Rishi Sunak’s crackdown on asylum claims would have a unifying effect on the Tory party. The Bill – which aims to make it so those who arrive in the UK illegally cannot claim asylum – sailed through its second reading. But as
The insanely irritating advertisements for BBC Sounds – 30 seconds to make the spirits sink – have recently included one exhorting us to watch the new BBC adaptation of Great Expectations – by the man who brought us Peaky Blinders! It’s a real achievement to lose every vestige of humour in Great Expectations Poor Dickens can’t
The renegade royal is back. Having spent the past few years endlessly invading the privacy of others for financial gain, Prince Harry has turned up in London to complain about newspapers, er, doing just that. The dilettante Duke of Sussex arrived at the High Court this morning as legal proceedings begin in the phone-tapping and
Shortly after 2 p.m., the results of the SNP leadership election will be announced at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium. Three candidates are vying to succeed First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, though it is widely accepted that the race is really only between the two frontrunners; the winner is expected to be Humza Yousaf or Kate Forbes. While
There are some genres of newspaper story that never die. Among them are sightings of Lord Lucan, public moralists discovered in adultery – and foolish MPs being caught out offering themselves for hire to undercover hacks. A fine example of the third of these broke yesterday thanks to the situationist campaigning group Led By Donkeys, who started out
Unionist politicians are warming up for what they hope will be one of the biggest opportunities of the past two decades to undermine the independence cause. Whoever wins the SNP leadership contest today is taking over a party that doesn’t know its own kind any more – and a government that’s struggling to blame its
To Buckingham, where a tribe of true believers met on Saturday to attend the Margaret Thatcher Freedom Festival. Suella Braverman was the star turn in the evening, with Sir Iain Duncan Smith amusing attendees with his tales of Eurocrat meetings. But it was Steve Baker – the onetime arch-rebel turned Northern Ireland minister – who
Just who do the Scottish Greens think they are? They provide a mere seven seats to the SNP’s 64 and they won 1.3 per cent of the vote in the constituency section of the Holyrood elections in 2021 (they had 8.1 per cent in the regional section). In return for that meagre offering they think
They have thrown everything at Kate Forbes. She has been subjected to a secular inquisition marked by triviality and partiality. Journalism is a trade neither teeming with religious believers nor one well-equipped for Biblical exegesis, and it shows. ‘Gotcha’ interrogation has focused on scriptural provisions offensive to progressive attitudes pervasive among journalists (e.g. on homosexuality
After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse drama, some investors are understandably asking if we’re on the brink of another 2008-style banking crisis. I’ve had an entire career in politics and government since that crash. Hard lessons have been learned and there can be no complacency – so often, trouble comes from
In less than 24 hours the winner of the SNP leadership contest will be announced. Yet it’s safe to say that whoever triumphs, the growing consensus is that the result will be a net plus for the SNP’s political opponents. Over the course of the short contest – sparked by Nicola Sturgeon’s surprise resignation –