All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The day started badly for David Lammy. Well – we don’t know that for sure – it’s feasible that first thing this morning he won a great victory over his toothpaste tube, however his appearance on the Today programme wasn’t exactly a triumph. Asked by Justin Webb whether the US action was legal he told
Over the weekend, the US conducted strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran is weighing a response, and Trump has raised the possibility of a change in leadership in Iran. To discuss what comes next and why this move seems to counter everything we know about ‘America First’, Freddy Gray is joined by editor of the
Speaking today at Church House in Westminster, Nigel Farage announced that Reform will introduce a ‘Britannia card’ that will let wealthy foreigners pay a £250,000 fee to move to the UK, and live here exempt from all tax on their foreign assets. The move is an attempt to win over ‘non-doms’ alienated by Labour and
It was bound to happen. Leaving aside, for the moment, the burning question of whether the US strikes on Iran will have set back Tehran’s nuclear programme by weeks, months or years, this moment feels in many ways like an apotheosis of sorts. The Omega (or perhaps Alpha depending on your sense of ontology) of US attempts at talking
It is a year of two major anniversaries for the Tories. The first is the centenary of Margaret Thatcher’s birth; the second is the half-centenary since she was elected leader. To mark the occasion, the think-tank Policy Exchange is laying on a series of events to commemorate the Iron Lady. Today’s was a sit down
I’m old enough to remember when it was neo-Nazis who smashed up Jewish-owned businesses. Now it’s so-called progressives. Not long ago, a Jewish business in Stamford Hill in London had its windows smashed and its doors kicked in and red paint sprayed all over its walls. Only it wasn’t Combat 18 or the oafish dregs
A major plank in the Labour Party’s electoral platform last year was its policy of scrupulous obedience to international law. Attorney-General Lord Hermer has repeatedly pushed this view, swearing undying loyalty to everything from pyjama injunctions coming out of Strasbourg to arrest warrants from the Hague. Unfortunately this exercise in legal piety is now coming
Oh dear. It seems that the office of the Hon. Member for Spen Valley has put their foot in it again. Kim Leadbeater might have hoped for a quieter life now that her much-criticised Assisted Dying Private Members’ Bill narrowly scraped through the Commons by 23 votes on Friday. But Leadbeater has started the new
Wes Streeting has announced yet another inquiry into NHS maternity safety: this time a national investigation which the Health Secretary wants to address ‘systemic problems dating back over 15 years.’ This rapid review, modelled on the Darzi review of the NHS, will report in December 2025 and will work across the entire maternity system, using
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced in the Commons this afternoon that the UK government will proscribe Palestine Action. The move comes after members of the activist group broke into RAF Brize Norton and graffitied two military planes. In a statement, Cooper said: ‘A draft proscription order will be laid in Parliament on Monday 30
Reform UK are on the rise – quite literally. The party is planning to move one floor up in their headquarters at Millbank Tower, giving its 40-odd staff a commanding view of Westminster from their office. That change in circumstance was reflected in Nigel Farage’s speech this morning, when he strolled in to Westminster’s Church
Over the weekend, the US Air Force attacked three nuclear sites in Iran in an operation codenamed ‘Midnight Hammer’. According to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, the strike was ‘designed to severely degrade Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure’. The operation involved seven B-2 strategic bombers flying from the continental United States to
To the Beeb, which is once again making the news rather than breaking it. BBC presenter Martine Croxall caught the attention of viewers on Sunday as she read out a news report about a heart health study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Reading the autocue, the presenter hesitated as she got
Israel announced today that it has launched an unprecedented strike against regime targets in central Tehran, including the notorious Evin prison. Evin is infamous for holding foreign hostages and dual nationals, many of whom are detained by the regime as part of what human rights groups call ‘hostage diplomacy’. It has long been associated with
‘Now, splendidly, everything had become clear. The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms.’ After last week, I feel like Evelyn Waugh at the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939. The politics of ‘progress’ has found its fulfilment in the union
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The weekend saw the US launch airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, with Tehran warning of ‘everlasting consequences’. Despite an emergency Cobra meeting and Luke Pollard’s morning media round, we are still waiting for an answer on whether the government supports Trump’s action. Keir Starmer’s assured and confident position on the world stage now looks
We will hear plenty of familiar criticisms of the plan unveiled by Reform yesterday to bring non-doms, as wealthy foreigners who enjoy a special tax regime in the UK are known, back. It will make Britain a magnate for tax dodgers and money launderers. It will increase inequality. And the only jobs it creates will
Many in Europe may still believe that a Russian invasion of one or more Nato countries is unlikely, if not absurd. This view seems convenient, but it is increasingly divergent from reality. Confidence in the alliance’s principle of so-called collective security is, sadly, becoming not a deterrent but an incentive to aggression by Moscow. The
It seems the Labour lot has got themselves in quite a tizzy over events in the Middle East – and this morning saw an excruciating interview in which the defence minister couldn’t answer the most straightforward question about Iran. Luke Pollard gave a car crash interview earlier today on Sky News, where the Labour minister
Is Donald Trump’s decision to join attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities an embarrassment, a provocation or an opportunity for Russia? The honest answer is that it is all three, but likely more of an opportunity than anything else, if Moscow is willing to play it cool. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is in Moscow today
Just as things were starting to get better in Syria, an attack against the Christian community has shaken the country. In the suburbs of Damascus, a suspected Isis member entered the Mar Elias Church during Sunday mass, opened fire on the Greek Orthodox worshipers and then detonated a suicide vest. So far, the Syrian Health
It’s weird to think there was a time when I disliked J.K. Rowling; it seems as odd to me now as disliking words, or fun – she’s so obviously A Good Thing. (Never to be confused with a ghastly National Treasure – see Dawn French, the anti-Rowling.) Irony of ironies, I disliked this woman who
Operation Midnight Hammer, America’s air and missile strikes against Iran at the weekend, did not involve the United Kingdom. Although the Prime Minister was informed of the military action in advance, there was not, so far as we know, any request from the United States for British approval, participation or support, and Sir Keir Starmer
Multiple American presidents have vowed to never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. This weekend President Trump made good on that promise. He undertook targeted, surgical strikes against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme after the regime repeatedly rejected diplomatic offers. This is a watershed moment which will change Iran, the region and the US
At 9 a.m on Monday morning, Nigel Farage will march into a central London venue to make one of his most audacious speeches yet. Since returning as leader of Reform UK last May, he has trodden carefully when it comes to policy. Farage quickly canned the party’s manifesto after the election, preferring to focus on
America’s entry into the war against Iran is the latest step up an escalation spiral that began in October 2023. What started with an attack by a Palestinian Islamist organisation on a poorly defended Israeli border, and then became a fight between Israel and a series of Iran-supported Islamist paramilitary groups by the end of 2023,
This is not been Keir Starmer’s finest week on the world stage. At the G7 on Tuesday, the Prime Minister breezily dismissed talk that the Americans would shortly join Israeli’s attack on Iran. ‘There’s nothing the President said that suggests he’s about to get involved in this conflict,’ he insisted. ‘On the contrary, throughout the
Opinion polls are notoriously a snapshot rather than a prediction, but the latest Ipsos survey of more than 1,100 voters should put a huge spring in Nigel Farage’s step, and terrify both the Tories and Labour, who are placed nine points behind the surging populists. The poll gives the highest ever level of support for
Strength works. It’s a foreign policy lesson that sounds too simple to be true and too unequivocal to be wise, and yet there is much truth and a good deal of wisdom in it. Strength does not mean wanton thuggery or hubristic swagger, it must be considered, well-regulated and guided by reflection and sober analysis.
The fact is, no one knows where this war ends. Overnight, the United States entered the conflict, bombing a series of targets across Iran. What happens next is difficult to predict. All we can really say for certain about this situation is where it began. And that was on 1 February 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini
At this stage we can’t predict what the government’s new grooming gangs inquiry will say. But one thing is overwhelmingly likely: many will feel the heat. This includes police who stood back in the face of clear patterns of child sexual exploitation by young Pakistani men to avoid racial tension; social workers desperate not to
On Thursday, President Trump gave Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the regime he has led for more than 35 years an ultimatum: start negotiating over your nuclear programme, or face the full consequences. He would allow another two weeks, at most, for Tehran to prove its willingness to negotiate sincerely. The armchair warriors
Dads could soon get more time off to look after their babies if a group of MPs have their way. Britain has among the ‘worst statutory leave offers for fathers and other parents in the developed world’, the chairwoman of the Women and Equalities Committee, Sarah Owen, has said. The committee called on the government
Tel Aviv To America and Israel, the free world owes a debt – for courage, for clarity, for doing what had to be done. When the moment came, they did not hesitate. They bore the weight, braved the cost, and moved with the strength history demands. When Israel first struck inside Iran nine days ago, its