All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
I laughed aloud when I heard Gianni Infantino, president of Fifa, identifying himself sanctimoniously with a whole list of disadvantaged people because he too was a victim: he was teased at school for having ginger hair. I had teenage spots, so can I claim unique insight into the sufferings of the Uighurs? That some of those
The race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination began in earnest on 9 November 2022 — and it could prove far more competitive than many people think. Baked into the thinking of virtually every centre-right commentator, consultant and grifter is the assumption that former president Donald J. Trump will be the nominee. Only Trump opponents and
The Cursed Ratio strikes again. Twitter users have voted 52-48 in favour of Elon Musk allowing the return of Donald Trump to the website, causing the gnashing of a great many progressive teeth in the airless no-space of the internet. The kicker to this is that – psych! – the former president almost immediately announced that he had no
As England’s football team prepare to face Iran in the first match of their World Cup campaign, the backdrop is already miserable. Football’s most prestigious tournament is taking place in the wrong season in a deplorable state where workers have died in the construction of stadiums. To make matters worse, the Three Lions’ first opponents
Here’s my question for Stephen Fry after he said his trans friends had felt ‘deeply upset’ by some of the comments made by J.K. Rowling: why didn’t you just say to them, ‘So what?’ Fry used to be all about saying ‘So what?’ to people who went on about feeling offended by words. His irritation
As expected, the government’s Autumn Statement has not exactly been putting smiles on peoples’ faces. However, the NHS has been one of the few public services to see more cash being diverted its way. Social care spending is also being increased, but the plans to place a cap on the amount of money that individuals
To understand the Conservative party’s approach to government, it’s useful to think of there being two Britains. This is something British people love to do; we divide the country into North and South, rich and poor, London and not. The division that matters for the Conservatives, however, is a little different. It’s not a matter
‘I’m defending football here, and injustice’ was the standout quote, for me, from what has been described as a ‘bizarre tirade’ by Fifa president Gianni Infantino at a pre-World Cup press conference yesterday. But (Freudian?) slips aside, there were plenty of gems to choose from. Other highlights of the rambling, hour-long diatribe include Infantino’s impassioned
It almost certainly wasn’t Vinice Mabansag, the baby born in the Philippines last Tuesday and picked out by the UN to personalise the occasion, but somewhere in around about now someone will be born who really does take the world’s population to eight billion. It is a landmark which has attracted the usual Malthusian handwringing
Guess who turned up in Bangkok this week at the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting? The forum, which includes the US, China, Australia, Japan, Russia, but not France, was visited by none other than President Macron. ‘You must be asking yourself what a French president is doing here’, he charmed in English. Macron claimed to
In the glitzy Fifa museum, in squeaky-clean downtown Zurich, there is a new exhibition which sums up the upbeat, inclusive image which football’s world governing body is so eager to portray. It’s called ‘211 Cultures – One Game’, and it consists of 211 items of football ephemera, one from each of Fifa’s member associations all
For US President Joe Biden, Saudi Arabia is the problem that never goes away. First came his decision to refrain from slapping penalties on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) following the kidnapping and murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a former Saudi royal insider who became increasingly critical of the ruling family (the Biden administration did
The week’s Autumn Statement was quite pessimistic about the growth outlook of Britain. The accompanying OBR analysis forecast growth will be below 1.5 per cent on average over the next five years, and even by the end of the period the growth in potential output is only up to 1.75 per cent. And on this
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It’s no doubt a depressing time for the British economy, but how much that is the fault of the government, either for getting us to this stage and/or for not setting out a more optimistic exit route? On this episode, Cindy Yu moderates a debate between Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Kate Andrews who battle
I could not have been more delighted when the group Women’s Place UK (WPUK) asked me to chair an online event to mark the publication of the book Defending Women’s Spaces, written by my friend and feminist comrade Karen Ingala Smith. Let me tell you a little about Karen. For the past 30 years she has
France has adopted a different approach to the World Cup in Qatar than most of its European rivals. While the likes of England, Denmark and Germany will virtue signal their disapproval of the Gulf State’s views on various issues, France is set to remain silent. Their captain, Hugo Lloris, the Tottenham goalkeeper, has said he
Back in February the New Statesman reported that Keir Starmer’s inner-circle had concluded that Rishi Sunak was no longer to be feared as a potential successor to Boris Johnson because he was ‘crap at politics’. At the time this appeared to be a pronouncement that fell under the ‘doth protest too much’ rule, coined by
If I had to give one piece of advice to Britons under 30 it would be this: go. Leave. Skedaddle. Get one of those work visas for New Zealand or Canada and start a new life. Fret not over the details. Those can be worked out once you’re there. Don’t make excuses, don’t defer, don’t delay. Trust me, you’ll
One of the most striking parts of Jeremy Hunt’s performance in the Commons chamber yesterday was how quiet MPs on the backbenches behind him were. There was little in the way of cheering as the Chancellor used his Autumn Statement to set out a series of tax rises and spending cuts. The front pages today
Amid all the economic gloom at the moment, the unemployment figure is one bright spot. It is just 3.6 per cent, down from 3.8 per cent this year, and close to a historic low. But, as I say in the Times this morning, even this glimmer of hope is tarnished. The low unemployment number disguises how
Last night was shaping up to be a night of the long sgian dubhs for the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford. SNP backbenchers have grown unhappy with Blackford’s leadership after several scandals during his tenure. Yesterday a challenge briefly emerged from Aberdeen South MP Stephen Flynn, though Blackford has managed to survive the attempted coup.
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The front pages are almost universally bad today, but the government is more concerned with the reaction from the markets, which, so far, have not turned against yesterday’s budget. Could this high tax low spend fiscal statement yet pass scrutiny, given the torrid economic climate at large? Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy
Oh dear. It seems that the Scarlet Pimpernel of politics is at it again. Chris Bryant likes to portray himself as the sleazebuster-in-chief, fearlessly standing up for standards in public life. But in his haste to hold his fellow politicos to account, it seems that Bryant has blundered in his eagerness for retweets. Steerpike’s colleague
The teenagers are once again in charge of UK fiscal policy. The teenagers are not the Chancellor and his team, but those who set the tone of the fiscal debate in the media and the financial markets. The reasons the Conservatives are now embracing austerity is the fear that higher interest rates will kill house
‘Only the higher-than-expected numbers of migrants coming to the UK under the post-Brexit migration regime adds materially to prospects for potential output growth over the coming five years relative to the assumptions that we made in March.’ That’s from the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) assessment accompanying the Autumn Statement. It’s a pretty striking line:
Newnham College, Cambridge, was once a bastion of feminist activism. No longer. This summer my curiosity was drawn to two women whispering to one another in the college cafe. They were, as it happened, a senior fellow and doctoral student; leaning over their table, they spoke furtively for fear that someone might overhear their conversation
The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has woken up to a harsh set of front pages this morning following his Autumn Statement, with the Mail accusing the Tories of ‘soaking the strivers’ and the Telegraph lead headline quoting an economist who says the Chancellor has combined ‘the rhetoric of George Osborne and the policies of Gordon Brown’.
Are protestors in Iran going to be sentenced to death? That grim question will be on the mind of many Iranians today, after protestors reportedly threw petrol bombs last night at the former home of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. Insults to supreme leaders past and present carry the death sentence in
Delivering his Autumn Statement on Thursday, Jeremy Hunt specified two ‘great national’ qualities: genius and ‘British compassion’. The Chancellor’s announcements made it clear what he was doing: raiding the incomes of the decently well off to fund benefits rises and protect pensions. Talk of our shared compassion then seems a bit off. Politicians should exploit
Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement had a curious omission: childcare. The pleas of desperate parents who gathered on Whitehall last month during ‘The March of the Mummies’ appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Demonstrators gathered outside Downing Street banging drums and shouting: ‘Dear Rishi Sunak, we want our choices back.’ So why didn’t the Chancellor listen? Britain’s
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The Conservative party is still digesting Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement, a far cry from the last fiscal statement from this party. Have the Prime Minister and the Chancellor managed to deliver a budget that hits the political sweet point of cornering Labour without splitting their own party? Isabel Hardman talks to James