All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
There are two pieces of deeply disturbing news to emerge from the ‘Twitter Files’ released by Elon Musk. The first is that Twitter, under its old management, was not the open, politically neutral platform it pretended to be. Journalist Bari Weiss has shown that Twitter had secret ‘blacklists’ and related methods specifically designed to limit
For climate campaigners, Donald Trump was the anti-Christ, pooh-poohing climate change and withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement. But what of the Biden administration – is it really going to make the climate lobby any happier? Things may be a little clearer following the visit to Britain of John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy,
China’s scrapping of strict Covid controls represents not so much a shift in gear, as a screeching hand-break turn. It is abrupt and haphazard and comes at a particularly risky time. Hundreds of millions of people will soon be on the move for Chinese New Year, which is next month, and the spread of the
During a press conference in Tehran on 3 December, Iran’s Attorney General, Mohammad Javad Montazeri was asked by a journalist what had happened to the country’s morality police, which have been strangely absent from Iran’s streets. Clearly irritated by the question, Montazeri snapped that the morality police had nothing to do with the judiciary and
Lima, Peru For the last 17 months, Peruvians have been wondering what it would take to see the back of Pedro Castillo, their staggeringly incompetent and deeply unpopular far left president. On Wednesday, they got their answer — when Castillo made a botched attempt to metamorphise from an elected head-of-state into an even more inept
When I coined the phrase ‘The Grabdication’ in The Spectator two years ago, I had no concept of exactly how grasping the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would turn out to be. Having found Frogmore Cottage insufficiently close to California even after £2million of public money (since paid back) was spent on renovations, I still imagined that Meghan would eventually settle for
When England play France tonight, more will be involved than just a game of football. We all know why. Even those with an enviable indifference to history will have vague notions about Agincourt, Joan of Arc, Waterloo, Napoleon and General de Gaulle. When I first went to France decades ago I was surprised to be asked fairly
The SNP should be basking in its recent formidable polling success. Not only does support for independence appear to be on the rise – with 56 per cent in favour, according to the latest Ipsos Mori poll – but there is evidence too that the SNP could win an outright majority in the next Scottish
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James Heale speaks to Kate Andrews and Katy Balls about Jeremy Hunt’s latest proposals to reform the banking system. Will the ‘Edinburgh Reforms’ kickstart the much-needed growth in Britain’s economy? And is this the Brexit future Rishi Sunak always wanted? Produced by Natasha Feroze.
We are still a long way from the Winter of Discontent, when 29.5 million worker-days were lost to strikes. Nevertheless, with today’s strike of 115,000 postal workers the number is creeping inexorably upwards. This one-day strike alone will cost 40 per cent of the 273,000 lost working days recorded across all industries over the whole
The UK will partner with Italy and Japan to develop a new generation of fighter aircraft with the aim of having them flying by 2035. Britain and Italy were already working together through the future combat air system, but the announcement of Japan joining them is striking. For decades, Japan has had an informal cap
Fewer than one in 100 defendants in the Russian court system get acquitted. Even in the best of circumstances then, Ilya Yashin’s chances looked poor. As the last of Russia’s high-profile opposition politicians who remains alive and isn’t in prison or in exile, there never was any question as to whether he was going to
Rishi Sunak’s government is trying to strike a difficult balance when it comes to discussing economic growth. On the one hand, there is broad consensus that the Liz Truss days (literally… just days) had to be dismantled to regain trust with the markets and retain the UK’s ability to keep borrowing at a stable price.
Freddy Gray talks to the Spectator’s contributing editor Chadwick Moore about the release of the so-called ‘Twitter files’ and what they reveal about the extent of censorship and coverup before, during and after the 2020 election campaign. Chadwick Moore’s book ‘So You’ve Been Sent to Diversity Training’ is available now from all good retailers.
To 2 Lord North Street, SW1, home of the Institute of Economic Affairs. Once it was the likes of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng that were feted here, but last night there was a new queen in town. Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House, swept in with all her magnificent curls, to be the
After a quiet swap in the United Arab Emirates, the American basketball star Brittney Griner is out of a Russian prison while the Russian arms dealer and presumed intelligence asset Viktor Bout is out of a US one. A little glimmer of humanity amidst Cold War 2.0, or a dangerous hostage exchange with Moscow getting
Rishi Sunak is getting tough. Goaded by Labour’s systematic painting of him as ‘weak’, the Prime Minister has threatened ‘unreasonable union leaders’ that if they do not call off their Christmas strikes, he will introduce new restrictions on their ability to take industrial action. The desire to be ‘tough’ with trade unions is one of
Rowan Williams used his Reith lecture on religious liberty to make a plea to religious believers: don’t be afraid of being an awkward misfit. The former Archbishop of Canterbury called on believers to challenge the social consensus – even on contentious issues like gay marriage. His view is that religion is not a private affair,
Emmanuel Macron is confident France will beat England in Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final. In an interview with a radio station, the president of the Republic declared that he doesn’t ‘really have any doubts about the fact that we’re going to win’. Macron is not known for his lack of self-belief but for once his bravado
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A number of measures are under discussion as Christmas looks like it will be dominated by strike action. What measures will the government put in place to limit the disruption? Also on the podcast, after the first episodes of Netflix’s new series Harry and Meghan were released, could the documentary be bad for Global Britain? Katy Balls
Iran has announced the first execution of the current crop of protestors. Mohsen Shekari, who was just 23, was hanged earlier today after having been found guilty by a revolutionary tribunal of moharebeh, a crime which means ‘enmity against God’. Other protestors have been charged and convicted of crimes like fasad-fel-arz (‘corruption on Earth’) and baghy, which means ‘armed rebellion’.
For those of us who remember the miners’ strike in the 1980s it takes some getting used to the journey made by coal miners over the past 40 years: from working class heroes to climate ‘criminals’. To hear today’s reaction to the news that Michael Gove has granted permission to build Britain’s first deep coal
Is that it? For months now much ink has been spilled about the ‘explosive’ revelations promised in Harry and Meghan’s multi-million pound Netflix bonanza, a ‘tell all’ sensationalist documentary replete with truth bombs to tear the curtain back on the whole squalid royal cabal. And yet, having digested all three soporific hours of the first
No matter how heavily it snows today nothing will be as frosty as Pete Wishart’s resignation letter. The senior SNP MP has exited the front bench following the coup that replaced Ian Blackford with relative newcomer Stephen Flynn. Blackford is an ally of Nicola Sturgeon and discontent had grown in the party’s Westminster group of MPs about
The opening scenes of the eagerly anticipated – or keenly dreaded – Netflix series Harry & Meghan set out the couple’s stall. ‘This is a first-hand account of Harry & Meghan’s story, and told with never before seen personal archive… all interviews were completed by August 2022.’ This hint – that nothing was affected by
Germany is one of the world’s most successful liberal democracies. It is an unlikely place for a coup. Yet attempts to seize power – such as the far-right plot exposed by the country’s security services, that resulted in the arrest of 25 people this week – are more common in Europe than we might like
The NHS has a crisis every winter, but this year’s is on a different scale. Before a wave of strikes puts patients and care at risk, stats released by NHS England this morning show a health service already on the brink. Last month, the number of 12-hour waits in A&E departments in England exceeded 37,800,
This month, the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care published a Technical Report on the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK. The report is a long 11-chapter document describing the UK’s response and pointing out suggestions for dealing with future pandemics. The report is described as ‘independent’, but the authors are public health civil servants and
One of my most delightful sporting experiences was watching the 2018 World Cup match between England and Tunisia in a Parisian bar. My English friend and I were heavily outnumbered by Tunisians but we were made to feel welcome in a festival of dancing and singing. Even when Harry Kane scored a late winner it
Julian Knight was last night suspended as a Tory MP, following a complaint that was made to the Metropolitan Police on Wednesday evening. Details of the complaint are not yet known, with a spokesman for Chief Whip Simon Hart only confirming in a short statement that Knight no longer sits in the Commons as a
It was one of the biggest police raids modern Germany has ever seen. Early Wednesday morning, 3,000 officers, among them members of special units sent by both state and federal police forces, searched 130 properties in 11 of 16 states. They arrested 25 people on suspicion of being members or supporters of a terrorist organisation
Over the past few months, Matt Hancock has been seeking forgiveness for his rule-breaking affair during the pandemic. And the former-health-secretary-turned-reality-TV-star has been pursuing redemption in some strange places. He’s been buried six feet underground with snakes; covered in slime, frogs and spiders; and dared to ask the harshest audience these days – the public