All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Kwasi Kwarteng is clearly right about one thing in his interview with Talk TV: his departure hastened the end of Liz Truss’s premiership. Sacking a Chancellor is a dramatic, and risky, move for a Prime Minister at the best of times. But when the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are known to have been in
Scotland is witnessing a concerning uptick in ‘avoidable’ deaths. With an increase of 4 per cent on the previous year, there were almost 18,000 preventable deaths in Scotland in 2021. As the rising pressures on the NHS continue to expose cracks, this week’s report on avoidable mortality from the National Records of Scotland does little
The only large Ukrainian city Russia has been able to capture since February’s invasion – Kherson – has now been liberated. But something else extraordinary happened: Russian reports emerged of thousands of troops being left on the right bank of the Dnipro river after the occupiers blew up the mile-long Antonivsky bridge. Moscow flatly denies this, saying:
As a child in the 1960s, all I wanted to do was get to London: to be rich and famous, yes, but also to go on demos. As I watched the attractive young adults having seven bells knocked out of them by the boys in blue for protesting outside the American embassy against the Vietnam
Every Remembrance Day, the anti-poppy naysayers pop up to criticise those who commemorate our war dead. As a former soldier, you might think you can guess my view on these people. But, in fact, I do have some sympathy with those who are uncomfortable about the way we mark 11 November. Some years ago, shortly
Westminster tuned in last night for another episode of I’m a Celebrity. There’s no winner yet but one obvious loser, as this year’s subplot appears to be Matt Hancock versus everyone else. Having been mocked on the first night for his Covid record, attention has now moved on to the reason why Hancock had to
Is the inflationary spike past its peak? That is the obvious reaction to the news that US inflation fell to 7.7 per cent in October, down from 8.2 per cent in September and significantly lower than the 8.0 per cent that markets had been expecting. Clearly, inflation remains high, but US inflation is now lower
September was always going to be a tough month for economic growth. The additional bank holiday added for the Queen’s funeral, combined with much displaced activity for the days around it, created a consensus amongst economists that we’d see economic contraction that month. And indeed, we have. New figures published by the Office for National
The Russian evacuation of Kherson is now well underway, leaving an expected trail of destruction in its wake. Russian soldiers are publishing bitter videos as they retreat, with one saying that ‘defending the city with these supplies would be complete madness’ and another adding ‘I hope we will return’. Local reports say fleeing Russians are
Relations between London and Brussels haven’t always been cordial in recent years. But red-faced staff in Whitehall’s Foreign Office will be grateful for local police in the Belgian capital after they recovered a collection of stolen historic paintings that were stolen from the British Ambassador to Nato’s official residence. Four pieces of art that belong
18 min listen
For the first time in history, nurses have voted to go on strike. As the NHS grapples with record wait lists and excess deaths, how will it cope this winter? Also on the podcast, James and Isabel discuss the ongoing situation in Northern Ireland. And how will Matt Hancock fare in the jungle? Natasha Feroze
‘Mr Hancock, I presume?’ was the reaction our former Health Secretary presumably hoped to elicit upon entering the jungle last night. Unfortunately, it was a wall of hysterical laughter which met him instead as comedian Seann Walsh as the comedian doubled up in hysterics at the sight of Hancock tottering his way across the rope
In Northern Ireland, the dead are being eradicated. This week marks the 35th anniversary of the IRA bombing of a remembrance service in my hometown Enniskillen. In an attack so barbarous it was condemned at the time by the Kremlin, a bomb planted the night before slaughtered 12 of my neighbours standing around the town’s cenotaph.
Last month, the number of twelve-hour waits in A&E departments in England exceeded 40,000 for the first time ever – an increase of 11,000 in one month. Waiting lists for consultant-led treatment have grown by some 70,000 patients, having passed seven million in September. Ambulance response times, too, are back up over an hour on
Donald Trump is done for. Trumpism too. That’s the main takeaway of the Midterms. Many of the candidates Trump backed performed badly and Trump’s own incessant meddling in the Republican campaign seems to have turned voters off. That curious, manic, sometimes amusing little epoch in modern Western politics – the Trump era – is over.
As the dust settles after the recent reshuffle, those lucky politicians who survived the Sunak cull will be engaged in self-congratulation and reconciling themselves with the new regime. For some, there is high office, with all its fruits and delights: for others there is disappointment, dismay and the consolation prize of a sinecure. How, for
Focus on Syria has dwindled since the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But over a decade after the country’s bloody civil war first started, the conflict rumbles on. Armed groups continue to jockey for position. The death toll, caused by Russia’s air force, Iran’s militias, and Bashar al-Assad’s forces, continues to rise. To keep the
It seems these days that the blessed Starmer can do no wrong. Cruising in the polls, fêted by his party, the Labour leader has become the toast of the media with election victory now seeming assured. But is Sir Keir all that he appears? The Labour leader opted to lead on the allegations against Gavin
Overnight President Biden announced that he intends to run again for the White House in 2024 and beat Donald Trump in a rematch of their 2020 contest. This would be funny if it wasn’t a tragedy for both the US and the wider world. We thus have the prospect of a man who will be
Amid all the frenetic changes of leadership in the Conservative party, something important has been overlooked about the Labour party: it also has a new leader. Outwardly nothing has changed. Keir Starmer – he of the slicked-back hair and strangulated vowels – still stands at the despatch box at PMQs each week. But he has
Almost everyone has known that the city of Kherson, stranded on the right bank of the Dnipro River, was all but indefensible. Now it looks as if the one man who, like Canute was setting himself against the tide, has finally acknowledged that: Vladimir Putin has let his generals withdraw. This could conceivably be some
In one of the biggest developments of the Ukraine war, Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has just announced the evacuation of his troops from Kherson. The city, located on the western bank of the Dnipro river, is the capital of one of the ‘oblasts’ (or regions) that Vladimir Putin recently declared to be part of Russia. Kherson
For the past fortnight, it was Suella Braverman. Now it’s Sir Gavin Williamson. The media aims to destroy two careers a month, on average, and the present quest to topple Sir Gavin has already produced a result. He’s gone. But that’s not enough. It never is. The new clamour is for the nasty knight to
11 min listen
Though Gavin Williamson has now resigned, Rishi Sunak still had to fend off a number of questions on the disgraced minister at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. How much damage has the row done to the Prime Minister? Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Cindy Yu.
I wonder if the fall of Gavin Williamson is the latest evidence that British political parties are becoming harder to govern. It seems quite possible that his resignation is part of a story that will see Rishi Sunak struggle to command Conservative MPs to accept difficult choices on tax and spending. Any upset could even
20 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to Yoram Hazony, the author of Conservatism: A Rediscovery, about the midterm results, and what happens next to national conservatism in the United States.
There was no ‘red wave’ in America last night. This became obvious fairly early on, when congressional seats the Republicans hoped to pick up in New England failed to flip. Many on the American right had made the assumption that seats won by Democrats by a few percentage points in 2020 would easily turn red.
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions showed it is possible for someone who has resigned for being a distraction to continue being so even in absentia. The first questions from Keir Starmer were all about Rishi Sunak’s appointment of Gavin Williamson and his departure. The Labour leader had good lines, while the Prime Minister was unable to
The 2022 midterm election was supposed to be a red wave. Instead, it turned out to be a night of razor-thin victories for Republicans, disappointment for many Donald Trump-backed candidates and a sigh of relief from Democrats. It was nothing approaching the wave some polling suggested. And it raises fundamental questions about the direction of
The latest series of The Crown has arrived on Netflix. To its predictable advantage, the show has already had the advance-publicity of raised voices. Ex-PM Sir John Major, commenting on a particular scene in the series between him and the then-Prince Charles, said it was a ‘barrel load of nonsense’ and would be ‘profoundly hurtful
‘As first minister I am ultimately accountable for every decision that the Scottish government takes,’ Nicola Sturgeon announced on Friday as she gave evidence to the Scottish parliament’s public audit committee. Scotland’s ferry procurement fiasco is being closely scrutinised, and the latest developments have put Sturgeon’s record under the microscope. In a performance reminiscent of her evidence
It’s the biggest issue facing British politics: what to do about parliament’s catering? An army marches on its stomach and our legion of lords and legislators is no exception. For months, Mr S has heard grumbles about standards slipping in the Commons canteen. And now, finally, we have the proof, for today parly bosses admitted
Is it a red wave? A ripple? Or a trickle? Nobody quite knows. However, what looks certain is that the Republican blow out that many right wing pundits were anticipating has not happened. Crucially, the Democrats have won the crunch Senate race in Pennsylvania. John Fetterman, the man who had a stroke just a few
