All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The revolving door in No/ 10 seems to turn even faster these days, given the news that Downing Street will shortly be greeting its fourth director of communications in eight months. Amber de Botton will be next to sip from what has become widely regarded as a poisoned chalice, following the departure of Adam Jones,
The First Minister could not have been clearer. Asked about the possibility of Scotland joining the euro, she said Scotland ‘would not qualify’. ‘I don’t think it is the right option for Scotland,’ she added. The question was put to her earlier this month at a press conference where she presented her new paper on
British households could save £400 a year if we left the clocks alone this weekend instead of putting them back an hour, according to Professor Aoife Foley, an energy expert at Queen’s University Belfast. The logic is simple. We use a lot more electricity in the evening than in the morning. That is why daylight
This week, on BBC radio, I made a confession: I am a denier. Not a climate-change denier – an apocalypse denier. I thought it was a clever point – to distinguish between my acceptance that climate change is happening and my scepticism that it will imminently bring about the fiery destruction of Earth. Apparently not.
Renata is a young paediatrician from St Petersburg who, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, keeps crying at work. Her colleagues are baffled: why is she sobbing over Ukrainian deaths when she doesn’t have relatives there? She’s surrounded, she says, by ‘complete incomprehension’ from her fellow-doctors, ‘and I’m quietly going insane.’ Her mother Vinera, a school
There is a sweet spot for party leaders in which two key conditions are fulfilled. First, the leader’s party is ahead in the polls. Secondly, the leader is more popular than the party. At the end of his first week in office, Rishi Sunak can at least be content that the latter of these conditions
There isn’t much that unites the fractious, dysfunctional football family. But in the UK, at least, there is something most fans seem to agree on: VAR – Video Assistant Referee – is awful. The technology, introduced to limit errors and controversy, appears to be having the opposite effect. Critics speak of VAR as if it were
When Liz Truss’s premiership came to an abrupt end, it appeared to spell doom for a historic policy shift raised in her leadership campaign. In a break from a widely held but diplomatically fruitless consensus, Truss stood on a platform of reviewing the location of the British embassy in Israel. That legation is still based
It’s finally happened. After months of legal wrangling, Twitter has fallen. All hail King Elon; the ‘bird is freed’. The executives running the show have been defenestrated, including CEO Parag Agrawal and head of safety Vijaya Gadda. Around the virtual watering hole, skittish packs of activists watch nervously as the ground shakes; Donald Trump, the
He’s had his money worries in the past, but life seems to be pretty sweet for Nigel Farage right now. Less than eighteen months after announcing his retirement from frontline politics – claiming there was ‘no money’ in it – Farage’s fortunes seem to be on the up. Newly published accounts for his company, Thorn
Rishi Sunak deserves one of those ‘climate champion’ badges they hand out at primary schools. Why? Because he is not going to fly to the COP27 summit in Egypt – thereby saving 1.65 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to the World Land Trust’s carbon calculator. So what if Ed Miliband thinks it is a failure
If there is one thing we have learnt since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February, it is that very little he says bears any relation to the truth. For nearly a year, the Russian President has been constructing his own house of mirrors: his rhetoric gives no indication of what is fact or fiction, bluff
When Rishi Sunak entered No. 10 on Tuesday, he paid lip service to the aims of his predecessor. Liz Truss ‘was not wrong to want to improve growth in this country’, he said outside Downing Street. But ‘mistakes were made’ which is why he was installed as Prime Minister: to fix the economic fiasco that
For the past month, Russian soldiers have been gathering in Belarus. Thousands of conscripts are assembling. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Russia’s war effort goes from bad to worse: Kyiv’s forces are continuing to advance in Kherson. Does Putin think the build-up of forces in Belarus can help him turn the tide in his war? So far, Belarus’s
One in four Italians who voted at last month’s election backed Giorgia Meloni’s conservative Brothers of Italy party – that is 7,302,517 men and women. Second in the general election was the centre-left Democratic party with 5,356,180 votes with 19 per cent. In other words, Meloni’s victory was resounding. Coming as it did after the brief premiership
Fire up the engine, the clickbait machine has gone into overdrive. Mr S doesn’t spend much of his time watching America’s Daily Show for obvious reasons: life is short and sermons are best delivered on a Sunday. Yet, stumbling across Monday’s episode of the late-night satirical programme, Steerpike couldn’t help but reflect on the sheer
Ash Regan’s decision to resign as Nicola Sturgeon’s community safety minister will not have been taken lightly. The Scottish parliament has today passed stage one of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, legislation championed by Sturgeon which will make it easier to access a gender recognition certificate, remove medical experts from the process and lower the
Rishi Sunak told the Tories to ‘unite or die’ as he took office this week. Some of his party colleagues appear to be pursuing the latter option. It hasn’t taken long for Conservative MPs to resume the civil war that has brought the party to its current parlous and deeply divided state. First came an
The title of Prince Harry’s long-awaited memoir will be enough to make the royal family nervous. Spare, which was originally due out this year, will be released in January. ‘His Words. His Story,’ the tag-line of the book promises. The Queen’s death this year – and the coming together of the Royals in their shared
Given the swift defenestration of his predecessor after her mini-Budget panicked the markets, it is not surprising that Rishi Sunak has delayed the Treasury’s autumn statement until 17 November. No set of fiscal plans will satisfy everyone, but markets and public opinion do seem to be especially sensitive to changes in fiscal policy at present.
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Rishi Sunak faced up against Keir Starmer in his first Prime Minister’s Questions today, and rallied the Conservative backbenches to a more enthusiastic mood than has been seen in, perhaps, months. Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about the attack lines that Labour are trying out at the moment (on everything from
Inflation, asserted Rishi Sunak in his first PMQs, makes us all poorer. That is not entirely true – people relying entirely on the state pension, for example, will be fully compensated for this year’s high inflation, and no doubt some of Sunak’s former colleagues in the hedge fund industry have found a way to profit,
The Prime Minister has an Asian background. You wouldn’t know that if you listened to the Tories at PMQs because none of them thought it a big deal – not even Rishi himself. But Sir Keir Starmer instantly used the issue to scold the rest of mankind. ‘Britain is a place where people of all races
I occasionally get sent articles from the ‘London Correspondent of the Papua New Guinea Courier’ – less often, now that most people have realised that it is a satirical blog, not an actual newspaper. The articles are a droll extension of the gag – and it’s a good gag – of describing British politics using
What do you do when you are a prime minister presiding over a desperately difficult economic outlook riddled with features that are all but intractable in the short-term? Well, in Rishi Sunak’s case, you find other issues that might persuade people to vote for your party and convincing message-carriers to hammer home the approach you
Rishi Sunak vs Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions today was spicier than many had expected. Both men enjoyed themselves, and though the new Prime Minister has barely had any time to prepare, he was assured and fluent. The session started with the Labour leader marking the appointment of the first Asian British Prime Minister,
What a first day. Just 24 hours after walking up Downing Street to enter that famous black door, Rishi Sunak was taking to the despatch box for his debut at Prime Ministers’ Questions. In an entertaining and highly-energetic exchange, the new leader signalled his willingness to make a break with the past, telling the Commons
The chorus of execration that met the appointment of Rishi Sunak as PM has been music to Steerpike’s ears. There are few things more delicious than the right-on indulging in yet another collective meltdown at the sheer audacity of a non-white politician who doesn’t conform to their views. After years of tedious games about identity politics,
The date of the fiscal statement has changed again. The Treasury has announced that the update – now being billed as an ‘Autumn Statement’ – will be pushed back from 31 October to 17 November, just six days earlier than the original date planned by Kwasi Kwarteng. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the delay means it will be based
‘Handsome, rich, lucky, traitor.’ That’s how the Russian broadsheet newspaper Kommersant chose to describe the new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak after he launched his leadership bid. In a biographical article charting his rise to power, the paper covers his childhood attending Winchester College – the ‘most important event of his life’ apparently – moving through
After Rishi Sunak completed his new look cabinet on Tuesday night, a Downing Street source declared that the shake-up of the front bench ‘brings the talents of the party together’. The hope in No. 10 is that by keeping supporters of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss in senior roles, Sunak will stand a better chance
The recent chaos in the UK has both helped and hindered the SNP. It is easier to argue for separation if Britain is poorly led and in an economic crisis. But it’s also easy to see why even the most ardent Scottish nationalist might decide to wait for calmer times before deciding to put an
Britons live, we are constantly told, in unprecedented times. Rishi Sunak has become the first person of Asian heritage to be appointed Prime Minister and the third occupant of No. 10 in as many months. Thanks to Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine war, the economy is in turmoil while the trade unions are more assertive
