All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
What help will Liz Truss provide households and businesses with the coming cost-of-living crisis? That’s the question the frontrunner of the Tory leadership was pressed on as the Foreign Secretary appeared on the BBC’s inaugural Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show. After ducking out of a planned interview earlier this week with Nick Robinson, Truss once
Much of the cost of running our universities and other centres of higher education is borne by government, meaning the taxpayer. Therefore, to reciprocate, one of the main responsibilities of these institutions should be to produce graduates who meet the needs of society. This is not to suggest that we should exclude the ‘follow your
The UK economy has so far held up reasonably well in the face of the rise in energy prices. But the latest data suggest a weakening has begun and the economy faces an enormous potential further shock. For households, the latest price cap announcement means a rise in energy bills of around 80 per cent
A paradox about Mikhail Gorbachev for my generation of Russians – I was seven years old when he became general secretary in 1985 – is that he will be remembered as both liberal and killjoy, an uneasy combination that left him at times making enemies in all directions. The first is easy enough to understand.
Poland commemorated the 83rd anniversary of its invasion by Nazi Germany this week. To mark the occasion the leader of the country’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jarosław Kaczyński, announced that Poland was once again seeking reparations for the invasion from Germany. Speaking from the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Kaczyński unveiled a report which
The Tory party is very good at pointing out — and profiting from — how the Labour party often values ideology over power, making the choice to eschew government for comfort zone politics. Liz Truss herself, who, bar some catastrophe, will be announced as the new Tory leader tomorrow, once made this point rather bluntly at
If you went to Doha this summer, you may have seen some militiamen from Chad. Perhaps at breakfast. For the last few months, 300 downtrodden tribesman, disaffected politicians, and madmen with guns have been staying in the city’s Sheraton Grand hotel, negotiating peace with the Chadian government. Three weeks ago they signed a ceasefire and
Liz Truss’s statement that she would never authorise another lockdown and The Spectator’s interview with Rishi Sunak have triggered a new debate about whether the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 were justified. The most widely discussed positions are that lockdown occurred too late or that there should never have been any lockdowns at all, alongside
We are living through an energy crisis unlike anything since the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979. The average household energy bill is set to reach over £3,500 a year. Businesses are already going bankrupt as they face ruinous costs. And inflation, driven in part by high energy prices, is expected to hit 10 per
Boris Johnson has recently employed the services of the lawyer Lord Pannick, who has given his legal opinion on a House of Commons investigation into Boris Johnson’s partygate comments. The advice has been published here by the government. It seems to have cost £129,000, which is not expensive, believe it or not, by market rates
Rishi Sunak’s interview in last week’s magazine has inspired a lot of comment. Two this week: Lee Cain, ex-No. 10 spin chief, in The Spectator and Robert Shrimsley in the Financial Times, warns about the promotion of betrayal ‘lockdown fables’ promoted by ‘mythmakers’ and ‘lockdown sceptics trying to rewrite history’. He and I discussed this
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James Forsyth speaks to Anthony Seldon, historian and biographer, about how the incoming PM can make their mark before the next general election.
France is at war again, or as good as, according to Emmanuel Manuel’s recent rhetoric. This time the enemy is Russia, which at least is a more tangible adversary than Covid, on which the French president declared ‘war’ in March 2020. Most of the Republic believed him and submitted to one of the most draconian
Few will be minded to believe Russia’s explanation for cutting off Nord Stream 1 pipeline – that it is a maintenance issue – and I don’t suspect we are expected to believe it, either – any more than we were expected to believe that the would-be Salisbury assassins had an interest in cathedral spires. It
In early January 1997, I met my boyhood hero. It was in the grounds of his wintry dacha outside Moscow. A man in late middle age, though still sprightly, he wore a padded anorak against the cold and a dark patterned scarf. Snow lay fat on the bony branches, with more softly falling. His boots
The Ukrainian armed forces launched a long–awaited offensive on Kherson this week. However, the counter-offensive was signalled for so long by both Ukrainian and western sources that the Russian army had plenty of time to significantly reinforce its positions there, meaning that the Kherson front is now more heavily manned by Russian troops than most
Readers must understand how the jargon of political chicanery has corrupted journalism if they are to make sense of the coming Truss premiership. Unless you grasp the slippery, new meaning of ‘pivot,’ media coverage will leave you clueless. To give you a taste of what is to come try this sentence from the Politico website.
In the historic heart of Riga, Latvia’s lively capital, there is a building that reveals why the Baltic States remain so wary of the Russian Bear. From the street, it doesn’t look like much – just another apartment block on a busy boulevard full of shops and cafes. Only the discreet sign outside gives the
16 min listen
Boris Johnson has released legal advice that he received from Lord Pannick about the Commons investigation into partygate, where the lawyer said the investigation in its current form would be ‘unlawful’ if it were taking place in the courts. Can Boris really get off the hook? Max Jeffery speaks to James Forsyth and James Heale.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse – Extinction Rebellion are back! Well, if you thought an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis, fuelled by a global scramble for gas, would have led the eco-irritants to sit things out for a bit, you don’t know XR. For them, the ‘climate emergency’ trumps all. Plus, reading a
Crime is on the rise in London but spare a thought for the real victim in all of this: Cressida Dick. The former Metropolitan Police Commissioner quit her post in February after a string of scandals on her watch. But an independent report has today claimed that she ‘felt intimidated’ into resigning after an ultimatum
The new prime minister has not been announced yet, but Lord Marland – an ally of Boris Johnson – has already been on Newsnight to talk about the ‘distinct possibility’ of him having another run at the top job – after taking some time to ‘put hay in the loft’, in other words to build
There’s very much an end of days feel in SW1 right now. With parliament in recess and a Truss coronation imminent, many of Boris Johnson’s ancien régime are making the most of their final week in office, attending endless leaving drinks and working out which consultancy they want to jump to next. But in the watering
France is home to roughly half-a-million Jews. The country’s Jewish community is the largest in Europe, and the third largest in the world behind Israel and the United States. You might assume then that Jewish life in France is flourishing. But you’d be wrong. Over the weekend, news broke of the murder of Eyal Haddad, a
Whoever wins the Tory leadership on Monday will face a mountain of problems from day one. War, inflation, spiralling costs and a mutinous party: the in-tray will be veritably groaning. One issue that won’t perhaps be at the top of the list will be the future of the Prime Ministerial TikTok account: 10downingstreet. Officials have
How do you solve a problem like Jean-Marie? That is dilemma facing Marine Le Pen as her National Rally party prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of its creation next month. The party has evolved a great deal in that time, especially in the decade since Le Pen succeeded her father, Jean-Marie, as leader of
In my travels when I was still persona grata in Russia, I never got the sense that their windows were unduly flimsy or inviting. Nonetheless, the tally of Russians and Russian-connected individuals who have met their end by jumping or falling out of windows is such that it has become a rather tacky and tasteless
In Britain, the damage of lockdown was easily covered up by grade inflation: with 45 per cent of A Level students being given A or A*. In the United States, there are large-scale independent studies published today. It’s pretty devastating. Educational performance scores for nine-year-olds have fallen to levels last seen in 1999: so two
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Freddy Gray speaks to Julia Yost about her recent New York Times column, ‘New York’s Hottest Club Is the Catholic Church’.
Boris Johnson’s last set piece speech today was typical him. There were references to Ladybird books, attempts to blame the last Labour government, not much detail but lots of optimism about how things are about to get better. Johnson has so dominated British politics these past few years that it is hard to imagine it
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Despite a relatively quiet summer from the government, Boris Johnson has waded finally waded into the energy crisis, announcing £700 million of funding for Sizewell C, the nuclear plant. On the podcast, Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman about what’s behind this development (and whether it could be anything to do with
