All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
To Doncaster, home of the horses and the Northern Research Group conference. But there was only one race on the lips of attendees at the Doncaster track today: the leadership race. To the disappointment of the assembled Tory MPs, Boris Johnson pulled out of a scheduled afternoon appearance to visit Kyiv. He was meant to
Will temperature records be broken today? You bet they will. By the end of the day you can be sure we’ll be bombarded with headlines along the lines of ‘Records tumble as Britain wilts’ – or, in the case of the Guardian, ‘Record-breaking heat heightens fears of climate crisis’. But don’t get too excited. Read
8 min listen
The calls for Indyref2 are coming thick and fast from the SNP leader this week with a plan for a monthly speech to express the benefits of Scotland leaving the UK. But would allowing a referendum now be better than resisting one? Newer generations of Scots tend to be more nationalist than their elders. Should
The photo said it all. Zelensky’s face when embraced by Macron summed up how Ukrainians saw yesterday’s visit from the leaders of France, Italy and Germany – the Ukrainian media reaction today has varied from scepticism to ridicule. They had arrived to say that Ukraine should be given EU ‘candidate status’ – a goal that
What is a woman? A question like this might seem like a strange premise for a 90-minute documentary. But we live in unusual times when primary school children can answer a question our leading politicians struggle to get to grips with. Matt Walsh’s film shows that ordinary people are often baffled too. His interviewees responded with confusion, obfuscation
In the French presidential elections, and now in the legislatives that will close on Sunday evening, the one issue kept under the carpet is finance. Neither the centrist Macronista grouping ‘Ensemble!’, nor the far-left Corbynista-like Nupes coalition of Jean-Luc Mélenchon has updated the electorate on how their manifestos are to be funded. And yet over
Boris Johnson has never been one of nature’s diplomats. Unconventional, irreverent, Brexit-backing and norm-defying, the blonde bombshell’s two-year tenure at the Foreign Office is now remembered as one of the less happy periods of his political life. Still, even cynical veterans of the ambassadorial circuit were left unimpressed with the Prime Minister’s performance at the
Bishops are in the news at the moment. They have outraged No. 10 with their opposition to the policy of deporting potential asylum seekers and other migrants to Rwanda. Government ministers are said to be muttering darkly about evicting the Bishops from the House of Lords, effectively disestablishing the Church of England in revenge. This
For the past two years Sir Keir Starmer has done his damnedest to distance Labour from the Jeremy Corbyn years. He’s stripped his predecessor of the whip, purged his party of many of his supporters and shifted Labour policy across a swathe of issues. Starmer even mocked Boris Johnson at the despatch box this week
The Bank of England has just raised interest rates for the fifth time in the row, warning that inflation is expected to pass 11 per cent by the end of this year. If it had escaped your notice, everything is getting more expensive, and the government is powerless to help. The extent of the Bank’s
10 min listen
Lord Geidt became the second ethics advisor to leave Boris Johnson’s government last night. It seems like Chinese steel tariffs was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it is clear that he hasn’t been happy in the position for sometime. Will the Prime Minister be able to find anyone to pick up this
For countries bordering Russia, Putin’s war on Ukraine raises a disturbing question: might they be next? A bill put forward to the Duma’s lower house on June 8 suggests Lithuania is in the country’s sights. If passed, the proposal by MP Evgeniy Fedorov could see Russia potentially try to lay claim to Lithuania’s territory. Bonkers
To nobody’s surprise, the Bank of England has hiked its base rate, and, equally unsurprisingly, it has chosen to do so by a relatively modest 0.25 per cent, bringing rates to 1.25 per cent. In 25 years of its existence, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has never raised rates by more than 0.25 per cent
The explosion in new TV channels hasn’t been good news for all broadcasters but it’s certainly benefited one group of people: media-loving MPs. The register of MPs’ interests has today been published and the contrast in hourly pay between different right honourable members makes for fascinating reading. David Lammy, for instance, has made more than
Over twelve hours after Lord Geidt resigned from government, Downing Street has published his resignation letter. In his letter tendering his resignation as the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on minister’s interests, Geidt raises his concerns over partygate – noting how he ‘alluded’ to his ‘frustration’ previously – namely over Johnson’s failure to make any public
The NHS crisis continues, with a set of data today showing that the extra cash invested by the Tories is not translating into progress. Those waiting 52 weeks for an operation climbed 5 per cent to 323,000. This is worse than the NHS worst-case scenario leaked to The Spectator and published on our NHS data
I was born in the USSR in 1978 and was just becoming a teenager as the Soviet Union fell. For a schoolboy this was heady stuff. There was no more talk of ‘Good Old Lenin’ in class, and literature and history sessions suddenly became interesting. For the first time, we openly discussed the Stalinist Terror
Boris Johnson has lost his second ethics advisor since entering No. 10. This evening Lord Geidt announced his resignation as the Prime Ministers’s independent adviser on ministers’ interests: ‘With regret, I feel that it is right that I am resigning from my post as Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests.’ It’s clearly not good news, yet
There are many reasons to oppose Boris Johnson’s government’s policy of removing migrants to Rwanda. There’s certainly a moral case against this asylum policy, one which the Church of England’s bishops have presented with some force; and there could be a legal case which the Supreme Court will consider in July. But given the lack of achievements
How long does Putin have left? Combined with rumours of ill-health, Putin’s disastrous military campaign in Ukraine has led many to question how long he will cling to power. According to the Russian-Latvian independent news platform Meduza, ministers and oligarchs alike are unhappy at the scale of sanctions and the slow and uncertain progress of
First it was drugs, then it was the press. Now Lindsay Hoyle and the grandees on the House of Commons Commission have turned their guns on the demon drink in a bid to restore parliament’s reputation. They are seeking to end the age-old tradition of ‘Thirsty Thursdays’ in the Palace of Westminster, whereby staff enjoy
Last week, Sir Keir was monstered by his critics after a feeble performance at PMQs saw him he fail to trouble a wounded Boris. Even his closest allies were in despair. ‘Put some more welly into it,’ advised his deputy Angela Rayner. Today we saw Sir Keir transformed and unleashed. He was flinging wellies in
More than three months on, the ramifications from Putin’s invasion are still being felt across the globe. Sanctions, protests, boycotts – couldn’t happen to a nicer despot. One minor consequence in England though has been the demise of Coventry council’s twin city relationship with Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad. The Labour-run authority temporarily cut ties with
Last night’s abrupt order from the European Court of Human Rights that led to the grounding of the first Rwanda deportation flight delighted progressives everywhere. They will of course say – rather in the fashion of twentieth-century home secretaries calmly refusing to reprieve a condemned murderer – that the law is merely taking its course,
11 min listen
The first flight taking asylum seekers to Rwanda was stalled just before takeoff after a late intervention from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). As Priti Patel returned to the Commons to defend the policy, many Tory MPs are furious at the prospect of the courts taking precedent over government legislation. Could this lead
Keir Starmer has of late come under pressure from his shadow cabinet to, in their words, stop ‘boring everyone to death’. In response, the Labour leader has told his colleagues that really ‘what’s boring is being in opposition’. However, the comments appear to have got under his skin. At today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Starmer was
Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against the Russian invasion has surprised almost everyone outside the country, none more so, presumably, than Vladimir Putin. As for the West’s efforts to harm Russia through sanctions on its fossil fuel exports, that is a very different matter. Sanctions have not been entirely useless. According to a report by
Carole Cadwalladr’s victory over Arron Banks is a triumph for free speech that has come at a cost no free society should bear. For the courts to rule on a passing remark she made in a 2019 TED talk and a tweet about the Leave.EU tycoon, who gave the pro-Brexit campaign the largest donation in British
Don’t bring a bottle. Your chances of finding a party in full swing down those chilly corridors are close to zero. At most, you might hear the sound of a distant flute playing a courante by Lully. As Sir Howard Davies puts it in this insider’s view, which manages to be both authoritative and quite
Oh dear. It seems that starting an unprovoked war is not the best way to inspire foreign investment in your country. For 25 years, the Kremlin has touted the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) as Russia’s equivalent of the World Economic Forum, using the summit to try to attract the forces of capital. But
Is it a fatal handicap for a politician to be dull? Since he became Labour leader two years ago, there has been a growing feeling that Sir Keir Starmer not only lacks the magical ‘X Factor’ that makes for political success, but is in proud possession of its polar opposite – what might be called
Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, what’s goin’ on ‘ere, then? Boris Johnson might have shrugged off partygate but Sir Keir Starmer is not so lucky. The investigation by Durham police into whether the Labour leader and his deputy broke lockdown restrictions in April 2021 is still ongoing, with no end date yet announced. Sir Keir has pledged to quit if