All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
You will never measure the depth of our troubles if you listen to the contenders for the Tory leadership. Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss talk as if the 21st century never happened. They cannot see how the world has changed. Like the devotees of an ancient cult, they imagine that it is possible for a
The NHS is facing the biggest crisis in its history. GP surgeries are breaking under pressure, waiting lists could top nine million by March 2024, and there’s a huge shortfall of staff. Many medics are opting to simply throw in the towel. Having recently qualified as a doctor, I can’t say I’m surprised. For junior
Five years ago, Paris was named the host city for the 2024 Olympics. How the country celebrated. No one more than its fresh-faced president Emmanuel Macron. ‘I salute this success and the tremendous opportunity that the Games represent to assist in the transformation of our country,’ he declared. Macron was speaking in a wider context,
It’s been a busy week for hangmen. In Japan, Tomohiro Kato, a 39-year-old man, was hanged at a Tokyo prison for killing seven people and injuring ten others in a 2008 murderous rampage in which he drove a truck into a crowd before stabbing several other random victims. Kato admitted his guilt and blamed his
The scientist James Lovelock died this week at the age of 103. He was best known for his Gaia theory, which found that Earth is a self-regulating system formed by the interaction between living organisms and their surroundings. Here, Bryan Appleyard, who co-wrote ‘Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence’ with Lovelock, pays tribute to his
Yesterday it was Ben Wallace who backed Liz Truss: tonight it’s Tom Tugendhat. All the big-name endorsements are coming out and at the moment there’s only one candidate they’re supporting. In a piece for the Times, Tugendhat praised Truss’s economic policies, writing that her plans to cut taxes were ‘founded on true Conservative principles.’ The
Rishi Sunak took a major risk tonight, agreeing to a one-on-one interview with Andrew Neil on Channel 4 News. As Katy Balls says on our reaction podcast, more often than not politicians come crawling out of Neil’s interviews. At best, they hope to survive them. Tonight Sunak faced the most detailed grilling on his economy
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Rishi Sunak sat down this evening for a 30-minute interview with Andrew Neil. They covered the economy, the NHS, immigration and the former chancellor’s personal finances. Sunak knew he was taking a risk in sitting down with Neil. Was it worth it? Max Jeffery speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews. Produced by Max Jeffery.
Rishi Sunak was interviewed by Andrew Neil on Channel 4 tonight. He was quizzed on inflation, the NHS backlog and more. Liz Truss, the bookies’ favourite, declined to take part in an interview with Neil. 8.50 p.m. – Did Sunak’s gamble pay off? Kate Andrews writes… Rishi Sunak took a major risk tonight, agreeing to a one-on-one interview with
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Freddy Gray is joined by Kate Andrews, The Spectator’s economics editor; and Mark Asquith, a fund manager, to discuss if the worst of America’s inflationary pressures will soon be a thing of the past.
Is the eurozone heading for another 2010-style sovereign debt crisis? Today comes the news that inflation in the eurozone hit 8.9 per cent in the year to July. Although it is a record high, it is not as quite as towering as inflation in Britain – at 9.4 per cent. However, what it does do
The Tory party needs to distinguish between the different types of blue-on-blue arguments. There is the peripheral stuff about shoes and earrings which would be no great loss to the debate if it was to end; then there are the substantive issues on which the party does need to thrash out what it thinks. The
Jamie Vardy is one of English football’s most prolific strikers. But thanks to his wife, his surname will be forever associated with one of the all-time great legal own goals. Rebekah Vardy has spectacularly lost her high-profile libel battle against Coleen Rooney in the so-called ‘Wagatha Christie’ case. It’s hard to overstate how damning today’s judgment
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Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak were in Leeds yesterday for the first of the leadership hustings in front of Tory members. Truss put in an assured performance, while Sunak had to defend his announcement that he would cut VAT on energy bills, after saying that tax cuts would be ‘immoral’. With little time left for
One of the more amusing aspects of the Tory leadership race has been various reminders of Liz Truss’s misspent youth. Whether it was leafleting for the Liberal Democrats, running for the party’s student executive or causing trouble at the university, Truss certainly had something of a political journey before opting for a conventional route into
Now it’s official: if the right-wing coalition wins Italy’s election, Giorgia Meloni will almost definitely be prime minister. Earlier this week, the three leaders of the coalition, herself, Matteo Salvini, and Silvio Berlusconi, agreed to formalise the principle that whoever’s party won the most votes would get to choose who ascends to the premiership. Meloni’s
‘Privacy’ was the reason given for Harry and Meghan upping sticks and leaving Britain in early 2020. The dilettante duke and his Hollywood beau were supposedly fleeing this sceptred isle to find sanctuary in Canada, away from the beastly British press. So it’s such an awful shame that the right-on royals keep finding themselves embroiled
Lurking in the background of the Tory leadership contest, the cost of living crisis rumbles on. With Autumn round the corner, fears over the sharp rise in the energy price cap have once again hit the headlines, inflation continues to soar and ever more people are wondering how they’re going to pay their bills. In
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former UK ambassador to Washington, has died at the age of 78. Here Tony Blair pays tribute to him: Sir Christopher Meyer was a distinguished diplomat who played an essential role building relationships for the new Labour government, first in Germany and then later with the USA. This became particularly important
Liz Truss was widely perceived to have won last night’s LBC hustings with Rishi Sunak. The Foreign Secretary impressed with her tough talk on Putin, China and defeating Labour’s Keir Starmer. And she certainly knew how to play to the Leeds crowd, making the most of her upbringing in the area and dropping in plenty
What must Africans think when they observe the shameless hypocrisy of Western leaders? In Cameroon this morning incredulity must be the prevailing emotion. Three days ago, dignitaries there were subjected to one of Emmanuel Macron’s insufferable bouts of moralising. Do not do business with Vladimir Putin, warned the French president, speaking shortly after Russia’s foreign
Henleaze, a suburb in the north of Bristol, is an unlikely place for a protest. This is a well-to-do area where the houses sit behind neatly-clipped hedges and cost over half-a-million pounds. But across the road from the local Waitrose yesterday morning, Henleaze’s library was surrounded by at least a dozen police officers and two angry groups
Tonight’s membership hustings in the Tory leadership contest showed both candidates – but particularly Liz Truss – relaxing and even enjoying themselves a fair bit. But they also underlined what the two of them feel they have to say in order to get a hearing with their selectorate. Both had to commit to more grammar
It was the endorsement that they were all after. Ben Wallace, the most popular member of Boris Johnson’s cabinet has finally named his preferred candidate to be Britain’s next Prime Minister: Liz Truss. The current Defence Secretary, who has won plaudits for his handling of the Ukraine crisis, has given an interview to the Sun
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You can always count on Labour to descend into civil war while the media is focused on the Conservative party’s in-fighting. After Keir Starmer fired a junior shadow transport minister, Sam Tarry, earlier this week for his involvement in the strike action, the left of the party has hit back, raising questions over Keir Starmer’s
There’s an almighty debate ongoing in the US about what exactly a ‘recession’ is. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said the US economy is not shrinking, saying it is in a state of ‘transition’, not recession. But in a clip from 2000 being circulated on Twitter that is comically apt, Bill Clinton said ‘a recession is two quarters
There are many reasons why what is sometimes crudely called ‘the trans issue’ is important. One is the political failure that left the legitimate views of many women (and men) ignored by decision-making individuals and bodies, who instead prioritised the views of interest groups and campaigners. Another is the multiple failures of governance that have
Asked recently whether Boris Johnson, Britain’s soon-to-be-ex-Prime Minister, would ever return to the highest elected office in the land, super-loyalist Nadine Dorries enigmatically replied: ‘Who knows what the future will hold?’ With Johnson allies reportedly looking to trade a safe Conservative seat in return for a peerage with any elderly MP hoping to secure a
Scotland has a high amount of drugs deaths. But it’s not just that. It’s that Scotland suffers drugs deaths at levels unknown anywhere else in the UK or Europe – nearly four times worse than any other country for which records exist. This scandalous figure has been updated today, showing that – although it fell one
Soaring prices have again reignited one of the long-running debates in British politics: should the energy companies be re-nationalised? The Trades Union Congress (TUC) certainly seem to think so, having produced a pithy film which purportedly compares the two sectors in the UK and France. It features a rather baffled looking Brit and a smug
When a pressure group moves from promoting the rights of a minority to trying to micromanage the behaviour of the majority, we should be worried. When large numbers of organisations in both the public and private sectors dance to the tune of that body, we should be more so. Stonewall is a case in point,
Steerpike is fond of a periodical check-in with modern Renaissance men. And they don’t come much more multi-talented than Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Mr. Meghan Markle, formerly HRH. Following his departure from official royal duties, the people’s prince has kept busy by locking himself into lucrative positions at some of the planet’s most prestigious
Some denials are more worrying than their absence. A company insisting that its director will be vindicated by the forensic auditors is unlikely to succeed in calming investors; a sports team insisting it has total confidence in its coach is likely to receive a flurry of speculative applications; and a president insisting that ‘we’re not