All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
It’s been an eventful few weeks for Liz Truss. Our new Prime Minister has faced a baptism of fire not seen since by an incoming premier since Churchill and the fall of France in 1940. War, inflation, a-cost-of-living crisis and the death of the Queen: so much for a honeymoon. Still, Her Majesty’s passing has
The below is an edited transcript of David Petraeus’s interview with CNN’s Jim Sciutto. On the war’s momentum: It has fundamentally shifted, and I’m normally fairly guarded and cautious about this, but the tide clearly has turned because the success of this offensive, as important as it is itself on the ground, is that it
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Cindy Yu, James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson discuss the impression Queen Elizabeth II made during her 70 years as a head of state.
It is hard to keep count of the German orthodoxies that have died a long overdue death on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. Annäherung durch Handel, the claim that government lobbying for German industry in Moscow and Beijing would moderate those capitals by tying them to our trade interests. That didn’t work. Building a gas
What ridiculous figures we republicans must seem on the eve of Elizabeth II’s funeral. We sound like desiccated rationalists who cannot understand that emotion, not reason, makes people identify with their country. Instead of joining in shared celebrations and mourning, we ask carping questions about the transparency of royal finances or the basic failure of
Tony Radakin – Putin’s war is a ‘strategic failure’ With the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II taking place tomorrow, it is no surprise that warm words and condolences have taken up so much of the airwaves since her death was announced ten days ago. However, amid the tributes, the world has continued to march on,
Juan Carlos, Spain’s exiled former king, will be present at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in London on Monday – and the Spanish government is furious. Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez has reportedly tried to stop the ex-monarch from attending and a spokesperson for Podemos, the coalition’s junior partner, has described him as a ‘criminal on
King Charles has been respectfully silent on any plans he might have to shake up the monarchy. Courtiers have spent years reminding anyone who asks that the topic is painful to him, signalling the passing of his ‘beloved’ mother. The only concrete proposed ‘reform’ that has leaked out over the years is the suggestion that
When the Queen died, she was actually a Presbyterian. That’s because she was in residence at Balmoral, and all British monarchs change their religious identity when they arrive in Scotland. They board the Royal Train at King’s Cross as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, responsible for appointing bishops whom it teaches are successors
As an American who has spent his career contemplating and writing about the monarchy and the US-UK relationship, my skills were put to the test this week after the departure of Queen Elizabeth II. She leaves an unfillable void, not only in the hearts of those she represented but also for many of us beyond
In the run up to the Russian invasion in February airpower analysts, including this author, were gloomy about Ukraine’s ability to defend its airspace. Even the more optimistic assessments assumed that Russia would mount a significant air campaign to destroy the Ukrainian Air Force on its airbases, coupled with large-scale strikes with stand-off cruise and
A week before Russia invaded Ukraine, expectations varied considerably. The US government was certain the Russians would strike at Kyiv and seize the Ukrainian capital in 72 hours. The Russian presidential administration concurred. In Paris and Berlin, officials were briefing that Anglo-American hysteria was leading the world to another Iraq WMD moment and that the
Our energy market has not looked this bleak since the Winter of Discontent in the 1970s, a period seared into the memories even of those of us that are too young to actually remember it. For the past year, the chaos has been building, with rising gas and electricity prices, scores of failing suppliers, subsidies
At 2.30 in the afternoon on September 22, 1999, Harry Stanley left the Alexandra pub in Hackney, east London, with a blue plastic bag containing a table leg that had been repaired by his brother. Unbeknown to Stanley, someone in the pub had called the police to report ‘an Irishman with a gun wrapped in
Anyone still in any doubt about the lengths to which Queen Elizabeth II was prepared to go in the line of duty might consider the hideous company the role at times foisted on her. In 1991, she had to clink glasses with Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, and 20 years earlier had dined with Ugandan despot
Our new king is not, by normal standards, an important intellectual. But it would be churlish to dismiss his thinking as insignificant. Normal standards do not apply to a man who has spent his life earnestly preparing for a grand mythical role. Some princes have little trouble ignoring the religious aspects of monarchy, instead getting
In February 2020, I was invited on to the BBC’s The Big Questions to debate the topic: ‘Is wokeness the new religion?’ I had already anticipated that mine would be the unfashionable view, and so I steeled myself in advance for the inevitable onslaught. This being a British daytime television show, the onslaught took the
Since becoming the Tory leadership favourite early last month, Liz Truss is used to all sorts of people coming out of the woodwork. Old friends, former allies and even the odd foe have been very keen to share their opinions on Truss, the onetime Lib Dem radical turned Brexit-backing cabinet mainstay. But one person who
The awful news that two police officers were stabbed in London this morning is an example of the challenges facing the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley. As I say in the Times today, he must deal with low morale in the Met, a lack of public confidence in the force and a rising sense
The queue snakes for miles along the South Bank. Thousands of ordinary people are giving up hours of their time to spend a moment with the Queen’s coffin as it lies in state. Few mourners are dressed up. One or two wear suits and black ties. Some carry flowers. There’s the odd veteran with his
Homosexuality was legalised in England and Wales 55 years ago. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 permitted homosexual acts between two consenting adults over the age of 21. Arguably that – and subsequent liberalisations – really only benefited men; sex acts between women were never criminalised. But what does it mean to be a lesbian in
Should we despair that the pound has slumped again today, falling below $1.14 for the first time since 1985? Or should we rejoice? It was, after all, a collapse in the pound following Black Wednesday in 1992 – along with dramatically lowered interest rates — which precipitated a lasting economic recovery. It is all too
The world is facing the prospect of its first nuclear attack since the US Air Force dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Yet that horror arouses little fear or outrage. The possibility that a cornered Putin will use ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons to punish Ukraine for humiliating the Kremlin remains a nightmare
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Two police officers were stabbed this morning near Leicester Square in central London. What can new Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley do to fix the capital’s crime epidemic? And the pound today fell to a 37-year low against the dollar. What can the government do to give the markets confidence? Max Jeffery speaks to Fraser
To say that Vladimir Putin is giving autocracy a bad name is rather to state the obvious. But it now appears to have dawned even on his ‘old friend’ Xi Jinping that Russian incompetence and cruelty in Ukraine is undermining their joint ambition to re-write the international order. Putin’s admission that Beijing might have ‘concerns’
Politics is a cruel business. One minute the gods are shining brightly on you, the next, you’re consigned to the barren wilderness. And few know that better than Liz Truss, our northern Premier with a Sicilian bent. For Truss, The Godfather appears to be less a film than an instruction manual, judging by the nature
First, it was a flagpole. Back in 1997, inside the Windsor bubble based at Balmoral – where the priority was two princes whose mother had just died – it made complete and utter sense for no flag to fly at Buckingham Palace. Protocol dictated one didn’t have the Union Jack at half-mast at the institution’s
My enemy’s enemy is my friend. This ancient proverb partly describes the EU’s fast developing relationship with Muslim Azerbaijan, a Turkic country whose forever enemy is neighbouring Christian Armenia which is militarily supported by Russia. And natural gas is the crux of this unnatural alignment. On 18 July the EU gleefully announced that by 2027
Unlike some Americans, China’s communists have no problem getting their heads around hereditary monarchy. Last week, President Xi sent his condolences to the United Kingdom. Now, he’s sending one of his most trusted deputies to pay respects at the Queen’s funeral. China has called off its wolf warriors, its diplomatic ideologues known for berating the West. Beijing
P.G. Wodehouse once wrote that ‘it is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.’ Much the same might be said of Prince Harry, whose ability to bear grudges – and to make it clear, publicly, why he is doing so – has been displayed with remarkable consistency
Montpellier Last month the Prime Minister of France, Elisabeth Borne, visited the south-west of the country to offer her support to firefighters tackling a series of large forest fires. It was also a good opportunity to broach a subject close to her heart. ‘More than ever,’ she warned, ‘we must continue to fight against climate
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has become a towering figure in European politics over the past 12 years thanks to his promotion of ‘Christian democracy’ as an alternative to western liberalism, which he claims has lost its way. But a change to abortion laws introduced by the Hungarian government this week may indicate an alarming
The Wagner Group thrives in the shadows, but now its founder has been caught on camera: recruiting prisoners from a Russian penal colony for the war in Ukraine. In the video, Yevgeniy Prigozhin paces about a large group of prisoners, giving them the hard sell on joining the Russian war effort. He offers them a
