All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Not everything has to be politicised all the time. Some things are just news. Often bad news, such as an erupting volcano or a motorway pile-up. But just occasionally there is a brilliant happening that defies all but the most obsessive hunters of snark or seekers of negative political agendas. The England women’s football team
Amid all her remarks about tax cuts, freedom and, er, Don Revie, some of Liz Truss’s comments were overlooked on Thursday evening. Speaking at the LBC hustings, the Foreign Secretary was asked by Nick Ferrari as to what she had learned from her four years at Shell. Truss paused and then replied: What I learned
Well, thank goodness for that. Just as it seemed the England’s women’s football team might be about to extend the nation’s 56 years in search of a continental football title, a glorious release courtesy of an injury time winner from Chloe Kelly broke the spell. Saving us all from yet more psychological trauma like that inflicted by Gareth
Rishi Sunak should have started his campaign offering a 4p cut to the basic rate of income tax instead of going with a Cameronesque finger-wagging ‘stability before tax cuts’ message. His pledge to cut the rate to 16p, unveiled last night, now looks like a panicked U-turn when it is in fact consistent with his
Fourteen years ago, my then boss, Matt d’Ancona sent me off to interview Gore Vidal. I’ll always be grateful to him for the opportunity. D’Ancona could have gone to meet the great man himself, but he knew I was a fan so he let me go. Is there anything hopeful in American politics then? I
Steerpike’s favourite cabinet minister is at it again. In her vindictive rage to try to avenge Boris Johnson, Nadine Dorries has turned the full force of her rage against Rishi Sunak. She’s accused him of leading a ‘ruthless coup’ against the Prime Minister, being the ‘chatty rat’ behind the lockdown leak, of ‘not working hard’,
As Russia has stepped up its military campaign in Ukraine, the crackdown at home has intensified. The Kremlin has suppressed news sources that didn’t align with its world view, squashing the country’s last remaining independent media. But even Vladimir Putin couldn’t quite plug all the gaps as the truth about the reality of his deadly
It’s a platitude that France and Britain are rivals and have been for centuries. But, since the 1904 Entente Cordiale, the rivalry is more a question of competition than conflict. Always, in the darkest hour, each sided with the other, even if post-war they didn’t fully recognise the other’s contribution. Britain congratulated itself over the
Xi Jinping has made it very clear over the years that he is determined for China to reunite with Taiwan. He has staked his legacy and his legitimacy on it. The problem for Beijing is that the polls in Taiwan continually show that only one per cent of the population is in favour of reunification
Plenty of Conservative party members won’t like this article. I apologise in advance for that: I know grammar schools are popular with the membership and my view won’t be. But bringing them back would be a serious misstep for education policy. They are a distraction from what we should be doing, they serve the wealthy
It was Depp vs Heard and Best Of Breed at Crufts rolled into one: yes, the Wagatha Christie gravy-train came to a screeching halt yesterday having taken three years and £3 million in lawyers’ fees to reach the terminus. And with it, Rebekah Vardy’s reputation as a Cool Girl hit the buffers. I was vaguely
‘Read the Bill’. That was the response I got from Nadine Dorries, the Secretary for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when I warned of the danger her beloved Online Safety Bill poses to free speech. Dorries, a firm supporter of Liz Truss’s bid for the Tory leadership, indicated on Thursday that Truss backs the Bill in
The Tory leadership races is a tale of two approaches: Liz Truss appears to be campaigning to win the party membership, but Rishi Sunak is is campaigning to win a general election. And its’ Truss’s approach that appears to be working, given YouGov’s survey of the Tory grassroots which shows her leading by 20 points.
This week has seen a dramatic development that has taken the Westminster Village by surprise: Britain suddenly has an identifiable successor to Boris Johnson. Liz Truss is going to become our third female prime minister at the start of September. What was expected by many to be a tight race between her and Rishi Sunak,
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