All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
‘You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing,’ said Winston Churchill, ‘after they have tried everything else.’ After much American talk of a ‘pivot to Asia’ and hence ‘withdrawal from the Middle East’, president Biden and his top team are visiting Israel today. From there, they will head to the heart of
Britain isn’t America. But that doesn’t stop us letting out a collective groan when we see the same loopy opinions wheeled out in complex and nuanced debates. Yesterday, the author of Critical Race Theory: A Primer, Berkeley law professor Khiara Bridges, appeared at a Senate hearing about the overturning of Roe v Wade. She gave a masterclass
At a time of a worker shortage, we are somehow managing to keep 5.3 million people on out-of-work benefits. This is too much, says Suella Braverman. My colleague Stephen Daisley fervently disagrees and in his riposte, he quotes various figures about how Britain doesn’t spend very much on welfare compared to other countries. This is precisely
This is the full text of Penny Mordaunt’s Tory leadership campaign launch: We’ve got to stave off a recession, we’ve got huge expectations to deliver on with Brexit, and we have new burdens to shoulder Over the past few days, I have been engaged in a form of speed dating with my colleagues. I’ve learnt a
Announcements from Tory leadership pretenders have been noticeably light on big ideas. But one interesting policy suggestion was floated today by the Mordaunt camp who have said that frazzled parents of toddlers should be given ‘childcare budgets’. This is likely to horrify Treasury mandarins who prefer schemes to get parents (in reality, mums) back into
Here are some statistics that ought to send a shudder through Tory MPs. Between 1995 and 2012 the French centre-right was in presidential power, first under Jacques Chirac and then the administration of Nicolas Sarkozy. The month after Sarko was elected president in 2007, his party, Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), won 313 seats
The emperor is naked. The public knows it, and they’re finally beginning to speak the obvious truth. The emperor, in this case, is President Biden. He took office with high hopes from voters and a promise to bring the country together. Those aspirations are dead. The public has lost confidence in Joe Biden – lost
There’s a particularly amusing picture from the 1997 Tory leadership contest of Ken Clarke and John Redwood awkwardly paired up under a blue sign with the words ‘Uniting to Win’ on it. Though their campaign for power was forgettable, uniting to lose against William Hague of all people, they can take solace in being an
In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Caesar says of Gaius Longinus Cassius, the chief conspirator: ‘Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look: he thinks too much. Such men are dangerous’. None of the eight Tories fighting like ferrets in a sack to succeed our own fallen Caesar, Boris Johnson, looks leaner or hungrier than the former chancellor
Whoever is chosen to lead the Conservative party will be plunged into a storm of problems needing rapid and decisive action. This will require a fresh mind, boundless energy and courage. In short, the attributes of youth. This puts Kemi Badenoch and Rishi Sunak – both 42 years of age – at an advantage. Sunak, the current frontrunner, came
Reporting from Sri Lanka over the years has left me with mixed memories. On the one hand, there’s the horror and trauma of the Easter Bombings of 2019, which claimed 269 lives. The traumatic scenes at the hospital and morgue have been hard to forget, as have the eeriness of the tourist spots after all
It seems that George Freeman has got his summer flip-flops in early. The (recently departed) science and innovation minister hasn’t had a great few weeks in the Commons recently. First, there was last month’s leadership vote in Boris Johnson in which Freeman initially refused to say which way he had voted. This was then followed
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the West was certain that its sanctions were worth the pain. But there always was a question as to whether this resolve would last once the domestic difficulties actually started. This week, western countries moved closer to admitting it might be too much to bear. At the time of the invasion
The Tory candidates have released a set of videos presenting their claim to become Britain’s next prime minister. Frontrunner Rishi Sunak has dubbed his pitch, ‘Ready for Rishi’, which sounds, unfortunately, like the cheapest option at a Hounslow massage parlour. His movie centres on his unstoppable rise to world domination. His mum was a penniless
Priti Patel is not running for the Tory leadership. The Home Secretary ruled herself out in a statement released minutes ago. Her decision not to stand makes it much more likely that Suella Braverman can get the nominations needed to get on the ballot and the 30 votes required to stay in the contest. Patel
What began as a run on a handful of provincial banks is rapidly morphing into one of China’s worst financial scandals, threatening the stability of the country’s heavily indebted financial system. It poses a serious challenge to a Communist party obsessed with social order, which has thuggishly cracked down on desperate depositors demanding their money
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Appropriately matched to the summer heatwave, the Tory leadership contest is hotting up. Whilst Grant Shapps has pulled out and decided to back Rishi Sunak, candidates must secure nominations from at least 20 MPs by this evening to enter the contest. Who will go through to the next round? And are they ready to be
Families in the United Kingdom face a moment of crisis. It is becoming harder for people to simply get by. For so many of them, there is more month than there is pay. We face danger abroad, division in our politics, an economy saddled with debt and a creeping sense of despair about our collective
Rishi Sunak has a reputation for sleek and snazzy presentation, and his leadership launch this morning was no exception – by Westminster standards, anyway. The air-conditioning was on full blast as young activists lined up with their ‘Ready For Rishi!’ signs, next to heavily branded backdrops. And the guest list was long. MPs in attendance
There were three leadership launches in Westminster this morning. Rishi Sunak, the frontrunner, spoke at the QEII Centre; Kemi Badenoch, the rising star, pitched to Policy Exchange. But what of Tom Tugendhat, the longtime backbencher, kicking off his campaign at the BBC’s Westminster studios? How best to describe his place in the Tory leadership race?
Kemi Badenoch has just completed her leadership launch. Although she is an outside bet, her campaign has been building momentum after Michael Gove endorsed her and she came a narrow second in a ConHome poll on who should be the next Tory leader. The launch saw her try to put the flesh on the bones
War and famine in Ukraine and inflation and rising bills at home. These are tough times in Britain and abroad: the winning candidate for the Tory leadership will have to be able to really deal with the big issues. But, er, not every MP in the running is keen to focus on such themes. Kemi
Suella Braverman’s welfare tirade exemplifies the current Tory pandering to baby boomer myths about social spending and moral decay. Interviewed by ITV News on Monday, the leadership candidate said: I think we spend too much on welfare. There are too many people in this country who are of working age, who are of good health, and who
Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak tried to strike a conciliatory tone at his campaign launch this morning, in which he praised his former boss Boris Johnson as a ‘remarkable’ man with a ‘good heart’. It appears though that Sunak’s defenestration of the PM might be a sore point for his campaign. At the launch, Sunak was
Everyone is supposed to have their 15 minutes of fame. Perhaps I have just had mine, after the contenders for the Tory leadership were invited to endorse the ‘charter for tax cuts’ that I co-wrote for Conservative Way Forward. It was certainly pretty cool to be namechecked at the launch event on Monday both by
This is an edited transcript of Kemi Badenoch’s speech announcing her candidacy for the Conservative party leadership. It’s time to tell the truth. For too long, politicians have been telling us that we can have it all: have your cake and eat it. And I’m here to tell you that is not true. It never has been.
The smirk on the faces of politicians and journalists when they talk about ‘cakeism’ shows how Boris Johnson degraded public life, and will carry on degrading it long after his overdue departure from Downing Street. The Munchkin civil war we call the Conservative leadership contest shows that ‘cakeism’ is the one part of Johnson’s legacy
Rishi Sunak launched his Tory leadership bid today. Here’s the full text of his speech: We need to have a grown up conversation about where we are, how we got here and what we intend to do about it. It is a conversation for those of us gathered here in this room today and the
How much longer can the global disaster that is Joe Biden’s presidency go on? Surely there comes a point when the Democrats do what the Tory party did to Boris Johnson last week – declare enough is enough and force him out? The odds of Biden running for a second term are shrinking dramatically –
Love Island’s annual ‘heart race challenge’ – where contestants perform jokily seductive dances on the opposite sex – took place last week, an eternity in villa time. The girls and boys who raise heart rates the most win. It is always divisive, since the women in particular – dressed in nearly nothing and manoeuvring with everything they
The euro is nearly level with the dollar. It should not matter in theory, because of the relatively low share of the US in EU trade. But it does in practice. Some predict that the euro will fall below parity. There is a straightforward explanation for this: the war in Ukraine and unpredictable Russian gas
Today’s the day in the Tory leadership race where it starts to look less like a fun run with anyone and everyone taking part. By this evening, candidates need to have the backing of at least 20 of their MP colleagues. Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat are the only candidates out of a
Good morning and welcome. Families in the United Kingdom face a moment of crisis. It is becoming harder for people to simply get by. For so many of them, there is more month than there is pay. We face danger abroad, division in our politics, an economy saddled with debt, and a creeping sense of