All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
One might not think that J. R. R. Tolkien has much to do with the bitter war in Ukraine, but one would be wrong. A particular epithet, once used by Ukrainians specifically for the Russian soldiers who have shelled, looted and raped their way into their country has begun to be applied also to the
‘Is he lucky?’ Napoleon demanded to know of one of his generals. When Sue Gray’s partygate report is released in the coming hours, we’ll soon find out if the luck Boris Johnson has enjoyed during his rise to the top continues. Given that Boris managed to escape from the Met police investigation into the festivities that
Jeremy Hunt is currently enjoying something of a renaissance – all the more interesting in light of Boris Johnson’s ongoing difficulties. The former Health Secretary has been touring the TV studios recently, promoting his new book Zero: Eliminating Preventable Harm and Tragedy in the NHS. It aims to ‘reduce the number of avoidable deaths to zero and in the process
It looks like Ben Wallace had sugar on his cornflakes today. The Defence Secretary has gone ‘full tonto’ this morning at the Sunday Mirror over a story in today’s newspaper about the amount of cash his department is spending to send the kids of top army officers to leading public schools. The paper says that last year some
This week the minister doing the morning media round was Nadhim Zahawi, who faced questions over the probe into Partygate, school bullying and the possibility of a ‘windfall tax.’ Nadhim Zahawi – Boris Johnson ‘did not interfere’ in the Sue Gray report The Education Secretary spoke to Jo Coburn about the long-awaited Sue Gray report.
Imagine if we gave the rail unions what they really wanted, and renationalised the railways. Would they then leave us alone and get on quietly with the job of driving trains, clipping tickets and so on? Like hell they would. Thankfully, Nicola Sturgeon has just tried this very human experiment, so that the Westminster government
‘Scott Morrison is empathetic – without the “em”.’ Those words, spoken on Friday by the Labor party frontbencher Jason Clare, on a national breakfast programme, perfectly encapsulated how Scott Morrison was defeated in the Australian election on Saturday. Morrison wasn’t saved by his economic management (this Friday Australia’s unemployment rate was confirmed as 3.9 per
Cervical cancer and ovarian cancer only affect women. So why has the NHS been quietly erasing the word ‘women’ from information pages on its official website? According to the Mail, NHS advice pages on these conditions were edited at the beginning of the year to remove references to the word ‘woman’. Last year, women seeking
The backlash in Russia to Putin’s war is now visibly getting underway. For the first time, the President risks becoming a disappointment to all sides of the political spectrum. Those who advocate for war see his military efforts in Ukraine as flaky and inadequate. Those who oppose it see those same actions as war crimes
Robert Peston, the fiercely well-connected political editor of ITV News and a contributor to Coffee House, reports ‘a sense of injustice and considerable upset’ in Downing Street that ‘the 126 Partygate fines have been levied disproportionately on women and junior officials’. Robert quotes a source who complains that ‘the majority’ of those fined are ‘very
In many ways, it has been absurd to have police spend months (and £460,000) investigating birthday cakes, glasses of wine and garden parties. Lord Finkelstein, the Tory peer and commentator at the Times, has come out against it (‘Playing politics is no business of the police’) and the front page of yesterday’s Daily Mail lambasts
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Some Tories want to lose the next election. Conservative policies and ideologies are stale, they say, and the party could do with a period in opposition. Is this really a good idea? And could a Labour, SNP and Liberal Democrat coalition find a way to keep the Tories out of government for decades? ‘If anyone
‘Grenfell is a story about a failed evacuation.’ These are the words of Professor Ed Galea, an internationally respected expert in fire safety and evacuations who, among other things, wrote a pivotal study into the attempted evacuation of the World Trade Centre on 9/11. But this is something the British state, and particularly the Home
Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is fighting a war on two fronts. Polling suggests his Liberal-National Coalition is set to lose to the Australian Labor party in the federal election today. But the PM is also being outflanked by independent candidates running in his party’s blue-ribbon, right-leaning heartland – but on a climate change ticket.
The Russian military has performed far worse in Ukraine than anyone could ever have predicted. After failing to take Kyiv, Russian troops have now been forced to focus on the Donbas region. Despite this greater concentration of forces, they are still struggling to make any major gains beyond the final capture of Mariupol, which had
Ah, Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Old Etonian sometimes appears to have been designed by top lab scientists at CCHQ to perfectly antagonise the Sir Humphreys of SW1. Since his appointment as the Minister for Government Efficiency in February, every announcement by the Somerset MP seems calculated to enrage the civil service trade unions, keen to retain Covid-era hybrid working
As James Kirkup says, some Tories are beginning to wonder whether it might be better for them to lose the next election. But defeat at the next election could see the Tories locked out of power for a generation. The local elections and the opinion polls suggest that the most likely result of the next
There was much joy in Parliament earlier this month at the first in-person State Opening of Parliament since 2019. But the return of pomp and circumstance to the Palace of Westminster wasn’t universally applauded. Some doomsters took to Twitter to bemoan the sight of Prince Charles sat besides the Imperial State Crown while reading the Queen’s Speech
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Given that Boris Johnson escaped the latest and final set of party fines from the police yesterday, does this mean partygate is over? Sue Gray’s report is still yet to be published, where she intends to name and shame those in her report. Could this take some of the pressure off the Prime Minister? Also
Picture the convivial scene. You have been invited into the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s palatial £11 million mansion in Montecito, California as an honoured guest. Once you have removed your shoes, been frisked for weapons or recording devices and been offered a kombucha smoothie, you are ushered into the inner sanctum of the world’s
Is waving the Pride flag compulsory now? The Idrissa Gueye scandal suggests it might be. Footballer Gueye did not play for his team, Paris Saint-Germain, on Saturday because he declined to wear a new top on which the players’ numbers are emblazoned with the Pride colours. How dare he. Reject Pride, get shamed. Gueye is
Twitter may not be the real world, but it sure does set the conversation in Westminster. Commentators once spoke of ‘the ground war’ of activists on the ground and the ‘air war’ of broadcast interviews, but increasingly social media is where battles are fought and won. This week an audit in the States found that nearly
Everton secured their Premier League safety last night, coming back from two goals down to bag a 3-2 victory against Crystal Palace. It was all too much for some of their fans who, having endured seven nail-shreddingly tense minutes of extra time, swarmed onto the pitch at the final whistle. There was at least one
Would it be good for the Conservatives to lose power at the next election? Should smart young Tories with an eye on the future want to lose? Those are questions I’ve heard discussed in Conservative circles recently. And those questions arise from a Tory reading of politics that goes something like this: Boris is leading
So, the verdict is in: Boris only broke the law once during lockdown. Like it or not, today’s findings by the Metropolitan police will no doubt be received with delight by those in No. 10, relieved that the PM looks to have got away with it once again. Even if there are nerves over the
Woke is a strange phenomena, but what does it actually mean? Activists and columnists alike declare that being woke is simply being aware of social injustices and challenging racism and sexism. But if that is the case, where are the out and proud woke warriors? Where are the ‘I’m woke’ pin badges and the ‘Being
It’s hard not to admire Patrisse Cullors, the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter foundation. Under fire over yet another set of revelations that suggest her world-famous anti-racism organisation is in fact little more than a racket, she has admitted she made ‘mistakes’. But what else could a poor girl do? An organisation of BLM’s
If you’re a celeb with a burning grievance, the hottest place in town is an unassuming, Georgian terraced house in Gray’s Inn, Holborn. Five Raymond Buildings is the number one libel set in the country. And its most prominent barrister is David Sherborne, aka ‘Orange Sherbet’ – the permatanned schmoozer with the wind-tugged, auburn tresses.
The scene is medieval in its horror: a woman stoned, beaten and set on fire by a mob shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. But this didn’t happen hundreds of years ago: it took place a week ago in Nigeria. The victim was a Christian student named Deborah Samuel, from Sokoto in the north west of the country. Samuel’s ‘crime’,
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The Met police have today announced that their investigation into No. 10 parties is now over, and No. 10 have confirmed that neither the Prime Minister nor his wife have received more fines. Is Boris Johnson out of the woods? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman. James points out the fortunate timing
For those of us who were reporting on politics way back in the 1990s, ‘Tory sleaze’ is a phrase that echoes down the ages. Though there had been plenty of run-of-the-mill scandals involving Tory MPs in the first couple of years of John Major’s premiership, things really took off after his ‘back to basics’ conference speech
The end of partygate? This morning the police have announced that their investigation into alleged Covid breaches in Downing Street has now been completed. The Met say the investigation – which began in January after Sue Gray uncovered evidence of breaches – has led to 126 people facing fines across eight different events. Even though