All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Do you really care that Keir Starmer had a curry and a beer while working late in April last year? Be honest. Does the image of Sir Keir tucking into a masala with colleagues keep you up at night? Do you find yourself distracted from the cost-of-living crisis by visions of Starmer having a San
This idolisation of the Soviet military is Russia’s modern tragedy. Not least because it is crucial to Putin’s way of controlling the country. Russians are prodded to believe in a golden thread linking the achievements of an unsullied Red Army with what their soldiers are perpetrating in Ukraine today. This is why it was entirely
The following is The Spectator’s translation of Putin’s speech for victory day 2022. Most respected citizens of Russia, dear veterans, comrade soldiers and sailors, sergeants and petty officers, midshipmen and ensigns, comrade officers, generals and admirals: I wish you all a happy great victory day! The defense of our homeland – when its fate hung
There’s a new regime in Downing Street: the City Hall gang is taking over. The arrival of Guto Harri as No. 10 director of communications in February brought with it a fresh approach to media. Out went the broadcasting boycotts: in came a less hostile style willing to take more risks – the fruits of which
You can tell the trouble that Sir Keir Starmer is in by the desperation of Sun hacks in finding fresh curry puns. Whether it’s ‘backed into a korma’ or ‘bhaji smugglers,’ the Labour leader’s ongoing troubles over ‘Beergate’ has caused a run on puns over at London Bridge. The latest twist in the ongoing saga is the news that Sir
When Britain voted for Brexit, Macron boasted that Paris would eat the City of London’s lunch. It didn’t quite work out that way, with most league tables continuing to put London as the number one or two financial centre, with not a single EU city in the top ten. Emmanuel Macron’s government has now announced that it
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As pressures mount over claims that Keir Starmer broke lockdown rules, the Labour leader has just pulled out of a keynote speech he is due to give today. How much trouble is he really in? Katy Balls looks at Starmer’s future in a blog on Coffee House today. Also on the podcast, what will be
The Russians know how to put on a parade, and Victory Day is the showiest of the shows. It may have been a portent, though, that inclement weather conditions forced the cancellation of the aerial flypast. It quite literally might have rained on Vladimir Putin’s parade. This shouldn’t have happened. Typically, if there is any
Ahead of Thursday’s local elections, there had been talk among MPs that it could serve as a referendum on partygate and lead to questions about Boris Johnson’s future as leader. Instead, it’s Keir Starmer who is facing questions about Covid breaches and how long he will stay in post. After Durham Police announced on Friday
The jurist, Ronald Dworkin, once described the vehemence of the dispute over abortion as ‘America’s new version of the terrible seventeenth-century European civil wars of religion. Opposing armies march down streets or pack themselves into protests at abortion clinics, courthouses, and the White House, screaming at and spitting on and loathing one another. Abortion is
It looks on the face of things as if Sir Keir Starmer is coming unstuck over that blurry photograph of him with beer in hand after a day campaigning in Durham during lockdown. His claim that no rules were breached on that occasion – like the earlier claims that Angela Rayner wasn’t there and that
New Zealand’s borders have finally reopened after a two-year Covid shutdown. But those who travel down under are in for a surprise. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern recently said that New Zealand is ‘not the same place it was ten years ago’. As far as the local language goes, she’s certainly on to something, as newcomers
On the inaugural Andrew Neil show on Channel 4, Jacob Rees-Mogg was strikingly adamant that there were no easy solutions to the current cost of living crisis as increasing public spending would be inherently inflationary. This argument has intellectual force but is difficult to make politically. It was interesting, though, how keen Rees-Mogg was to lean
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab was tasked with the government’s media round this morning, and he used the opportunity to take aim at the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, accusing him of hypocrisy after Durham Police said they will re-investigate the so-called ‘Beergate’ affair. A leaked Labour party document appears to suggest that Starmer and
I’ve so far found it hard to get outraged about Keir Starmer’s curry with staffers after a campaigning event in April last year. For the boss to buy in a curry for his local activists during the visit is a decent and human thing to do. I’d not condemn anyone for it. But this is politically tricky for Starmer
Beergate represents a great danger to Starmer’s leadership. But handled in the right way it could be his opportunity to show that his is a party that can be trusted by voters who have abandoned it since the days of New Labour. It might even be his ‘clause four moment’, one which allows Starmer to
I am staring at about a dozen, stiff, eight-foot high, orange-red penises, carved from living bedrock, and semi-enclosed in an open chamber. A strange carved head (of a man, a demon, a priest, a God?), also hewn from the living rock, gazes at the phallic totems – like a primitivist gargoyle. The expression of the
Something momentous is building in the Philippines. Thirty-six years after the kleptocratic despot, Ferdinand Marcos, fled into exile with his family and 300 crates of loot aboard a US airforce transport plane, his only son, Ferdinand Marcos Junior is on course to win Monday’s presidential election. He’s known by his nickname ‘Bongbong’ and is not
Taipei Nowhere is watching the zero-Covid horror show unfolding in China more closely than Taiwan, where it is encouraging the island to ease restrictions, even as cases of the infectious Omicron variant spike. Taiwan’s premier Su Tseng-chang has said the extreme measures being imposed on the other side of the Taiwan Strait are ‘cruel’ and
Uh oh, it looks like things are getting uncomfortable for Keir Starmer. This week the Labour leader was hoping to turn the national conversation towards the cost of living crisis and the poor Tory showing in the local elections. Instead the hapless opposition leader has become embroiled in a ‘beergate’ scandal of his own –
If you judge a man on what he does and not just what he says, then it seems obvious multimillionaire Labour activist Gary Neville is in reality a Tory. ‘I’m not a socialist, I’m a capitalist,’ the former Manchester United defender turned Sky Sports commentator and plutocrat businessman told the world on Instagram this week.
It’s been a bad week for the Tories. They’ve lost nearly 500 councillors, are facing two key parliamentary by-elections and are now near-extinct in much of the capital. There are some who fear that following the various scandals involving Owen Paterson (lobbying), Imran Ahmad Khan (sex offences) and Neil Parish (porn in Parliament), the Conservative
No amount of extra counting later today can undo the seismic shift that has taken place in Northern Ireland’s politics. The first preference votes in Northern Ireland’s devolved assembly elections are in and Sinn Fein are the clear winners on 29 per cent. Sinn Fein – once the political appendage of a terrorist organisation that
Once again, a moment that should be a unifying and celebratory for the Windsors has attracted division and discord. It has been reported today that Harry and Meghan will not appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. All of this controversy for a fleeting appearance on what someone described on
‘A new dawn has broken has it not?’, asked Tony Blair as the sun first blinked over London’s South Bank on the early morning of 2 May 1997. Blair was addressing a crowd of supporters following Labour’s first general election victory since 1974, an election that saw the party win 43.2 per cent of votes
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Katy Balls, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman delve into the 2022 local election results and discuss how the Conservatives will adapt their strategy to remain in power.
Ahead of Russia’s annual Victory Day celebration on 9 May – which marks the date the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany – the world is once again playing a will he, won’t he game with Vladimir Putin. It is inconceivable that Putin will be able to declare any kind of victory in the Donbas on
In large part, these local elections were a referendum on a basic proposition. Do the government and the Prime Minister deserve a kick in the pants? As it was virtually impossible to argue against that verdict, Boris Johnson could claim to have done surprisingly well. Indeed, some of his Tory critics are disappointed with the
Of all the scientists who became household names during the pandemic, few divide opinion as much as Devi Sridhar. The Professor of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh turned adviser to the Scottish government and Guardian columnist is, according to your point of view, either a voice of reason who could have prevented
There’s a revolution stirring in the gentle British countryside, as a political faction starts to make their voice heard. The Old Rectory left are shrugging off their chains. In Thursday’s local elections, places where the Lib Dems were trailing the Tories saw an eight point swing to Ed Davey’s party. Meanwhile, the Conservatives lost control
Poor Keir Starmer appears to have the reverse Midas touch. When he awoke this morning, Labour was making gains across the country – the capitalist citadels of London were falling, marginals like Southampton were going red and the seemingly inexorable advance of the Tories in the Red Wall had been halted. Yet as sure as
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We’ve had more election results in and it looks like the Lib Dems will be celebrating tonight, encroaching on many Tory seats around the country. But is this Liberal passion from voters or disaffection with the two major parties? Katy Balls talks with James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman about all the latest results.
Nervy Tories in Westminster will be looking at today’s results and wondering what it means for them. Council contests are often fought on very different issues to those in a general election but there’s no doubt that local councils switching parties is bad news for the incumbent MPs there. Top Tories under threat include Dominic Raab, whose
With a sense of reluctance, I went into a voting booth this week and ticked the boxes corresponding to my local Labour candidates. My rationalisation was simple: I wasn’t voting for Labour, but against the Conservatives. There is a tangible stench of decay surrounding the Tory party at present. At best, it is incapable of
