All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Oh dear. It seems that the most illiberal party in Great Britain is at it again. In the nationwide haste to condemn the comedian Jimmy Carr for his remarks about the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community in his Netflix special, an elected councillor from (who else?) the SNP has called for prosecutions. Not just for Carr
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On Saturday night, No. 10 announced two new appointments: Steve Barclay would become chief of staff, and Guto Harri would become director of communications. Will Downing Street’s reshuffle improve the mood of Tory MPs? And what else does Boris Johnson have to do? Katy Balls talks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth about the new faces
The publication of extracts from a biography of Carrie Johnson this weekend is another stark reminder that we need a serious look at the over-use of anonymous sources in journalism. I first began to worry about the problem when extracts from another Lord Ashcroft biography – this time of David Cameron – were published. When
In the Spring of 1988, the body of Britain’s most notorious Cold War spy was lowered into the ground at Kuntsevo cemetery on the outskirts of Moscow. Kim Philby’s defection to the Soviet Union, a quarter of a century earlier, had rocked the world of espionage. Western spooks were left scrambling to work out just
The end of Covid has brought with it the long-overdue restoration of liberties. And few know that better than thirsty MPs and their staff on the parliamentary estate, with the reopening last week of the famous parliament’s Sports and Social bar. On the night in question, Mr S was one of those piling into the
If Boris Johnson thought his new No. 10 hires would be less high-profile than their predecessors, he might want to think again. Not content with taking a side-swipe at Dominic Cummings on Twitter, it appears that Guto Harri decided to do an interview with the Welsh media prior to taking up his post as Downing
Rudy Giuliani has had quite the trajectory in public life. Those of us who remember the days after 9/11 will still have a picture of a man who emerged from that disaster as a credit to his city and a credit to his office. If you only picked up the Rudy Show midway through season
The Treasury on Saturday prevented an announcement pencilled in for tomorrow of the so-called ‘elective recovery plan’, the multi-billion pound initiative to reduce the NHS’s record backlog of treatments. Treasury sources insist the plan wasn’t ready and this was a joint decision with the NHS. ‘The NHS wanted to pause too,’ said one. But this
Vladimir Putin doesn’t need to send troops into Ukraine. He has already achieved his strategic goals — for now. The leading European Union powers, France and Germany, are competing against each other for Putin’s ear, while Britain is competing against them by shipping arms to Ukraine. The United States is exposed as an unreliable protector,
They could cancel their Netflix subscriptions, stop drinking chai tea or go a little easier on the avocados and the smoothies. And perhaps most of all they could get on their bikes and start searching for some cheaper places to live. Kirstie Allsopp, the presenter of popular TV shows such as Location, Location, Location, probably always
Boris Johnson’s decision to accuse Keir Starmer of ‘prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile’ while he was director of public prosecutions continues to divide the Tory party. The comment has gone down badly with his own MPs, and the Chancellor Rishi Sunak notably refused to defend the remark. It also led to the resignation
Well, that didn’t take long. Scarcely had Boris Johnson announced two new hires to join his depleted Downing Street team, then Dominic Cummings began attacking one of them on Twitter. The Svengali of special advisers reacted badly to the news that Guto Hari, a former Johnson aide during his mayoralty, was to be brought back into
Over the last two years – under the guise of a Covid-19 communications strategy – the British people have faced a psychologic bombardment from their own government. Who can forget the constant images during the pandemic warning people to stay indoors to ‘save lives’, students being told that breaking the rules would be ‘killing their
The social media accounts of the new so-called ‘National Resistance Front’ (NRF) in Afghanistan give the impression of a raging insurgency already taking place against the Taliban. The talk is of ‘intense clashes’, with the Taliban suffering ‘heavy casualties.’ There are exaggerated accounts of running battles and successful ambushes against the Taliban across the north
If Brits are falling out of love with Boris Johnson over partygate, there is still hope for him in Turkey. If you were to quiz my fellow Turks on a list of ‘foreign leaders whom Turks find favourable’, there is no doubt Boris would be somewhere at the top of the list. Despite his hand in
Transgender people need to be treated with dignity and respect at work. But our rights should not be allowed to ride roughshod over the rights of others. Yet it’s an unfortunate reality that, in the quest for inclusion, some workplace policies do just that – even in the heart of Whitehall. The Cabinet Office’s ‘Toolkit‘ to support
There aren’t many whose name becomes part of the mythology of a nation while they are still alive. Gavin McCrone, author of After Brexit: The Economics of Scottish Independence, has inadvertently achieved this status. McCrone is an academic and a former chief economist to the Scottish Office. In 1974, he wrote an internal briefing paper
Queen Camilla. Once a far-fetched prospect, now a reality – when the day comes – thanks to this extraordinary intervention by the Queen. No one sensible would have put money on such an outcome in November 1995 after Diana, Princess of Wales declared in her infamous Panorama interview that ‘there were three of us in
Boris Johnson has this evening unveiled the second stage of his Downing Street shake-up. After the Prime Minister rushed forward the departure of his chief of staff Dan Rosenfield and director of communications Jack Doyle when his policy chief Munira Mirza quit on Thursday, replacements have been announced. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
After the night of the long hangovers, what next for Boris Johnson’s No. 10 team? Following the departure of five top advisers on Thursday, the PM has tonight announced two replacements to try and rescue his sinking premiership. Cabinet minister Steve Barclay has taken up the reins as Johnson’s chief of staff while Guto Harri
When Steve Baker is on maneouvers, you know No. 10 is in trouble. The lockdown-skeptic and ‘Brexit hardman’ has had a hand in defenestrating two successive Tory premiers and could soon make it a hat-trick. For Baker, whose criticisms of the Johnson government have reached a crescendo in recent months, has recently taken over the running of Conservative
The emergence of Covid provoked a worldwide economic crash. That lasted a mere four weeks. By the time western countries were locking down, a bull market had begun afresh. Through months of lockdowns, soaring case rates and death rates, shares were not just rebounding but marking new highs – firstly involving tech shares and online
Vladimir Putin very rarely travels abroad these days – and Xi Jinping has not met a foreign leader in person for almost two years. Yet there they were together, just before the opening of the Beijing Olympics, hailing their and their nations’ friendship and concluding $117 billion in oil and gas deals. Although they themselves
‘The further a person is from one of our great capitals—whether it is London, Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast – the tougher life can be,’ Michael Gove told the House of Commons on Wednesday. It is his mission, as the first holder of the ludicrous title of secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities,
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Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson about what happens if and when Graham Brady receives 54 letters of no confidence in Boris Johnson’s leadership.
For a politician whose calling card is the struggle for Hungarian national sovereignty, Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin’s press conference on Tuesday didn’t look good for the Hungarian leader. Putin abruptly walked off the stage, brusquely beckoning Orbán to follow. The Hungarian strongman dutifully picked up his papers and traipsed across the large, socially distanced
Western warnings of an ‘imminent’ Russian invasion of Ukraine have grown more insistent in recent weeks with different voices, from the media to politicians, needlessly stoking the fires of war with their aggressive and inaccurate rhetoric. Time and again, Putin’s words have been twisted or misconstrued in a way that fits and reinforces western preconceptions
Boris Johnson is in the midst of the bleakest period of his premiership, but he can at least nibble on a crumb of comfort from history. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Tory party is not at all ruthless in dispatching their prime ministers when they have fallen out of favour with voters, or appear to have passed
Nick Gibb has become the latest Tory MP to declare that he has submitted a letter of no confidence in the Prime Minister to Graham Brady. The former schools minister writes in the Telegraph that ‘to restore trust, we need to change the Prime Minister’. Gibb’s letter will worry the Johnson operation because he is
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Freddy Gray talks to Guy Clapperton, the tech journalist and host of the Near-Futurist podcast about the recent collapse in Facebook’s share price, and the social media giant’s prospects long-term.
It’s been a pretty awful year for the Metropolitan Police. Having been forced to apologise for Wayne Couzens’ murder of Sarah Everard in July, forced to apologise for their officers taking pictures of two murdered sisters in October and forced to apologise for failing Stephen Port’s victims in November, this week the Met was forced to apologise
When Prince Harry was unveiled as ‘chief impact officer’ at a tech start-up in California, many people were baffled. What did his job title mean? Well, now we know: his mission is to spout meaningless platitudes for wads of cash. Among the pearls of wisdom dished out by Harry in his appearance on a virtual panel
It’s a quiet day in the Commons today as MPs mostly return to their constituencies for their weekly surgeries. But not all backbenchers have chosen to do so: Matt Vickers, the MP for Stockton South, is among those today debating plans to introduce fixed penalty notices for animal cruelty. New boy Vickers used the occasion to