All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Who’s out to get Rishi? That’s the question allies of the Chancellor are asking after a week of revelations about the Richmond MP. They include the non-domiciled tax status of his wife, Akshata Murthy, Sunak’s decision to hold a US green card and pay tax in America for his first 18 months in No. 11 and his own alleged links to
Jean-Luc Mélenchon is on the march once more, rising up the polls and laying bare the ineptitude of the Socialist party. While their candidate in the presidential election, Anne Hidalgo, is stuck on two points, Mélenchon is on 17, behind only Marine Le Pen, on 23, and Emmanuel Macron on 26. It was a similar
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Ahead of the first round of France’s presidential elections on Sunday, Katy Balls asks whether Emmanuel Macron will be able to justify his apparent distance from the campaign trail. Taking part in the discussion with Katy Balls are Spectator contributor Jonathan Miller, Georgina Wright, from Institute Montaigne, and The Spectator‘s data journalist Michael Simmons.
The obvious and perhaps only way out of this mess for Rishi Sunak was for his wife to pay double taxation: that is to say, to be taxed in India for any income on her 0.9 per cent stake in Infosys, the $100 billion company set up by her dad, and then taxed in the
Few of Nicola Sturgeon’s promises have aged worse than her pledge to be ‘the most accessible First Minister ever’. The SNP launched its council elections campaign yesterday but refused to invite any print journalists: an effective press blackout designed to shield the party’s leader from questions on policy. Some newspapers declined to cover the event; others
So much had been written about the Russian armed forces’ modernisation and improvement over the last decade that that it was widely believed that the Russians possessed one of the largest and most powerful armies in the world until a few weeks ago. The army might not be on par with the US or China,
Marine Le Pen, if recent polling is to be believed, is rapidly cutting Emanuel Macron’s lead in the upcoming French presidential elections. If she succeeds in gaining sufficient votes this weekend to enter the second round, we should brace for a serious upheaval in French politics at a time of unnerving uncertainty about the global
Given how the Kremlin is so determined to portray Ukraine as a hotbed of Nazis, it is tragically ironic not only that its own forces seem determined to recreate some of the horrors of the German invasion in the second world war, but also that it is so willing to use its own fascists in
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed Europe forever. That was the argument that Boris Johnson made on Friday when he held a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. One of the changes Johnson was keen to emphasise was that European leaders are united in their support of Ukraine and against Putin. This, he
This evening Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty has announced that she will pay UK taxes on her overseas income, following a public backlash after reports of her tax arrangements as a non-domicile emerged on Wednesday night. The change in tack comes after the Chancellor used an interview with the Sun newspaper to accuse political opponents of ‘smearing’ his wife in
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The Rishi Sunak star seems to be falling further every day. The latest revelation is that he and his wife, Akshata Murthy held American green cards for some time while Rishi was Chancellor. The response from his crisis coms team has been muddled at best. Is there any way for the former golden boy to
2023 scheme is now live, click here The Spectator’s internship scheme for 2022 is now open. We don’t ask for your CV and anonymise all entries – making our scheme the most genuinely open (and competitive) in national journalism. In our game, all that matters is talent – and we put a lot of work
There is a scene in one of the Lord of the Rings films in which kindly Bilbo Baggins becomes contorted with fury as he glimpses the ring around the neck of his young cousin Frodo and tries to snatch it away. This shocking loss of emotional balance reminds us of the old saying that power
It seems that taking gratuitous swipes at J.K. Rowling has become something of a competition for liberal broadsheets on both sides of the pond. First, the New York Times took a potshot at the Harry Potter creator for its new marketing campaign trumpeting ‘independent journalism.’ And now the Guardian – keen to prove that, it too, is
Jerusalem For nearly ten months now, ever since his surprising elevation to the Israeli prime minister’s office, Naftali Bennett has been focused mainly on one thing. He has been trying to prove to Israelis that he can be every bit the master statesman his predecessor, the eternal Benjamin Netanyahu was. And by all accounts that
The first phase of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has ended with a decisive defeat for Russian forces in the north of the country. The large scale Russian advances in the north west and north east were halted in the outskirts of Kyiv. Russian forces failed to take the encircled north eastern cities of Chernihiv,
Dizengoff Street is one of the busiest thoroughfares in Tel Aviv, a strip of bars, restaurants and Bauhaus architecture that is typically bustling with young people on a Thursday evening. Last night, it was the scene of the latest Palestinian terror attack when a gunman opened fire outside the Ilka bar, killing three and wounding
What with partygate and Ukraine, it was easy to miss some of the movements in February’s mini-reshuffle. Among them was the bovine Mark Spencer being shuffled out of the Whips’ Office into a safer berth as Leader of the Commons, following accusations of Islamophobia. His replacement, Chris Heaton-Harris, is a man largely unknown outside SW1 but who,
When I sat down with Sir Keir Starmer this week we had unfinished business to discuss. Foremost in my mind was the central political question in Jewish circles these days, particularly on the left: is it safe to vote Labour again? To answer this, I had to ask him about Jeremy Corbyn. When it comes to his
Rishi Sunak goes into the weekend facing questions from the media, Labour and some Tories over the tax status of his wife Akshata Murthy. On Wednesday night, the Independent reported that Murthy has non-dom status, meaning she does not have to pay UK tax on income earned abroad. Her spokesperson has confirmed that she pays
‘Every way of a man is right in his own eyes’, the Book of Proverbs says: it makes us feel good to know we’re on the side of the angels. The corollary is that other men must be in the wrong, and therefore blameworthy, and this shores up our self-regard still further. Of course, taken
Since the Ukraine conflict erupted, the EU has had a great deal to say about its sympathy for Ukraine as a brother European state. But if you look closely it has not actually done a great deal to derail Vladimir Putin’s war machine. Even the grisly discoveries at Bucha has wrought little change. Not surprisingly,
Today’s Energy Security Strategy puts energy security at the heart of the debate over energy and environmental policy, where it always should have been. There is little question that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought about a big change to the tone of energy policy, but will today’s announcements really wean us off Russian
Four weeks ago, Rishi Sunak was riding high, Boris Johnson was on the slide and the Chancellor’s daughter was proudly telling the women’s lobby drinks that she too wants to be a reporter. Now, after a fortnight of damning media coverage, her ambition might have been changed. Lambasted over his spring statement, mocked over his
Britain is on a slow descent to oblivion. Scotland is even closer to the abyss, with a birth rate of just 1.29, well below the UK’s sub-replacement level of 1.65. It turns out the answer to the West Lothian question is that West Lothian will disappear. Doomsday demography should matter, but Whitehall is in no
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The government is publishing its long-awaited energy security strategy today, but Labour has criticised it for the strategy’s lack of action on onshore wind, among other concerns. Has Boris wrongly buckled to backbenchers on a policy that would have been efficient and popular? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. Isabel argues that
As they say in the music business, where there’s a hit, there’s a writ. It is something that no one knows better than Ed Sheeran, who yesterday won a legal battle over claims that his song Shape of You plagiarised an earlier song, Oh Why by Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue. The judge ruled that
The Ukraine crisis claims another victim. Step forward George Galloway, the mystic Myrtle who bet in February that the country would not be invaded by Moscow. The journeyman politician is in something of a strop at present, after Twitter took the step of labelling his account as ‘Russia state-affiliated media’ following a series of bizarre takes on
He wanted to see the Baltic States bombarded with toxic waste. He brawled in parliament. He encouraged Vladimir Putin to declare himself tsar. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, one of the most grotesque fixtures in Russian politics for over thirty years, is dead. It is the end of an era – and good riddance. The 75-year-old died in a
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said triumphantly that ‘if Putin was seeking to divide the EU, to weaken Nato, and to break the international community, he has achieved the exact opposite.’ A month later, Vladimir Putin may be struggling on Ukraine’s battlefields but he