All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Today is England’s last day under Plan B restrictions, brought in by the government at the beginning of last month to curb the spread of Omicron. Work-from-home guidance was scrapped last week, while mandatory face coverings in shops and on public transport — as well as the need to show vaccine passports at large venues
This year’s French election campaign is a strangely muted affair. The incumbent, president Emmanuel Macron, has still neglected to declare that he is a candidate, even as he directs the entire weight of the French state towards his re-election. The geometry is highly variable. Pollsters admit privately that they’re struggling to measure abstentionism, or how
How are we to interpret the revelation that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI misled a sex abuse inquiry? That might seem an odd question. What is there to ‘interpret’ about the former Archbishop Ratzinger’s decision 43 years ago to allow a child abuser, Peter Hullermann, to live in Munich after he was thrown out of the diocese of
Given the extraordinarily low expectations, Prime Minister’s Questions went reasonably well for Boris Johnson today. That is partly because it was a pointless session: everyone is waiting for the publication of the Sue Gray report, so most likely it will be forgotten very quickly and will make no difference to the main event (whenever that comes). Most
With Sue Gray keeping the lobby on tenterhooks, it’s a good day to bury bad news. Earlier today, the Foreign Office quietly divulged emails that appear to confirm that, contrary to the Prime Minister’s claims, he did intervene to authorise the evacuation of Pen Farthing’s animal evacuation out of Afghanistan. The campaign to get Farthing’s animals out
Boris Johnson and No. 10 staff could soon face being interviewed under caution over partygate. While this is remarkable, it is not unprecedented: Downing Street has been the focus of a police investigation before, when Tony Blair, my boss, was prime minister. Fifteen years ago, the ‘cash for peerages’ affair led to me and my colleagues being interviewed
Jacob Rees-Mogg is now arguing that the UK system has become so presidential that a new prime minister would feel obliged to call an election. The message to Tory MPs is clear: depose Boris Johnson and you’ll be going to the country in months — and do you really want to do that given the
The Animal Sentience Bill is the centrepiece of the government’s environmental agenda, designed to protect helpless creatures and recognise they can feel pain. But will Guardian columnists be included under the new law? For it seems poor George Monbiot has been the victim of a rather unedifying pile-on in recent days. His crime? Suggesting that controlled trophy
When French prime minister Jean Castex and health minister Olivier Véran held a press conference last week, they outlined the timetable for a gradual easing of the country’s many Covid-19 restrictions. Véran talked of an ‘encouraging evolution’ in the fight against the virus, despite the fact that France had in the previous week recorded an average
The Daily Mail has long been the favoured mid-market newspaper of the masses, as the self-styled champion of Middle England. Its leaders are thumping; its splashes a must-read: so tight is its grip on the public imagination. Not for nothing do ministers live in fear of finding themselves in the paper’s crosshairs, given its reputation for
It’s a mark of the government’s desperation that, less than two weeks after his disastrous performance on Newsnight, Jacob Rees-Mogg was wheeled out on the same show again last night. Having done his bit for the Union by dismissing Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross suggesting he wasn’t a ‘very significant figure,’ the Somerset MP has now
It’s springtime for liberal interventionism. Russian President Vladimir Putin may not have intended it, but he is doing a good job of revitalising Nato. The organisation was faltering only a few years ago. Now, by threatening Ukraine, Putin is probably extending its lifespan by several more decades, a feat that even the most ardent Atlanticists
Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with the idea of the police investigating the elected government? I have laughed and fumed at partygate as much as the next upstanding citizen of the United Kingdom. I’ve moaned to mates about the PM partying on the same day I sat in a park with one other person and
Inflation, fuel prices and a looming cost of living crisis: it’s a grim economic outlook for many out there. Fortunately, MPs are doing their bit to help, namely by giving extra cash handouts to the staffers in the offices. Steerpike has spotted that almost a million pounds – £951,000 – was shelled out in ‘reward and
It’s groundhog day in Westminster as once again hacks and ministers ask: when will Sue Gray’s report come out? On Tuesday morning it seemed as though the publication of the investigation would be delayed indefinitely. After the Metropolitan police announced plans to launch a criminal investigation into a number of the alleged parties after the
My first visit to Ukraine was in 1994. We drove to a village about three hours south of Kiev. The landscape was flat, fields of wheat stretching out in all directions. You could see why Ukraine had been called ‘the breadbasket of the Soviet Union’. An old man in a flat cap waved us over
It seems Bonfire Night has come early this year. First there were fireworks in the chamber after Labour tabled an Urgent Question on Sue Gray’s investigation into ‘partygate.’ And this afternoon Private Eye editor Ian Hislop had quite the argy bargy with Tory grandee Sir Bernard Jenkin over at the Standards Committee. Hislop was one of a
The Metropolitan Police’s decision to investigate lockdown parties undoubtedly makes things more serious for Downing Street. It is now harder to argue, as some supporters of Boris Johnson had begun to do privately, that these matters are fundamentally too trivial to account for a Prime Minister departing if the police have been called in to
Even as the partygate stories continue to mount, some of Boris’s defenders still leap to his defence. This dwindling group of supporters believe the campaign to oust Boris is orchestrated by the PM’s enemies who have an axe to grind. Well, I worked on the Brexit campaign, played a part in helping Boris secure the leadership
Around 100,000 Russian troops are currently massed on the Ukrainian border. Talk of an invasion fills the air. British intelligence claims President Putin is planning to install a Kremlin-friendly leader in Kiev. For the first time in at least a generation, there is the real prospect of war in Europe. It is easy for politicians
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The latest in the scandal of Downing Street parties points to the Prime Minister’s own birthday, where a gathering took place in the Cabinet Office. Whilst this has been played off by a Downing Street spokesperson as being on ‘the edges of a work event’. Cressida Dick announced this morning that events at No.10 during
Another day, another party, another Urgent Question – and another dreadful outing for Michael Ellis. The Paymaster-General was sent out again, just three hours after the Met Police confirmed it would be probing ‘partygate.’ Deploying the finest lawyerly evasions and the best of his oleaginous charm, Ellis spent a gruelling 45 minutes fending off a barrage of outraged
This was supposed to be the week of judgement for Boris Johnson and assorted Downing Street officials about whether they had breached Covid rules by holding parties. But they have won a temporary reprieve, because Sue Gray – the senior civil servant investigating the alleged rule-breaking parties – will delay publication of her report until
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is making its way through the final stages of the parliamentary process — and not a moment too soon it seems. For the legislation, which aims to deter direct action protests, might be called into action to deal with the latest shenanigans of Extinction Rebellion. Leaked documents obtained by
It’s all gone a bit Pete Tong down in the Crimea. Russia and Ukraine are tooling up on both sides, with the Western powers claiming there will be ‘unprecedented’ sanctions against Russia if it were to invade. Ben Wallace is set to meet with his Russian counterpart for crisis talks; the UK is among those nations shipping hundreds
Boris Johnson’s team thought that the biggest problem they would encounter this week was Sue Gray’s report into allegations of parties at Downing Street in breach of Covid restrictions. However, they now also have a police investigation to deal with. This morning, the Met Police commissioner Cressida Dick confirmed that the police will investigate parties
Germany’s navy chief, vice admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, resigned over the weekend. His crime? Saying something out loud that many German politicians intrinsically believe: that the Russian president Vladimir Putin deserves ‘respect’. Schönbach also made the mistake of suggesting Ukraine would ‘never’ regain the Crimean peninsula from Russia, and calling Western fears about Russia invading Ukraine ‘nonsense’. As Germany’s government scrambled to
It was, in a way, a refreshing moment of mental alacrity from President Joe Biden. Asked if he thought inflation was a ‘political liability’, the Commander-in-Chief, the man who has apparently brought dignity back to the Oval Office, replied: ‘No. It’s a great asset. More inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch.’ In his
If, as many are predicting, the wheels are about to come off Boris Johnson’s premiership, few world leaders will be as indifferent as Emmanuel Macron. He and the PM have rarely seen eye to eye. It may very well have been more than just a coincidence that Johnson yesterday declared Britain was ‘open for business’
Will Boris Johnson still be Prime Minister in a year’s time? It’s the question that haunts Johnson’s closest allies. After news broke on Monday evening of another lockdown event in the form of a birthday celebration in Downing Street when social gatherings indoors were banned, Johnson is once again on the backfoot. With MPs frustrated by
‘Wait for Sue Gray’ has been the mantra on every ministers’ lips these past few weeks. But with just days to go before the senior civil servant is due to deliver her findings on ‘partygate’ how much longer can that line continue to hold? For this evening ITV have dropped yet another bombshell: Boris Johnson had
With his Whips’ Office in crisis, how Boris Johnson must be wishing he’d kept Gavin Williamson in government. The former Chief Whip was praised for the political intelligence operation he ran during both the 2016 and 2019 Tory leadership elections when he helped secure victories for Johnson and his predecessor Theresa May. Now though Gavin –
Is the Church of England on a mission? It should be, of course. But it appears to have confused its purpose of preaching the gospel with seeking to make itself more representative. From now on, at least ten members of the House of Bishops, part of the General Synod, must be from an ethnic minority. This will help create a