All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
I was once a fan of The Archers, to the extent that the Guardian quoted me in 2007 outlining how ‘an unlikely combination of support from the Queen and Julie Burchill led to the transformation of Britain’s ‘everyday story of country folk’ from a dull and tired format to its present cult status.’ Apparently I
Artificial intelligence (AI) really is the next industrial revolution. In fact, it’s already started, and the technology’s capability is developing faster than anything we’ve seen before. Its benefits mean there is so much more to be excited, than fearful, about. But such is the extent of the technology’s power and potential, it is essential we
This weekend marks perhaps the most turbulent 48 hours that Ukraine’s President Zelensky has ever experienced – and, given the events of the past three years, that is saying an awful lot. After his already notorious reception in Washington at the White House in Friday, and rather more emollient greeting by Keir Starmer in Britain
Keir Starmer today attempted to make the debate about Ukraine’s future one primarily held by Ukraine and European countries. This came after Donald Trump had suggested at the end of last week that it was for the US and Russia to decide. In his press conference after the summit of European leaders in London, the
Well, you can’t say they don’t try. With Europe still reeling from Donald Trump’s oval office bust-up with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, over in Scotland the SNP have piped up to make their feelings known about the American President. Never ones to miss a chance to try and stay relevant, the party’s leader
There is only one story dominating the news this weekend following Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous meeting on Friday with the US President in the Oval office. After the Ukrainian president’s conversation with Donald Trump and JD Vance descended into a war of words, Zelensky’s trip to the White House was cut short and a planned minerals
Month after month, it just kept plummeting. The South Korean birth rate last year earned the not-so-holy prize for being the lowest in the world. The demographic crisis faced by South Korea seems hardly the hallmark of the country’s self-proclaimed status as a ‘global pivotal state’. That said, the country’s fertility rate rose incrementally to
Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP in charge of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill currently going through its committee stage, has repeatedly called on Tory MP Danny Kruger not to use the term ‘suicide’ in relation to proposed new laws on assisted dying. This is not the first time proponents of assisted suicide
Is Britain going back to the 1970s? Even under the Conservatives in 2022, the Financial Times was warning we were in danger of reliving that ‘relentlessly awful decade’. Since Starmer’s accession to power, the similarities have become only clearer. Millionaire hotelier Rocco Forte drew the same comparison in the autumn, saying we’d ‘come full
Henry Kelly was a well-loved personality in Britain. The Irish television and radio presenter, who died this week, came to prominence in this country in the 1980s in the ITV show Game For A Laugh, consolidating his popularity on BBC’s Going For Gold and on the airwaves as a presenter on Classic FM. And intrinsic
Is Ireland a powder keg of racist, anti-immigrant sentiment, ready to explode at any moment? That was certainly the dominant narrative after a night of rioting in Dublin city centre in November 2023 that left a trail of destruction along O’Connell Street. On that occasion, politicians and elements of the Irish media were quick to
The end of February, which coincides with the start of Ramadan, was meant to mark the conclusion of the initial exchange of Israeli hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. However, rather than engaging as planned on what should happen, how, and when in the second phase, the ceasefire appears to be
Witchcraft, and accusations of witchcraft, are returning to Britain. We might think of witchcraft as a thing of the past; sadly, this isn’t the case. In multicultural Britain, folk practices like witchcraft and sorcery are more common than you might expect. Alongside the practice of witchcraft, there is also its opposite: accusations that others, particularly
‘Berlin is more East than West’, said Thilo Sarrazin. A member of the centre-left SPD, in 2010 he published Germany Abolishes Itself, a book which warned about the impact of mass immigration. It sold over one million copies in a year but it went down less well with his own party, which tried to kick
The Trump-Zelensky summit is a geopolitical Rashomon. Some saw a lying, maniacal bully and his snarling sidekick berate a patriot for telling the truth about his nation’s attacker and refusing to surrender to him. Others witnessed a bratty ingrate haughtily shaking his begging bowl while dictating to his benefactors the terms on which he would
Volodymyr Zelensky fought for Ukraine’s security guarantees so fiercely last night, it was as if he’d been invited to sign a surrender to Russia, not a mineral deal with the US. It was neither the time nor the place to take on Donald Trump and JD Vance for parroting Kremlin talking points – a fact
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Zelensky’s much anticipated meeting at the White House finished in an angry clash between the Ukrainian President, JD Vance and Donald Trump. The Vice President accused Zelensky of leading ‘propaganda tours’ and culminated in the Ukrainian President leaving the White House without a signed minerals deal. Was Zelensky ambushed? European leaders quickly scrambled to show
Practically every aspect of that Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky was surreal. The blow up at the end was certainly the most shocking, but watching the American President repeatedly bite his tongue – until he didn’t – was also very strange. Holding back opinion is not normal behaviour for the American
Five years ago in March 2020, schools fell silent as Covid-19 swept across the world. At first, there was a tinge of excitement among some students and staff; it was as if, perhaps, we had been told that the whole country was going to be snowed in for six weeks. Had the restrictions thawed within
70 min listen
The Spectator’s Katy Balls, Michael Gove and Kate Andrews were joined by special guests Robert Jenrick and Jonathan Ashworth for a live podcast, recorded at the Emmanuel Centre in Westminster. The main topic of discussion was, of course, Donald Trump, whose inauguration has ushered in a new world disorder. His ‘shock and awe’ foreign policy
What sort of mojo do you want your police officer to bring with them the next time you’re stopped and searched? The Metropolitan police asked Londoners to help them use this procedure better: one quoted consultation response was to stop using ‘bad energy’ in such an encounter. Perhaps the answer to London’s awful street crime
The scene is a well-appointed drawing room in Copenhagen in September 1840. A fresh-faced girl in her late teens is playing the piano in an attempt to soothe the troubled spirit of her boyfriend, a slender, bouffant-haired philosopher in his late 20s by the name of Søren Kierkegaard. Suddenly, he grabs the score from her
Opponents of Keir Starmer would be well advised to concentrate on his many real weaknesses rather than inventing non-existent disasters just to bolster their own prejudices. The British radical online Right spent the last 48 hours not only hoping for the UK Prime Minister to be humiliated by Donald Trump, but then pretending he had
Seldom in modern times has the fate of a whole nation been so dependent on a single meeting and on a single relationship. When Volodymyr Zelensky entered the Oval Office on Friday he had one job: to repair a deep and catastrophic rift between him and Donald Trump, who the previous week had called the
What possessed the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, to go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump in a verbal wresting match in the White House? It makes almost no sense as a diplomatic strategy. It is well documented that the US president, notoriously thin-skinned and egotistical, likes to be showered with compliments and treated as an all-knowing, all-seeing
Keir Starmer will have been pleased on Thursday after his meetings with Donald Trump managed to avoid any major gaffe or diplomatic incident. There was some relief when Trump chose not to repeat his past comment that Volodymyr Zelensky was a dictator. However, the same cannot be said of Friday’s meeting between Zelensky and the
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In a wide-ranging conversation at the White House yesterday evening, Donald Trump was in the mood to talk about everything under the sun – from the speedy success his second administration has had putting fear into the hearts of bureaucrats and Eurocrats, to why he believes there is a path to a balanced budget. He
The resignation of Anneliese Dodds, the International Development Minister, over cuts to the aid budget is a shock on many levels. After all, it is almost unheard of for a senior politician in office to quit because of some political belief or principle. Dodds deserves praise for sticking up for her values, even – and
Keir Starmer has lost another minister. Anneliese Dodds is stepping down as International Development Minister following No. 10’s decision to slash the foreign aid budget by almost half to pay for an increase in defence spending. That policy decision was announced earlier this week ahead of Keir Starmer’s meeting with Donald Trump at the White
Fresh off the back of a summit with Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Washington, the President of the United States granted The Spectator’s US Editor-at-Large Ben Domenech an exclusive interview in the White House. One of the most pressing topics discussed by Starmer and Trump was support for Ukraine in its efforts to resist Russia’s invasion – and
Keir Starmer may have survived his meeting with Donald Trump yesterday – with the President saying he was ‘inclined’ to support the Chagos deal and might not impose tariffs on the UK – but it appears the US President still has plenty of concerns about the state of this country. Speaking to The Spectator’s Ben Domenech yesterday,
Dear oh dear. Just as positive polling had lifted the spirits of the Scottish Nats, news of their membership exodus will bring them crashing down. As revealed by the august paper that is the Scotsman, the SNP has lost more than 5,500 members in six months alone. It’s hardly what you want to hear when
A UK-US trade deal is on the table. On a surprisingly successful trip to Washington, US President Donald Trump made it clear to the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer that a trade agreement with the United States was close. “We could very well end up with a real trade deal where the tariffs won’t be
Back in 2023, when Joe Biden was President of the United States, there was something of a drugs scandal in the White House, when the Secret Service found a gram of cocaine in the West Wing. An investigation was launched, but while Secret Service officials trawled through their security systems and indexed ‘several hundred’ people