All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
We were having a few drinks in a rented flat in the centre of Grozny in late 1994. A bunch of foreign reporters, including myself, who were usually based in Moscow, had been sent to check out the strange conflict flickering in Chechnya. It was late at night. The room was full of fag smoke. Someone played a
Why are so many people in such a muddle over the word ‘woman’? Sadly, a share of the blame falls on women’s studies and gender studies. I should know: this has been my academic field for over a decade. As a teaching assistant, I remember repeating the phrase ‘there is more difference among the sexes than
In his speech in Warsaw today, Joe Biden said of Vladimir Putin: ‘For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.’ This comes after Biden condemned Putin as a war criminal and ‘a butcher’. So, what did Biden mean by this? At first blush, it looks like a call for either a palace coup or
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For the last two years, Rishi Sunak has appeared the frontrunner in any future Tory leadership election. But has his spring statement and damaged his standing within his party and among the public? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth about Rishi Sunak’s future and Britain’s economic forecast.
It started with Henry Kissinger. Before Intel apologised to China for attempting to remove forced labor from the company’s supply chains in December, before Disney thanked a Chinese public security bureau that rounded up Muslims and sent them to concentration camps, before LeBron James criticised the Houston Rockets’ general manager for supporting democracy in Hong
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters its second month, the war has settled into a largely attritional struggle – and the picture is very different across the various fronts. Russian forces have been forced on to the defensive in many areas. The Russian ministry of defence has announced that the ‘first phase’ of the invasion
Over the past weeks, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I have witnessed individuals expressing shock and disbelief at the blatant sexual violation of women and girls fleeing their homeland. Feminist colleagues in Ukraine and Russia tell me that there are thousands of displaced women and girls without any income, food or shelter. The war
I was born, grew up and have lived in Russia all of my 45 years. This means that I belong to a state that was established by force, expanded by force and is maintained by force. In this, of course, Russia is not alone: this fact is true of several countries. But the world has
Poor Rishi Sunak. Within two months the Chancellor has gone from someone confident enough to publicly rebuke the Prime Minister over his choice of words to someone who merely seeks to ape them. ‘I wouldn’t have said it,’ Sunak grandly told a press conference at the start of February when asked about Boris Johnson’s jibe
Russia’s latest gambit in the Ukraine conflict is to open a currency war with the West. Vladimir Putin’s declaration that Russia will only accept roubles as payment for natural gas bought by ‘unfriendly’ countries is the latest salvo in the long-running attack by Russia and China on the petrodollar system. The EU settles most of
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Freddy Gray talks to Seb Kennedy, founding editor of Energy Flux, about the US increasing its exports of liquefied natural gas to Europe to help relieve soaring costs.
Unsurprisingly, it’s Kosovo where Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State, is remembered with particular gratitude: today there’s an official day of mourning for her there. Why? Because without Albright, there might well not be an independent Kosovo. It was she who unequivocally backed the bombing of Serbia that brought an end to the Serbian ethnic
Well, that’ll show ‘em. Liz Truss has released a joint statement with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declaring themselves ‘united in our condemnation of the Taliban’s decision not to reopen secondary schools to Afghan girls’. Also united are the EU high representative and the foreign ministers of Canada, France, Italy, Japan and Norway. The
The return of inflation has changed politics, I say in the Times today . Until recently, it was possible to argue that the government should borrow to slashes taxes, or to cover almost any additional spending. It was so cheap to do so that it was almost rude not to, the argument went. Inflation was also dismissed as a
Ping! An email lands in Steerpike’s inbox. ‘Will you join me?’ reads the email line. Gosh. Who was this damsel in distress, this online agoniser in search of aid? Step forward none other than Mr S’s favourite student politician, Zarah Sultana. It seems that Coventry’s answer to Citizen Smith is in a bit of a
Yerevan, Armenia ‘This is our land,’ Anna says, looking out over her roadside flower shop. ‘Lenin promised it to us.’ Her father was born across the mountains in Russia, one of around 100,000 displaced Armenians only able to return home after world war two. ‘But thanks to Lenin, we have our own country. A free
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The Prime Minister has just returned from a Nato meeting in Brussels. So far, the alliance’s members have been unified in their response to Russia, but with President Zelensky now asking for Nato to send tanks to Ukraine, are we going to see cracks emerge? Katy Balls talks with James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.
Did Joe Biden mean to threaten Russia with a chemical weapons attack? That seemed to be what he implied at yesterday’s Nato summit when he said Russia using chemical weapons in Ukraine ‘would trigger a response in kind’ from the US. To respond ‘in kind’ means to respond in the same way – i.e. by
Sometimes old grievances are best laid to rest. That was certainly the view of Tony Blair when his government issued nearly 200 ‘comfort letters’ to Irish nationalist gunmen in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement. But a decision by the Northern Ireland High Court on Wednesday will upend that principle, setting back years of compromise and reconciliation.
Ah, the Standards Committee. Where would we be without the parliamentary watchdog? The 14 men and women who sit on this panel have a noble task: policing behaviour within the Commons by overseeing the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner, Kathryn Stone. Half the committee are lay members, who cannot ever have been members of either
I live near the small Sussex seaside town of Selsey. It’s the sort of place that gets right up the well-bred nose of Labour’s Emily Thornberry with her famous disdain for flag wagging patriotism. For in normal times the many flagpoles in the tidy gardens of the resort are flying the St George’s flag of
Following his fateful decision to invade Ukraine, Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin has been customarily described as a high-stakes gambler. Yet the embarrassing underperformance of the Russian military in Ukraine and the bite of Western sanctions suggest that Putin is no genius mastermind strategist but a risk taker who has bitten off more than he can
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Well the papers haven’t been too kind about Rishi Sunak’s spring statement. To unpack if it truly deserves this level of vitriol Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth about the UK’s economic future as well as Nato’s more unified front.
The best dramas in British broadcasting are only found on one channel these days. Parliament TV has hosted its fair share of unsavoury characters over the years but today a new villain joined the rogues’ gallery. Step forward P&O Ferries chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite, who joins the likes of Philip Green, Fred Goodwin and Mike Ashley in being hauled
Eight years ago, and with the independence referendum one month away, the Clyde’s last commercial shipyard went into administration. The collapse of Ferguson’s not only threatened the jobs of 70 shipbuilders: it was an inconvenient symbol of industrial decline right as the SNP was trying to parlay rhetoric about an independent Scotland being ‘one of
Rishi Sunak shared a delightful moment of honesty on the Today programme on Thursday. Mishal Husain asked him how households will cope if, as the Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast, energy bills rise by a further £830 a year – on top of the rises already due to take effect in April. No, no, no,
As a paid-up member of the Labour party, it’s rare that I agree wholeheartedly with a Conservative politician. But Boris Johnson has spoken some much-needed common sense in the gender debate. ‘When it comes to distinguishing between a man and a woman,’ the PM told MPs yesterday, ‘the basic facts of biology remain overwhelmingly important.’ Boris is right:
The sound of chinking glasses and merry laughter greeted Steerpike yesterday as he made his way through the Westminster village. Rishi Sunak might have placed an edict on Treasury staff holding their traditional office drinking session while watching him deliver his spring statement but clearly some just decamped to SW1’s watering holes instead. What better
News that Putin’s climate envoy Anatoly Chubais has quit his position and left the country is no great surprise and, to many Russians, not that great a loss. However his departure is still significant as it illustrates a growing haemorrhage of the talents in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Those Russians with the resources and,
The Chancellor woke this morning to a grim set of headlines as the newspapers chew over his spring statement. Despite dangling the carrot of an income tax cut by 2024, most papers focus on the OBR’s projection that inflation will lead to the biggest fall in living standards since records began in the 1950s. While
For over two hundred years every single European war that Britain has been involved in has originated in the eastern half of the continent. From the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s, to the Crimean War in the 1850s, and from both World Wars – starting with Austro-Hungary’s shelling of Belgrade in late July