All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
This week it was confirmed that a Hungarian general election – framed as a referendum on Viktor Orbán’s leadership – will take place on April 3. As the campaigning descends into acrimony and with cracks appearing in the previously smooth facade of the country’s United Opposition, Orbán – the Fidesz leader and scourge of Brussels
With just three weeks until the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, Covid-19 is creeping ever closer to the capital. The Communist party is seeking to isolate Beijing from the rest of the country to keep the virus at bay and the games on track. But its zero-Covid policy, a desperate game of Whac-A-Mole
I like to think of myself as a latter-day Mother Shipton. I may not live in a cave in the north of Yorkshire, but I do occasionally dabble in prophecy. And, like Mother Shipton, I am accurate approximately roughly one per cent of the time. And I can prove it. In a diary piece for
As an outsider looking in, it is curious to note just how loyal some remain to Boris Johnson. Not the payroll vote or even the backbenchers keeping their heads down, but the grassroots, the rank-and-file members and Tory voters both lifelong and more recent. Boris is a man who has never given loyalty and has
‘Deaths could hit 6,000 a day,’ reported the newspapers on 17 December. A day later documents for the 99th meeting of Sage were released which said that, without restrictions over and above ‘Plan B’, deaths would range from 600 to 6,000 a day. A summary of Sage advice, prepared for the Cabinet, gave three models of
To read some of the coverage of No. 10’s parties, you’d have thought Boris Johnson’s government was a uniquely mendacious, duplicitous and scandalous regime. Fortunately, just north of the border, Nicola Sturgeon’s administration is doing its bit to prove it’s every bit as secretive, flawed and contemptuous of standards. Today’s Scotsman on Saturday reveals that
Boris Johnson has gone into the weekend with his fate in the hands of Tory MPs. Since the Prime Minister apologised in the Commons chamber for attending a drinks party in the Downing Street garden during lockdown, there has been a concerted effort to shore up his position. Members of the Cabinet have come out to
On Wednesday at De Kleine Komedie, the oldest theatre in Amsterdam, the sound of comics on stage will be interspersed with the snips of scissors. Unable to open as a theatre due to the coronavirus restrictions, the comic actor Diederik Ebbinge is defiantly converting the venue into a hairdressers for the day with customers able
It’s been a pretty dreadful week for security at the Palace of Westminster. First, there was the admission that a Chinese spy suspect, Christine Lee, had donated thousands of pounds to Barry Gardiner’s office where her son, Daniel Wilkes, was employed as a member of staff. His access to the parliamentary estate was not revoked
The Australian government’s decision to cancel the world number one tennis player Novak Djokovic’s visa was inevitable in the end. Things started well for Djokovic. On Monday he won his initial match in the law courts when his QC-led legal team successfully challenged his visa cancellation as a breakdown of procedural fairness. After this utter
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Five Tory MPs have publicly said that Boris Johnson should resign. After a torrid week in Downing Street, which finished with the Prime Minister having to apologise to the Queen for a party being held on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral, could we soon see a leadership contest? Katy Balls, James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson
American foreign-policy strategists used to promulgate doctrines. Now they dream up slogans. ‘America is back’ is the jingle under which the Biden administration has been conducting — or marketing — its post-Trump, post-Covid diplomacy, much as ‘Go big’ has been its jingle in domestic matters. The problem is, being ‘back’ can mean a number of
Salzburg, Austria Across Austria, the streets are alive with the sounds of drums and cow bells. Ever since the Austrian government announced a vaccine mandate in November 2021, with vaccine refuseniks set to face fines, potential bankruptcies and possible prison sentences from February this year, demonstrations against the proposed measures have not ceased. You can
The life-or-death question for the Prime Minister is not whether Downing Street and Cabinet Office parties were illegal and should result in criminal prosecutions. Nor is it whether all or indeed any of the parties were actually organised by him. No. What will determine his survival is whether he has the faintest chance of persuading
It is often said that there are few convinced ‘Boris-ites’ to be found among the ranks of Conservative MPs and that this lack of a praetorian guard of diehard supporters is a major weakness for the Prime Minister. But a much bigger weakness is the rapid ebbing away of the ranks of Boris-ites among the
It was easy to get the sense in 2020 that the government didn’t want the lockdowns to end. Now we all realise why: everyone in No. 10 was having an absolute whale of a time. Less than 24 hours after the Telegraph revealed No. 10 held two parties the night before Prince Philip’s funeral (classy), the Mirror
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It’s been revealed that two more parties took place in No. 10 during the pandemic. This time, on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral. While the Prime Minister was not at this event, is No. 10’s party culture coming straight from the top? Max Jeffery is joined by Katy Balls and James Forsyth.
Oh for heaven’s sake, come off it. British politics has long had a comfortable relationship with the absurd but this week – not yet over, its revelations not yet exhausted – takes a very pretty biscuit nonetheless. I do not imagine that ‘Downing Street apologises to the Queen for party revels’ is quite the kind
There’s an inherent contradiction at the heart of liberal thinking that perpetually raises its head. It’s one which has become ever-more pronounced in our age of ultra-progressive politics: the tension between equality and liberty. Many progressives think you can have both. Alas not. You can only have either, or a greater emphasis upon one at
‘We failed’. An editorial in Ekstra Bladet, Denmark’s leading tabloid, berates the Fourth Estate – including itself – for failing to hold ministers to account during the pandemic. Worn down by repeated warnings of ‘the dormant corona monster under our beds’, Ekstra Bladet claims Danish journalists mostly took the government line. ‘We have not been vigilant enough
The UK has long been aware of the risk of cyber-attacks emanating from China. Back in 2007, the head of MI5 Jonathan Evans warned hundreds of British businesses about Chinese cyber-operations targeting the UK. Yet the risk from Chinese spies operating in the UK is less well understood. This is why it came as such a shock
It seems that Boris Johnson has adopted something of a curious approach to Covid regulations. No, not the Downing Street parties, but rather his attitude towards self-isolation. For the PM’s official spokesman revealed yesterday that one of Johnson’s relatives — either his wife Carrie or one of the children he has living at Downing Street — has tested positive for
Nearly two years after the UK experienced its biggest economic collapse in 300 years, the economy has returned to pre-pandemic levels. GDP is estimated by the ONS to have grown by 0.9 per cent in November, almost twice what had been expected – making it 0.7 per cent larger than it was in February 2020.
So, how many is that now? ITV have just revealed that Boris Johnson had a 56th birthday bash in the middle of the first lockdown — the latest in a list of illicit parties that have come to light over the past two months. By Steerpike’s count there have been reports of at least *sixteen* parties which allegedly broke Covid restrictions
If any single image epitomised the sacrifices that millions made during the pandemic, it was that of the Queen, masked, black-clad and entirely alone, in a pew at Windsor Castle on 17 April 2021, at Prince Philip’s socially distanced funeral. For those who regard Her Majesty as the exemplar of the public servant, who has
Tory associations are about to become central to Boris Johnson’s fate. Even before last night’s Telegraph story revealing how a party was held in Downing Street the night before Prince Philip’s socially distanced funeral, several Tory MPs told me that their associations were putting pressure on them to be more critical of the Prime Minister.
President Joe Biden delivered one of the most demagogic speeches of any modern president on Tuesday. You might say it even had Trumpian tones. Having seen his Build Back Better spending plan fall into a legislative ditch, a frustrated Biden has decided to run to the nearest mudhole and start throwing its contents at his
The biggest surprise in Thursday’s security warning about a Chinese agent seeking to influence British politicians is that it came as a surprise at all. The Chinese Communist Party operates a vast and growing influence operation in Britain, which has pretty much been allowed free rein. The warning came from MI5 in the form of
Oh dear. If you were trying to design a story to offend Tory England, it would be hard to do better than the idea that there was a party held in Downing Street the night before the Queen had to mourn Prince Philip alone at a socially distanced funeral. But that is what the Daily Telegraph
Prince Andrew has been well and truly cut adrift. By his only family. From birth, he was styled His Royal Highness. He will go to his grave unencumbered by it. The removal of the style HRH, at the age of 61, will hurt a son of the Queen who doesn’t wear his royal status lightly.
The final judgement, when it came, was phrased with admirable economy. This evening’s statement from Buckingham Palace said simply that: With The Queen’s approval and agreement, The Duke of York’s military affiliations and Royal patronages have been returned to The Queen. The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is
Well, at least someone’s having a worse week than Boris Johnson. For the Queen has announced this afternoon that Prince Andrew has now been stripped of his military affiliations and patronages that meant so much to them both. The news follows a day after an American judge gave the green light for the Duke of York to face a sexual
