All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
There has been much anger after the Colston statue verdict this week, in which a jury cleared four protesters of criminal damage over the toppling of the monument in Bristol. It is an affront to many that vandalism can be exonerated on the grounds of supposedly righting the wrongs of the past, owing to Edward
This week it was reported that Lufthansa Group – which also owns Brussels Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings and Swiss International Airlines – expects to operate 18,000 ‘ghost flights’ with no passengers on them between December and March this year. Other airlines will be following Lufthansa’s lead over the year. At a time when the world
A couple of days ago a colleague alerted me to the opening of an online public consultation regarding proposals made by the Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review Group, a scheme launched by Edinburgh City Council in 2020 to look at ways the city can acknowledge its historical connections with slavery and colonialism in the
One of the many things Priti Patel brought with her to the Home Office was a renewed focus on the ‘war on drugs’. Since her appointment in 2019, the Witham MP has made her distaste for substance abuse clear, accompanying police on house raids, deporting foreign dealers, declaring war on ‘county lines’ gangs and threatening ‘tough action’
I knew when I boarded the plane home to America on Boxing Day that I was heading to an unhappy place. There may be lots of shortages in the United States right now, but anger is on tap (so say the think pieces). Americans are ‘furious’, ‘divided’, we’re told, and the ‘two sides’ are completely
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Despite a torrid time for the Prime Minister’s popularity over the last few months, there may be a political revival on the horizon. His decision not to lockdown over the Omicron variant seems to have paid off and won back some of the support from his party. But will the Johnson project end up a
Well, we’ve been terrifically amused and amusing at the expense of Pope Francis, who this week declared at a Vatican audience that: ‘Many couples do not have children because they don’t want them, or have just one because they don’t want any more, but have two dogs, two cats… oh yes, dogs and cats take
We bemoan autocracies in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Russia and China but largely ignore the more subtle authoritarian trend in the West. Don’t expect a crudely effective dictatorship out of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: we may remain, as we are now, nominally democratic, but be ruled by a technocratic class empowered by greater powers
Why has the government changed its mind and asked children to wear masks in school? When Plan B was announced last month, there was no requirement. But that has changed. Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary, was asked why on Monday. He replied that ‘we conducted a small observational study with 123 schools who had followed mask-wearing in
If you were asked to think of a perfect fascist, never in a month of Sundays would you suggest Bilbo Baggins of Bag End. Hobbits such as he, after all, grow no more than four feet tall and have slightly pointed ears and a round jovial face. Their feet have leathery soles and are covered with brown
Since becoming Health Secretary there has been one big question Sajid Javid cannot answer: how can he justify firing a worker who has recovered from Covid, has antibodies and doesn’t want the vaccine? Javid first did this with unjabbed care home workers and now plans to fire unjabbed NHS doctors. Today he met one of them —
Jack Dromey, who has died today aged 73, was a Labour MP, a trade unionist and a campaigner. He was extremely well-liked across the House of Commons: something that those who didn’t know him will have noticed immediately in the shocked tributes that have been pouring in from Westminster figures. He was a good MP,
Britain’s leading universities are just one sector having to grapple with the recent decline in UK-China relations. Barely six years ago David Cameron was speaking of a new ‘golden age’ of partnership between the two nations but all that has changed after the Hong Kong crackdown and Xinjiang atrocities. Now there is pressure in both
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2022 has only just begun but a lot of minds in American politics are already looking towards the next presidential election in 2024. For the Republicans, the big question is will Donald Trump be their nominee and if he isn’t who will fill that very large hole? Freddy Gray sits down with the editor of
Many of the thorniest problems of politics come down to the same thing: timeframes. Big problems generally require solutions that take a long time to develop and implement. But the decision to do this must be made by politicians who work to much shorter timetables: news cycles measured in days and weeks, ministerial appointments that
Boris Johnson is a bit of a wide boy when it comes to his personal finances and the trappings of office. Though such an observation may offend some of the PM’s most ardent supporters – the kind of people who initially claimed that his outrageous attempt to get Owen Paterson off the hook was perfectly fine
Forget the desirability (or lack thereof) of tax hikes: can Britain survive them? That’s the economic question that kicked off the new year in cabinet this week when Jacob Rees-Mogg was reported to have encouraged the Prime Minister and his colleagues to roll back plans to bring in the new National Insurance levy this April.
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The ‘lost’ texts sent by Boris Johnson to Lord Brownlow over his Downing Street flat refurbishment continues to dominate the headlines today. As the story unravels, it’s a sign that the Tory sleaze issues hitting Boris at the end of 2021 will continue way into the new year. ‘It’s not going to go down well
Is anyone else alarmed by the widespread glee at the way Novak Djokovic has been treated by the Aussies? The world’s top tennis player is in an immigration detention hotel in Melbourne, fighting to avoid being deported. Djokovic, who was granted a medical exemption to defend his title in the Australian Open, somehow snuck into the country with a bunch
Boris Johnson isn’t the only party leader doing renovations it seems. The newly updated parliamentary register of interests has been released this week, two months after the Owen Paterson scandal triggered an exodus of MPs from their second jobs. Not all though appear to have embraced the new hair shirt mentality though, with Sir Keir Starmer declaring
A Christian-owned bakery harried through the courts for refusing to produce a cake endorsing same-sex marriage and a nurse driven out of her job for wearing a small cross. The two are apparently unconnected but have found themselves in the same news cycle this week. The ‘gay cake case’, as it’s invariably billed, has been
Looking back, it wasn’t a great 2021 for LGBT+ group Stonewall. There were the allegations it misrepresented the law in its advice to Essex University, accusations from founder Matthew Parris that it was trying to delegitimise critics and the ongoing exodus of Whitehall departments from its much-criticised diversity scheme. But despite all this controversy, the charity’s latest
It’s not often that browsing the genteel aisles of Waterstones reminds you of madmen storming the Capitol in buffalo-horn helmets, but that’s the buzz I got as I briskly scanned the History shelves. I happened on a slender volume called How To Stop Brexit, written by Nick Clegg. I’d never heard of the book (a realisation
She is the glamorous blonde who’s the talk of the town. Enterprising, ambitious, sharp-elbowed, with a career that embodies the Fiat 500 Tory dream. A charismatic, self-made woman whose free market philosophy of selfish individualism will make her the toast of Thatcherites everywhere. No, not Liz Truss; but rather Love Island contestant Molly-Mae Hague. For the Foreign Secretary isn’t the only liberty-lover
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In yesterday’s Cabinet debate, Jacob Rees-Mogg called on Boris Johnson to abandon the planned hike in national insurance, amid warnings of a looming cost of living crisis. This is not the first time the leader of the Commons has criticised the government following his opposition to tougher Covid restrictions. Might this be a sign that
After the Colston debacle, you might be forgiven for having missed the other legal story that broke this week. The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed the complaint in the Ulster ‘gay cake’ case, so the decision in favour of the baker will stand. In case you need reminding, seven years ago a Belfast
Is J.K. Rowling anti-Semitic? Yes, I know. It’s the first week of 2022 and this question is being asked, after it was reported that the American comedian Jon Stewart had complained about the portrayal of goblins in the Harry Potter franchise. In a video released online yesterday, Stewart attempted to put the record straight. ‘Let
At long last, the flatgate letters are out. Boris Johnson has today been cleared by his ethics adviser Lord Geidt of deliberately misleading an investigation into the funding of his Downing Street flat refurbishment – despite being accused of acting ‘unwisely’. Geidt had previously cleared Johnson of breaking the ministerial code over allegations of soliciting a donation from Lord
Russian troops have now arrived in Kazakhstan in a desperate bid to halt the tide of violence that has swept the country. Their arrival is a last resort for the country’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as he fights to maintain his grip on power. But he isn’t the only leader who is eager to quell this unrest:
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It’s been one year since a large number of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC to try and prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election. There are still many questions surrounding that infamous day and to look for some answers Freddy Gray talks with John Daniel Davidson, a senior editor at
Marjorie Taylor Greene is nuttier than M&M World. Not your garden-variety conservative, or even a conservative at all, but a conspiracy theorist who rode these febrile times into a seat in Congress. She describes American Airlines Flight 77 as ‘the so-called plane that crashed into the Pentagon’ on 9/11, remarking that ‘it’s odd there’s never
Just minutes from the heart of Victoria’s capital, Melbourne Park is one of the great tennis complexes. For a fortnight in January, it will be the centre of the tennis world as the home of the year’s first Grand Slam tournament, the Australian Open. For Melburnians the Open is more than just a tennis tournament.