All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Boris Johnson is doing rather well on Ukraine at the moment, thanks to Britain’s role in sending arms and training instructors there. But now another military crisis from the not-so-recent past threatens to block the greased pig’s escape from political danger yet again. For this afternoon the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) will be taking evidence
‘How many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home? Five?’ Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has spoken for the first time in public, giving a press conference alongside her husband Richard and MP Tulip Siddiq this lunchtime. She was grateful for her release from Iran, but also very clear that she wasn’t as thankful to
The news that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has banned eleven opposition parties – including the pro-Russian ‘Opposition – Platform For Life’ which holds 44 seats in the 450-member Ukrainian parliament and has spoken out against the Russian invasion – may be the embattled leader’s first major mistake in the month since Putin launched his brutal invasion.
When Rishi Sunak first envisaged this year’s spring statement, the idea was that it would be policy light. Instead, it would serve as an economic update on the latest forecast and give him a chance to lay out his broad tax aspirations for the year ahead. However, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine means that the goalposts have
It was Nye Bevan who claimed that the Conservative party was ‘lower than vermin.’ But in today’s House of Commons, it is not just the Tories who have to serve cheek by jowl with some of nature’s less attractive creatures. Since the return of Westminster last year, Steerpike has heard nothing but complaints about the
Poet’, said Robert Frost, ‘is a praise-word’. So it is. That explains in part the unabashed delight with which Colm Tóibín, speaking in our current Book Club podcast, talks about publishing his fine first poetry collection Vinegar Hill – decades of international acclaim as a novelist notwithstanding. Poetry is a high-status artform, perhaps the highest.
Cast your minds back to March 2021. Back then, Britain was emerging from lockdown, the Americans were in place in Afghanistan and Thorntons still had shops. Up in Edinburgh meanwhile, the Salmond Inquiry was raging. The timely leak from a parliamentary committee which concluded that Nicola Sturgeon had misled Holyrood prompted a flurry of accusations
Several thousand Muslim Chechen fighters are reportedly massing on the edge of Kiev. Syrian volunteers, filmed this week holding assault rifles and chanting pro-Moscow slogans, are en route to the Ukrainian frontlines. Is Vladimir Putin running out of Christians for his war machine? The number of Russian battlefield casualties has certainly been high. Up to 7,000
Rishi Sunak – Brexit vote and Ukraine resistance ‘are not analogous’ The Chancellor was in the TV studios this morning, ahead of the Spring Statement that he will deliver on Wednesday. Economic issues, like much else, have been cast into the shadows over recent weeks as the spotlight has inevitably focused on the Russian invasion of
Well over a year after the presidential election, long after all mainstream media outlets killed a legitimate story about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop, the New York Times finally announced it had ‘authenticated’ the computer and its messages. The computer, left at a Delaware computer repair shop, is filled with damning information about Hunter’s operations, which
What support might the Chancellor dish out to help with the cost of living squeeze in the Spring Statement this week? In line with his previous media appearances, Rishi Sunak’s statements ahead of his mini-Budget this morning on the BBC didn’t give much away, as the Chancellor ‘can’t speculate’ on what’s to come in his
When the Omicron variant (now categorised as BA.1) swept across the world at the end of last year it was seen by optimists as the final chapter in the Covid story – it was so contagious it would infect essentially anyone, but would be far less likely to cause serious illness. Now a new wave
Mike Tyson put it simply: ‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth’. And Vladimir Putin has just experienced a blistering one-two: fierce resistance on the battlefield, trashing his plans for blitzkrieg, followed by the rabbit punch of international sanctions that will soon rock the whole of Russian society. ‘Putinism’ is not
Vladimir Putin hasn’t won the Ukraine war yet and already they’re talking about putting him in the dock. Gordon Brown’s call for the establishment of Nuremberg-style trials, ‘indicting President Putin and his inner circle for the crime of aggression against Ukraine’, is well-meaning and emerges from a sincere Christian socialist worldview. I once termed Brown
Asylum is often seen as a simple morality tale—the generous spirited are in favour of it, the hard-hearted against. And we certainly read plenty of high moral dudgeon directed at the Home Office’s pedestrian response to the Ukraine refugee crisis. Much of that criticism was deserved. The lack of preparedness and then the inability to
In a historic speech to the German parliament last month, the chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a €100 billion investment fund for the German army and a permanent increase in defence spending to above 2 per cent of GDP. He also promised that Germany would send hundreds of Stinger man-portable air-defence systems and Panzerfaust-3 anti-tank weapons
Putin, like many other belligerent autocrats, does like his Wunderwaffen, or ‘wonder weapons.’ Now it appears he’s even used one in an act of wasteful overkill in Ukraine: using the hypersonic Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (Dagger) missile to apparently destroy an arms depot in western Ukraine. The Kinzhal was one of the six ‘magic weapons’ Putin unveiled
The Conservative plan to tackle the NHS backlog has, so far, run roughly along the lines of the New Labour approach to the hefty waiting lists in the health service at the turn of the century. More money, more flexibility when using the private sector and greater ‘patient choice’ (which in this context translates as
The read-outs from Friday’s two-hour call between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping were so different, that you have to wonder whether the two leaders were on the same line. The White House version had Biden bluntly warning China of the consequences of providing assistance to Russia, while Beijing’s take presented Xi as a peacemaker ‘The
Emmanuel Macron unveiled his campaign manifesto in a carefully orchestrated press conference on Thursday and his pledges to cut taxes and reform the welfare system dominated the headlines on Friday morning. But the president also touched on defence, promising that spending – €32.3 billion when he came to power in 2017 – will rise to
As the Conservative party’s Spring Forum gets underway in Blackpool, attention is turning back to domestic politics, with cabinet ministers publicly suggesting partygate is over – or more specifically that it is ‘fluff’ according to Jacob Rees-Mogg. A debate about tax is also underway on the fringes as Rishi Sunak continues to insist that he
As the Russian invasion enters its fourth week it is clear that its forces are running out of momentum, although they continue to make limited territorial gains in the south and east of Ukraine. Having been denied a quick victory over Ukraine itself, Putin now needs to force the Ukrainian government to accept a ceasefire
This week, Lia Thomas became the first transgender athlete to be crowned National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion, winning the 500-yard freestyle in Georgia, US. The crowd was muted, and no wonder. Thomas spent around 20 years as a man and started competing against women in swimming only last year before becoming a national champion.
In 1697 Tsar Peter the Great set out on a great journey across western Europe, seeking the support of European monarchs in his confrontation with the Ottoman Empire. Unsuccessful in securing alliances, he returned instead laden with ideas acquired in his travels through Britain and Holland, which he promptly put into action in modernising Russia.
Who decides what gets counted as ‘misinformation’? For the increasingly large number of people who get their news from social media the answer these days is probably Facebook or Twitter, which in recent years have become far more powerful than any old press baron. This became particularly apparent during the tail end of the Donald
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the West has got many things right. Yet there is no doubt that Western mistakes over the past few years, and splits in the weeks and months beforehand, made Putin think he could get away with his invasion. The West cannot afford to repeat these with Taiwan, I say in the
It goes without saying that sacking your entire staff via a ten-minute video call while their cheaper, foreign replacements sit outside in buses is a pretty disgusting way to treat people. True, P&O’s cross-Channel operation has been rendered unprofitable as a result of Covid, but this wasn’t a case of a headcount reduction or management
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As Rishi Sunak finalises his Spring Statement, how can he resolve the trilemma of an ageing society, no peace dividend and low growth? Meanwhile, there is a broad Tory desire for increased defence spending amid the Russia Ukraine invasion. But from where will this money be taken? ‘This isn’t an easy time for Rishi. If
In conflicts, there is always a temptation to mirror the tactics of one’s opponents – which is why it’s depressing to see Ofcom do so by taking Russia Today (RT) off air. The fight is not just between Russia and Ukraine but a democratic view of life and authoritarian rule. In our system, we believe
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The Tory spring conference is this weekend. Before the invasion of Ukraine, when partygate dominated the headlines, it was predicted to have the feel of a pageant show for potential candidates to replace Boris Johnson. But now, with even Labour quieting their cries for resignation, what will the atmosphere of this event be? Max Jeffery talks
Contemplating leaders and their heroes can be a revealing business. Churchill had busts of Nelson and Napoleon at Chartwell (and a portrait of John Churchill by his bedside). Ronald Reagan had a bronze head of an anonymous cowboy in the Oval Office; Boris Johnson has a bust of Pericles (who took advice only from his
Boris Johnson’s hero – apart from himself – is Winston Churchill, who led Britain through the dark valley of World War Two. Our present PM has even written an adulatory biography of the great man, and clearly would like to channel Churchill as a war leader and emulate his success. Will the war in Ukraine