All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Jack Ma used to give rock star performances for his employees at Alibaba, Asia’s biggest online commerce company. He once dressed as Michael Jackson. But those halcyon days are gone. Over the last year, China’s richest man has had his wings clipped by the Chinese Communist party. The flamboyant Ma has only made a handful
Devolution has done so much to fracture the UK that, in Scotland, Rishi Sunak’s Budget is an event of the second order. Scottish interest in Budget day is typically limited to whisky duty, support for North Sea industries and the Barnett formula: the additional spending Scotland gets when the Chancellor splurges on England. Today’s Budget was
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have always been keen to stress that they are low-tax Conservatives — declarations that have previously sounded a bit like St Augustine’s prayer for the Lord to make him virtuous, but not yet. But the Budget announcement that the Universal Credit taper rate will be cut from 63 to 55
Another big fiscal event for Rishi Sunak today, as he delivered his Budget and the details of a three-year spending review. For the first time, Covid-19 wasn’t in the spotlight. Instead it was framed as a big-spending event, confirming plans briefed before the Budget — £7 billion in capital spending for the NHS, end of
Given Rishi Sunak spent so much of his Budget pointing out how high spending was – and given he announced some very Labour-friendly measures, such as a surprisingly big cut in the taper rate of Universal Credit from 63 per cent to 55 per cent – whoever responded on behalf of the Opposition was going
The Conservative party has always sold itself to voters as the party of low taxation, but it has now pushed taxes higher than any post-war Labour government dared. High spending was the tool the Prime Minister reached for at every turn in the pandemic, leaving Britain with one of the biggest post-Covid bills in Europe.
Something stirring happened online yesterday. People rushed to the defence of a media outlet they dislike. In the name of standing up for freedom of speech, political differences were put aside and the case was clearly made that even people we passionately disagree with must be at liberty to speak and publish. This was freedom
Today’s pre-Budget Prime Minister’s Questions would probably have been unremarkable had it not been for a sudden change of cast. At the very last minute, it was announced that Sir Keir Starmer had tested positive for Covid and would be replaced in the chamber by a blast from his party’s past in the form of
How much longer is the government going to suppress the cost to households of achieving net zero carbon emissions, or try to imply, as business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng recently seemed to imply on the Today programme, that it won’t cost us at all? Even as he spoke Kwarteng was working on a new model for the
Oh dear. Poor Keir Starmer has tested positive for Covid meaning he has to miss today’s Budget. Unlike Boris, he has managed to avoid getting ill until now but it’s the fifth time he has been forced to self-isolate after four previous incidents. Starmer’s absence means that shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves will be forced to
After 18 months of Zoom, Westminster is back. Last night hacks, politicians, lobbyists and kebab shop owners came together in the name of kebabs. In what the Prime Minister described in a special video message as ‘Westminster’s most hotly anticipated culinary event of the year’, an unlikely group assembled including the new education secretary Nadhim
China is seeking a grand bargain from the Taliban: eliminate the groups Beijing says are stirring up trouble among its Muslim Uighurs in exchange for massive aid to rebuild Afghanistan. It sounds enticing for both sides as they sit down in Doha this week, but there are numerous questions about whether either can deliver, and a
In his bid to reverse Brexit, Lord Adonis has demonstrated few qualms in using any weapon at his disposal. For years now Britain’s most ironically-titled peer has been keeping up a one man Twitter war, stalking the jungles of social media like some Japanese warrior fighting a campaign that ended 30 years ago. Now though, it appears
The New York Times entered the digital era under duress. In 2011, the Times erected a paywall in what it called a ‘subscription-first business model’. The gamble was that readers would want to pay for quality journalism. It was a risk, and at first it didn’t seem to be paying off: after a challenging 2014,
Former Chancellor Nigel Lawson famously said that the National Health Service is the nearest thing we British have to a state religion. You could say much the same thing about the European Union and the French. To our Gallic neighbours, the ‘construction of Europe’ is a sacred task that brooks no challenge. What goal can
Rishi Sunak has released photos of his Budget prep, as he prepares to stand up in the House of Commons tomorrow to deliver not just the government’s latest fiscal decisions, but the results of its three-year spending review. (Photos include a shot of his pre-Budget Twix and Sprite snack, which Sunak revealed to Katy Balls
Back in July the wedding of Boris and Carrie at Westminster Cathedral prompted Steerpike’s diligent colleague Robert Peston to ask a personal – but constitutionally important – question: is the PM a Catholic? As the head of government in a country with an established church, the Prime Minister and his office are intimately involved in
Pupils lost around a third of their face-to-face teaching during the Covid lockdowns. Downing Street has promised an extra £3 billion of catch-up funding, on top of around £100 billion spent on education in a normal year. Fixing a lack of teaching should involve doing a bit more of it — but when asked if
Lindsay Hoyle is, to put it mildly, on the warpath. The Speaker is now giving almost daily statements in which he complains about the government’s habit of making announcements to the media rather than in parliament. Last week he was furious that Health Secretary Sajid Javid had held a Downing Street press briefing on Covid
Facebook wants to move its business model towards the metaverse, that virtual future in which we will all hang out online through headsets and pretend it isn’t weird. The trouble is, we already appear to live in an alternate reality created by communications specialists with highly political agendas. Just look at the clearly PR-orchestrated Online Safety
Sudan’s army has just dissolved the government, dismissed the prime minister and declared a state of emergency. That certainly sounds like a coup — but it’s not, unless you count the army taking over from itself as a coup. The two uniformed power brokers who effectively controlled Sudan last week (a regular soldier called General
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Budget week rolls on. But today in the house the Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle voiced his displeasure at how much had been told to the press before tomorrow’s unveiling in the Commons. Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman about this tension, the budget, and the sewage situation.
Finally, the government is modelling the cost (and benefits) of lockdown restrictions. The introduction of vaccine passports, mandatory face masks and work-from-home advice would cost between £11 billion and £18 billion according to a leaked assessment of the so-called ‘Plan B’. And while all this may reduce the spread of the virus at large events
Why are Tory MPs having to take so much crap over a vote about sewage? The past few days have seen a tsunami of fury against the Conservative party for voting in favour of water companies dumping sewage in rivers and the sea. Most Conservative MPs weren’t even aware of what the offending vote was,
Rod Liddle once actually said to me the immortal words ‘You were right and I was wrong’ at a Spectator summer party. This is a moment I shall treasure till the hour of my death. But even so, I was disappointed. For the subject was only Theresa May. I had predicted she would be a
Steerpike doesn’t browse Novara Media much these days. The Corbynista website has ceased to have much in the way of news value since the Magic Grandpa stood down as Labour leader early last year. Nowadays the unholy trinity of literal communist Ash Sarkar, under-employed YouTuber Michael Walker and David Brent tribute act Aaron Bastani spend most of their time moaning
The Judicial Review and Courts Bill has its second reading today. Writing for the Guardian yesterday, David Davis MP denounced the government’s plans as ‘an obvious attempt to avoid accountability [and] to consolidate power’ which is ‘profoundly un-conservative’. He could not be more wrong. The Bill is a welcome first step in restoring the balance
Czech President Miloš Zeman has never been one to do things by halves. His mastery in the art of consuming inordinate quantities of alcohol is the stuff of legend, while his formidable smoking once led another senior politician to complain that he felt like a piece of smoked meat in the president’s presence. Two years
You already know that State of Terror, Hillary Clinton’s new novel, written in collaboration with the best-selling author Louise Penny, is going to be awful. You want to why. If the novel is a corpse then let this critic be the coroner. To be fair, State of Terror offers as much literary competence as you
Mark Zuckerberg emerged from his walk-in T-shirt closet last week to make a stunning announcement: Facebook will be changing its name. And while we don’t yet know what the new name will be, I think I may be able to help here. How about this: Boomerware? Or in keeping with Silicon Valley’s penchant for trendy
It’s a big week for fans of high politics and hobnobbing. Prior to the launch of Sunday’s COP26 shindig there is first the small matter of the G20 summit in Rome. And while the attention of many attendees – chief among them Britain’s Boris Johnson – will no doubt be on green gambits and climate
When I first started at Churchill College, Cambridge, I was proud that I had joined an institution whose very existence was a testament to the legacy of a personal and national hero. As I walked around the college grounds, I felt that I was now part of a community that was much bigger than myself;
Which departments will fare the worst from this week’s Budget? It won’t be the Department for Health and Social Care. Over the past few days, new funding announcements have appeared in the papers meaning the NHS will be handed another £5.9 billion. That’s in addition to the £12 billion a year investment it will receive as a
The green agenda is leading the news, with Boris Johnson on a PR mission to sell his environmental plans to the country (and sceptical Tory MPs) ahead of Cop26. Several documents were published last week, including the much-delayed Heat and Building strategy, the Net Zero strategy and the Net Zero review which is meant to offer