All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Since lockdown, the Mirror has had a good line on Tory lockdown hypocrisy scandals: Barnard Castle and the No. 10 parties. But today’s Sunday Mirror splash does not really deserve to go down in the annals of historic journalistic scoops — despite all the excited chatter this morning. Like all ‘clear breach of lockdown rules’,
If it looked like the Prime Minister was in trouble last week, it seems that was just the tip of the iceberg. The latest needle in Boris Johnson’s side is a photo splashed in the Daily Mirror which shows him hosting a Christmas quiz on December 15 last year. At the time, the capital was
It is nine months since the World Health Organisation (WHO) dismissed the possibility that the Covid 19 pandemic could have originated in a laboratory leak, calling it ‘extremely unlikely’. Since then, much scientific opinion has been moving in the direction that it is at least a possibility – especially given that the Wuhan Institute of
The Number 10 Christmas parties during lockdown have dominated the news agenda in recent days – and for good reason. But there has arguably been an even bigger government scandal brewing, one which has largely been overlooked in Westminster. On Tuesday the government told the Grenfell Tower Inquiry that it was ‘deeply sorry’ for the
It’s hard to recall a more brutal set of Sundays for Boris Johnson. Today’s papers are dominated by ‘partygate’ in one form of another, with the most worrying splash undoubtedly being the Sunday Mirror. It features an image of a Downing Street staffer dressed in tinsel taking a picture of Johnson appearing on a Zoom call
This week it emerged that a hospital in the city of Białystok in Poland refused to grant an abortion to a pregnant woman, even though her baby had no chance of survival. The abortion was requested because of the woman’s psychological state after learning about the foetus’s prospects. Although two psychiatrists confirmed she had severe
Rowan Williams is no stranger to politics. As Archbishop of Canterbury he was as comfortable criticising Tony Blair over Iraq as passing stern judgment on David Cameron’s austerity measures. Even in these pages, at the height of the global crisis in 2008, Williams was arguing that Marx could teach us a thing or two about
The Omicron variant had not even been named when the government’s reflexes sprung into almost involuntary reaction last month, and it introduced yet more Covid restrictions. The ‘red list’ was immediately revived and South Africa was placed on it. All travellers from there and several other African countries were soon forced into expensive quarantine hotels
Oh dear. The House of Commons is due to vote on the government’s ‘Plan B’ Covid strategy on Tuesday, with speculation mounting about the scale of parliamentary opposition to the proposed vaccine passports. Mr S has been keeping track of the number of Tory rebels with the current figure standing at 65 MPs – potentially the
There’s been much chaos and drama this week in Westminster but a hundred miles away from the capital, a far more serious scandal has been playing out in a Derby court. For yesterday, former Conservative minister Andrew Griffiths was found to have raped and physically abused his wife and successor as MP for Burton-upon-Trent, Kate Griffiths. A family court judge concluded the former
Sajid Javid ditched vaccine passports when he became Health Secretary but he now has to bring them in again, albeit in an updated form where a lateral flow negative test will also be accepted. But how to get this past the Commons where 65 MPs have now decided to rebel? How to do this now given
On Tuesday, MPs will vote will be held on the government’s new Covid restrictions to tackle the Omicron variant. Despite mounting public and parliamentary opposition, such measures are set to include vaccine passports for large gatherings, compulsory face masks in more places, and people being asked to work from home when they can though, er, they can still go
You could almost hear the rejoicing in Whitehall on Friday morning when the High Court cleared the way for Julian Assange to be extradited to the US, rejecting a plea that he was too mentally frail. The man has, after all, been a thorn in the administration’s side for 11 years: 18 months contesting his
The names Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor will not be familiar to most but they represent one of the most damning cases of Metropolitan police incompetence in living memory. On Friday, a jury at Barking Town Hall found that officers’ failure to properly investigate Anthony’s murder contributed to the subsequent murders
Is the ball about to come loose at the back of the scrum? Though an imminent defenestration of Boris Johnson is still just about odds-against, the chances of him leading the Tories into the next election are certainly receding. Should a leadership contest be required as early as next year it is already clear who
Is Putin preparing to invade Ukraine? It certainly looks that way, with western intelligence agencies estimating this week that around 100,000 troops are now massing at the country’s eastern border. To some, this build-up is proof enough that the Kremlin plans to invade. This week the US president Joe Biden even made significant diplomatic concessions
It may be an impossible task to restore Aung San Suu Kyi’s reputation, but Burma’s generals have made a sterling effort this week, after they sentenced her to at least two years in jail. This time last year Suu Kyi, a former Nobel peace prize winner, was a fallen icon. Her lack of sympathy and
Why don’t today’s children know more about history? In an age when information has never been easier to access, it’s alarming how many youngsters are ignorant about the past. In July, a survey of 1,000 schoolchildren found that four out of ten had no idea what the Battle of Britain was, while another four out
Why is the government so scared of the Omicron variant? So far, most of the evidence we have for transmissibility and virulence of Omicron is based on very limited data from South Africa, but the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has now published its own preliminary study of the variant — the results of which
Julian Assange is facing extradition after the high court ruled there is no legal impediment to him facing espionage charges in the United States. The decision would seem to justify the fears that the WikiLeaks founder and his supporters have long harboured: that the UK has essentially served as a holding pen until such time as a
24 min listen
The trial of Ghislaine Maxwell has gripped the world, a woman accused of truly horrendous crimes. But have we as a society thrown out the cardinal rule of innocent until proven guilty? Freddy Gray sits down with her brother Ian Maxwell who believes that her treatment pre-trial has been nothing short of torturous.
17 min listen
Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and the New Statesman‘s Stephen Bush about the possibility of an upset next Thursday in the seat recently vacated by Owen Paterson.
Nicola Sturgeon has said that Scotland should expect a ‘tsunami’ of Covid cases, so has said Christmas parties should be cancelled and household contacts of any positive case — Omicron or not — should isolate for ten days regardless of vaccination status. Given that Scotland and England have very similar Covid profiles (both in waves and vaccination) this
Away from the shenanigans of Westminster, the details of Ghislaine Maxwell’s ongoing trial have been filling our national newspapers this week. Images have been released of the British socialite cavorting with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at Balmoral, the Queen’s home in Scotland, with Maxwell facing allegations that she facilitated and participated in the
After listening to an hour-and-a-half of Emily Ratajkowski talking about My Body I had to look up naked pictures of her on the internet to understand what she was complaining about. She arrived fully clothed to the ‘How To Academy’ to be interviewed by Pandora Sykes. This made it hard to know whether her dangerous-sounding upbringing
After a fraught few months, you’d have hoped the hard-pressed masters and mandarins of Whitehall could let their hair down with a good old Christmas bush. Unfortunately, in the wake of ‘partygate’ a wave of cancellations is now sweeping Westminster with No. 10 canning their planned shindig on Wednesday and Rishi Sunak now calling off his
12 min listen
Boris Johnson’s problems are not going away anytime soon and he is facing extreme pressure on several fronts going into the weekend. Hypocrisy charges from the media and the Labour Party, more scandal regarding the No. 10 flat refurbishment, and a massive Tory rebellion regarding his Plan B measures. Not to mention his recent announcement
With No. 10 in crisis and his party opening up a six point lead in the polls, can anything ruin Keir Starmer’s Christmas? Well the Socialist Campaign Group seem to be doing their damnedest, given their propensity for high-profile interventions to remind voters of the collection of cranks still adorning Labour’s collection of cranks. The latest leftie
Pity the poor people of Leicester East. Having finally rid themselves of the disgraced Keith Vaz in 2019, the long-standing Labour constituency now finds itself lumbered with convicted criminal Claudia Webbe. Despite being slapped with a suspended jail sentence, Webbe still clings on in the Commons, pending her appeal, after her barrister’s pleas for the last judge
The economy is tantalisingly close to returning to pre-pandemic levels, now just 0.5 per cent off recovery. But this last hurdle may be the most difficult to overcome. The economy was more or less at a standstill in October, with GDP climbing by a measly 0.1 per cent. Services output grew by 0.4 per cent,
Was 10 Downing Street really a rule-free zone when it came to the coronavirus regulations, the laws which have governed our lives to varying extents since the pandemic first erupted? Steven Barrett writing on Coffee House, says that it was: ‘the regulations almost certainly never applied to No. 10 anyway,’ he argues. I’m not convinced.
Boris Johnson may be celebrating the birth of a baby daughter but that doesn’t mean the pressure on him is eased. Instead, the Prime Minister is fighting on three fronts going into the weekend. The first is the alleged Downing Street parties with more claims emerging that there were several events. While cabinet secretary Simon