All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Downing Street have spent the week trying to play down reports of a secret No. 10 party last Christmas when the rest of the country was under restrictions. They have tried a few tactics: at Prime Minister’s Questions last week, Boris Johnson didn’t deny the event had taken place but insisted all Covid guidance had been followed. When that
Now that the dust from the choppers has settled, we are left with two abiding images of the West’s adventure in Afghanistan. The first is an American Chinook hovering over its embassy, rescuing staff in a botched evacuation. This debacle unfolded just weeks after president Biden promised the world there would be no parallel with the
Steerpike has seen many abject appearances before select committees. There was the time Sir Philip Green told Richard Fuller to ‘stop staring’ at him after BHS went belly-up. There was Russell Brand’s cowboy-hatted testimony on drug abuse. There was even the infamous occasion when Rupert Murdoch was attacked by a pie. But few civil servants have
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A new 40-page document written by Raphael Marshall, a former desk officer at the Foreign Office, depicts a disorganised mess in the handling of this year’s Afghanistan withdrawal. ‘I think the picture that is painted of chaos… it raises a whole slew of questions.’ – James Forsyth Katy Balls and James Forsyth dissect some of
The British commentariat has not covered itself in glory in its reaction to Dominic Raab’s proposed reforms to judicial review. The Times reported yesterday that the government is planning to introduce a novel legislative tactic, the ‘Interpretation Bill’, to try to shift the balance of power back towards parliament. To be clear: there is no
The BBC has produced its annual 100 Women list, a showcase for women who have done interesting, important things. There’s a lot to like about this year’s list: half the women on it come from Afghanistan; some of them, tellingly, can’t be pictured for their own safety. Perhaps if fewer British resources had been deployed
Ursula von der Leyen dispensing vaccines, with a halo over her head perhaps? Emmanuel Macron riding a tank to symbolise the continent’s strategic autonomy? Or various commissioners whose names no one can quite remember setting carbon targets, fining Google and Apple, and dishing out grants for roads, bridges and tunnels? It remains to be seen
The masters of Durham University have reacted with Olympian swiftness to the hysteria which greeted Rod Liddle’s dinner speech at South College on Friday night. Students professed themselves to be ‘literally shaking’ at The Spectator columnist’s comments on sex and gender issues — poor darlings. The adults in and around campus, meanwhile, were equally eager to
What should we make of the Times story yesterday, which appeared under the headline ‘Boris Johnson Plans To Let Ministers Throw Out Legal Rulings’? The impression given is that ministers will somehow be handed powers by the Prime Minister simply to ignore court rulings that they do not like. That would lead to an extraordinary
London is the most congested city in the world and it’s the cycle lanes wot done it. That is the impression you will pick up from the headlines this morning. ‘Cycle Lanes Blamed as City Named Most Congested,’ reads a BBC headline, to take but one example. The story emerges, it turns out, from a
Dominic Raab faced the media round from hell this morning. The former Foreign Secretary faced a series of questions about evidence published by a former Foreign Office official over the government’s handling of the Afghanistan crisis. Raphael Marshall – an Oxford graduate with three years in the diplomatic service – worked in the department’s special
With England and France feuding, Russia mobilising and Brussels incurring the wrath of Rome, it all feels a bit 1530 in Europe at the moment. The latest Renaissance throwback has been the octogenarian Pope Francis coming out swinging against the European Union for its efforts to ban the word ‘Christmas’ among Brussels bureaucrats. Other EU suggestions include
While much ink has been spilled over the Covid Commons, far less has been written about the Lords. Overlooked and unloved, the impact of the pandemic on the Upper House has attracted little of the attention granted to their elected counterparts – despite increasing rumblings about the chamber’s future direction. In September, Mr S brought news
It’s a difficult time for liberty lovers in the cabinet. The country is £400 billion in debt, the risk of Covid restrictions linger on and there’s a Prime Minister addicted to spending. Luckily though, while the convention of collective responsibility binds our ministers tightly, it cannot entirely gag them. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House
I’m not going to lie, I let out a little chuckle — maybe even a murmur of approval — when I read that the government plans to target middle-class drug users. About time, I thought to myself. For too long the so-called ‘war on drugs’ has focused on the poverty-stricken poppy-growers in far-flung fields, or the desperate
Certain dates will go down in the annals of Brexit: 23 June 2016, 12 December 2019 and 31 January 2021. To that pantheon can now be added 6 December 2021 – for today is the day that Mark Francois, a proud Brexiteer and longtime member of the European Research Group (ERG), released his memoirs titled ‘Spartan Victory:
It’s crime week for the government — with Boris Johnson and his ministers set to unveil a range of measures to show how they plan to get tough on law and order. Only the ministers sent out to land that message are themselves facing questions over criminality. The claims of a ‘boozy’ Christmas party of up to
It will be weeks before we know just how worried we should be about Omicron — but the first indications seem hopeful. The epicentre of the first recorded outbreak has been the subject of a study that suggests that it may be milder than Delta. Early data from 166 patients in the Tshwane district comes with the usual caveats,
What is the purpose of vaccine passports: to keep down infection or to try to persuade more people to get vaccinated by making life for the unvaccinated inconvenient and restricted? Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen wasn’t trying to conceal her intentions when she announced in a press conference on 8 November that vaccine passports would
The University of Durham has boasted many distinguished students over the years: Sir Harold Evans, Justin Welby, Andrew Strauss and even the worst 007, George Lazenby. But it seems the current crop of angry undergraduates are not so keen on old-fashioned notions of argument and debate. For Friday night saw the good neophytes of South College attempt
It’s the most wonderful time of the year – except if you’re working in Boris Johnson’s press office. Much has been made in recent days of No. 10’s lockdown shenanigans, amid reports that Boris Johnson’s aides threw a party last December when London was under Tier 3 restrictions, which banned mixing between households. According to the Daily Mirror, about
People can make a bewildering number of offensive transgressions these days: from using the wrong pronoun when addressing people to saying that only a woman has a cervix. The latest eggshell to avoid now is mispronouncing people’s names. #MyNameIs is a new initiative calling on people to add phonetic spellings to their email signatures. Race Equality
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Boris Johnson is launching a week of crime-related government announcements. Tackling middle-class drug use tops the agenda today, and the Prime Minister watched police raid a home in Liverpool this morning as part of ‘Operation Toxic’ to infiltrate county lines drug dealing. But with a report from the Sunday Times revealing that traces of cocaine
The Tories retained Bexley and Sidcup last week without too much trouble, holding the longtime safe seat despite the government’s current troubles. But now, another by-election looms in a Conservative stronghold, where a shock upset may be even more likely. For next Thursday is the contest in North Shropshire to find Owen Paterson’s replacement, following the
The Duchess of Sussex’s legal ding-dong with the Mail on Sunday (which published her private correspondence with her father) has been one of those battles where you regret it’s not possible for both sides to lose. But one side did lose, and it deserved to. Meghan was in the right. I half wish she hadn’t
Dominic Raab – Abused children like Labinjo-Hughes need ‘maximum protection’ The Justice Secretary undertook the government’s media round this morning. On Sky, Trevor Phillips began the interview by asking Raab about the tragic case of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, who was tortured and murdered by his father and stepmother last year. Raab told Phillips that there
Yesterday the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced it had identified another 26 Omicron cases, and the total number of cases in the UK had reached 160. The rate of increase from zero in little over a week seems significant. But the one thing we know is these official figures are a significant underestimate of
The best way to describe Valérie Pécresse is Emmanuel Macron in a blouse. The newly-elected candidate for Les Republicans (LR) swears she is the French president’s polar opposite, but ideologically there is little to separate the pair. The 54-year-old Pécresse, who will now stand against Macron in next year’s presidential election, has been on the
‘I hope the sterlingisation zombie now has a stake through the heart,’ tweeted SNP delegate Tim Rideout after getting his resolution on ‘The Scottish Reserve Bank Establishment Bill’ passed at his party’s conference last weekend. Rideout sits on the SNP’s policy committee and is part of a faction challenging the SNP leadership’s plan for Scotland
Iran is about to be hit by a fresh wave of Mossad operations, sources in Jerusalem have told me. This is the result of a change in Israeli policy: from now on, when Tehran’s proxy militias make trouble in the region, the Jewish state will retaliate on Iranian soil. ‘No more attacking the tentacles of
The official sentencing remarks on the short life and cruel death of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes begin with this trigger warning from the judge: ‘This is one of the most distressing and disturbing cases with which I have had to deal.’ This week Emma Tustin was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 29 years for
‘We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich’, once drawled Peter Mandelson, ‘as long as they pay their taxes.’ And it seems the socialist Svengali is practising what he preached, with his latest appointment at a new British bank. William Hague famously mocked the New Labour spin doctor for his many honorifics during the
There’s a spectre haunting British politics: the spectre of Peppa Pig. It seems the fictitious children’s character has become the new fault line in Westminster, following Boris Johnson’s lauding of the pink porker at the CBI conference. Seeking clear blue water between himself and the Tories, Sir Keir Starmer has used an interview in today’s
The Scottish National Party’s great and continuing success has been to mobilize a large part of the Scottish population to see England and the English as a more or less malign force. In this, the party has connected with and deepened strong currents of thought and belief in Scots culture, especially in the 20th century.