All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Roll up, roll up: the biggest prize in political journalism is up for grabs. Laura Kuenssberg is stepping down as BBC political editor after more than six-and-a-half years, which means a bun fight over who gets to replace her. Highly-rated internal candidates include Jon Sopel and Alex Forsyth, after the favourite, Kuenssberg’s deputy Vicki Young, ruled
‘Get woke, go broke’ is the rule that explains the collapse of so many powerful institutions which profess social justice principles before asphyxiating on their own hypocrisy. Playboy may be the next corporation to consign itself to oblivion. This week, it distanced itself from its late founder, Hugh Hefner. It’s a mission that is doomed to
The Manchester Arena Inquiry has adjourned for three weeks as its chairman Sir John Saunders considers the last, and most secret, part of the evidence. It involves the critical issue of why Salman Abedi was investigated by MI5 and found to pose no risk, and why his case was never re-opened. At the centre of the Inquiry is
England has been described by some as an outlier in that the government is lifting Plan B restrictions in spite of Covid infections remaining high – daily numbers are still higher than at any point prior to the emergence of the Omicron variant. Some have even accused the Prime Minister of lifting the restrictions in
‘If people like me do not proclaim their experiences for others to hear, then future generations will not learn the lessons of these, perhaps the darkest, moments of our history,’ said Freda Wineman, who survived Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps and dedicated much of her life after the second world war to sharing her
Where is America? Like an old friend who hasn’t been in touch for years, you wonder if its silence is lost interest or if it just got too busy. America used to be everywhere, the dominant voice in world affairs, a desirable friend and a much-feared enemy. It intervened (and, yes, interfered) whenever it felt
Tory whips are working overtime to win round waverers as Boris Johnson struggles to rescue his flailing premiership. Among the arguments being deployed to keep the beleaguered premier is that Brexit could be endangered – a claim which Johnson’s longtime Remainer critics like Lords Heseltine and Adonis are only too keen to deploy too. So, as Tory loyalists seek to
Is Covid over? With Plan B restrictions finally lifted, there’ll be no more working from home. Masks will no longer be required in shops. Covid passes will become a thing of the past. We can go back to normal permanently. Or can we? Things won’t be the same as they were in 2019, but they
So is this really it: the end of the era of virtually zero interest rates? There was a marked pullback in US markets on Wednesday when Jay Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, indicated that yes, he really did mean it: interest rates are on the way up, if not quite yet. ‘The committee
In ancient Rome, a diviner called a haruspex would observe the entrails of sacrificed sheep and poultry, especially their livers, to deduce the will of the gods. But even the finest haruspex would have a hard time deducing the will of the 951 parliamentarians and 58 regional delegates – the so-called grandi elettori – whose
There is a theory which states the primary reason for Boris Johnson’s political longevity is that there are simply so many scandals that the latest infidelity drives the last one from public consciousness before it really has time to sink in. ‘Who paid for his wallpaper? Meal delivery? He had a party while forcing the
Polls might show that two in three voters think Boris Johnson should quit over No. 10’s parties but crucially less than 15 per cent of Tory MPs share that opinion. And, as Westminster awaits the release of Sue Gray’s report, it’s clear that there are still plenty of backbenchers willing to go out on the
Sir Keir Starmer has a weakness, and the Tories have spotted it. His weakness is Sir Lindsay Hoyle. The Speaker likes to interrupt PMQs when noise in the chamber exceeds a threshold known only to him. During Sir Keir’s cross-examination of Boris today, he broke in three times to deliver pompous mini-sermons that might have
After promising not to raise National Insurance in the 2019 manifesto, the Tories are preparing to do just that in April with their new ‘health and social care levy.’ The levy is set to add £200 to the average worker’s tax bill. Why have the Tories broken this manifesto promise? Because there was a pandemic,
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The view on the Tory benches at the moment seems to be consistently ‘wait for Gray’ before they decide whether or not they will send a letter of no confidence. The 54 letters required is now more likely since the announcement of the police probe into Downing Street parties, but it is still by no
Today is England’s last day under Plan B restrictions, brought in by the government at the beginning of last month to curb the spread of Omicron. Work-from-home guidance was scrapped last week, while mandatory face coverings in shops and on public transport — as well as the need to show vaccine passports at large venues
This year’s French election campaign is a strangely muted affair. The incumbent, president Emmanuel Macron, has still neglected to declare that he is a candidate, even as he directs the entire weight of the French state towards his re-election. The geometry is highly variable. Pollsters admit privately that they’re struggling to measure abstentionism, or how
How are we to interpret the revelation that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI misled a sex abuse inquiry? That might seem an odd question. What is there to ‘interpret’ about the former Archbishop Ratzinger’s decision 43 years ago to allow a child abuser, Peter Hullermann, to live in Munich after he was thrown out of the diocese of
Given the extraordinarily low expectations, Prime Minister’s Questions went reasonably well for Boris Johnson today. That is partly because it was a pointless session: everyone is waiting for the publication of the Sue Gray report, so most likely it will be forgotten very quickly and will make no difference to the main event (whenever that comes). Most
With Sue Gray keeping the lobby on tenterhooks, it’s a good day to bury bad news. Earlier today, the Foreign Office quietly divulged emails that appear to confirm that, contrary to the Prime Minister’s claims, he did intervene to authorise the evacuation of Pen Farthing’s animal evacuation out of Afghanistan. The campaign to get Farthing’s animals out
Boris Johnson and No. 10 staff could soon face being interviewed under caution over partygate. While this is remarkable, it is not unprecedented: Downing Street has been the focus of a police investigation before, when Tony Blair, my boss, was prime minister. Fifteen years ago, the ‘cash for peerages’ affair led to me and my colleagues being interviewed
Jacob Rees-Mogg is now arguing that the UK system has become so presidential that a new prime minister would feel obliged to call an election. The message to Tory MPs is clear: depose Boris Johnson and you’ll be going to the country in months — and do you really want to do that given the
The Animal Sentience Bill is the centrepiece of the government’s environmental agenda, designed to protect helpless creatures and recognise they can feel pain. But will Guardian columnists be included under the new law? For it seems poor George Monbiot has been the victim of a rather unedifying pile-on in recent days. His crime? Suggesting that controlled trophy
When French prime minister Jean Castex and health minister Olivier Véran held a press conference last week, they outlined the timetable for a gradual easing of the country’s many Covid-19 restrictions. Véran talked of an ‘encouraging evolution’ in the fight against the virus, despite the fact that France had in the previous week recorded an average
The Daily Mail has long been the favoured mid-market newspaper of the masses, as the self-styled champion of Middle England. Its leaders are thumping; its splashes a must-read: so tight is its grip on the public imagination. Not for nothing do ministers live in fear of finding themselves in the paper’s crosshairs, given its reputation for
It’s a mark of the government’s desperation that, less than two weeks after his disastrous performance on Newsnight, Jacob Rees-Mogg was wheeled out on the same show again last night. Having done his bit for the Union by dismissing Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross suggesting he wasn’t a ‘very significant figure,’ the Somerset MP has now
It’s springtime for liberal interventionism. Russian President Vladimir Putin may not have intended it, but he is doing a good job of revitalising Nato. The organisation was faltering only a few years ago. Now, by threatening Ukraine, Putin is probably extending its lifespan by several more decades, a feat that even the most ardent Atlanticists
Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with the idea of the police investigating the elected government? I have laughed and fumed at partygate as much as the next upstanding citizen of the United Kingdom. I’ve moaned to mates about the PM partying on the same day I sat in a park with one other person and
Inflation, fuel prices and a looming cost of living crisis: it’s a grim economic outlook for many out there. Fortunately, MPs are doing their bit to help, namely by giving extra cash handouts to the staffers in the offices. Steerpike has spotted that almost a million pounds – £951,000 – was shelled out in ‘reward and
It’s groundhog day in Westminster as once again hacks and ministers ask: when will Sue Gray’s report come out? On Tuesday morning it seemed as though the publication of the investigation would be delayed indefinitely. After the Metropolitan police announced plans to launch a criminal investigation into a number of the alleged parties after the
My first visit to Ukraine was in 1994. We drove to a village about three hours south of Kiev. The landscape was flat, fields of wheat stretching out in all directions. You could see why Ukraine had been called ‘the breadbasket of the Soviet Union’. An old man in a flat cap waved us over
It seems Bonfire Night has come early this year. First there were fireworks in the chamber after Labour tabled an Urgent Question on Sue Gray’s investigation into ‘partygate.’ And this afternoon Private Eye editor Ian Hislop had quite the argy bargy with Tory grandee Sir Bernard Jenkin over at the Standards Committee. Hislop was one of a
The Metropolitan Police’s decision to investigate lockdown parties undoubtedly makes things more serious for Downing Street. It is now harder to argue, as some supporters of Boris Johnson had begun to do privately, that these matters are fundamentally too trivial to account for a Prime Minister departing if the police have been called in to