All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Tomorrow will mark three weeks since the Matt Hancock scandal broke. The man himself has been keeping a very low public profile since his resignation as Health Secretary on 26 June but already there is talk about an improbable return to government. Boris Johnson’s letter accepting Hancock’s resignation ended by claiming ‘your contribution to public service is
A very strange ‘freedom day’ greets us on Monday. Legally, almost all restrictions will be lifted. But practically, ministers are deeply worried by the surge of the Indian variant and the rise of hospitalisations to around 600 a day — a figure that will probably double according to the Bristol University PCCF project (which we
There are 27 member states in the EU. Two have now declared they are not bound by EU law. Based on the law as set out in the treaty each member state signs when it joins the EU, that means both countries are in breach of international law. The first country in breach of international
The gloves are off in Germany’s electoral race. As personal insults are traded and skeletons dragged from their closets, even the German president — a figurehead who normally stays above politics — has urged all parties not to let the campaign descend into ‘mud-slinging’. In a rare political intervention, Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned that ‘measure and
What is the point of the National Food Strategy? When Henry Dimbleby was hired as Britain’s ‘food tsar’ several years ago, the idea was to develop some blue sky thinking and to have someone look at the issue with a fresh pair of eyes, but when he produced his first report last year, it contained
Today’s Daily Mail boldly trumpets the ‘war on obese Britain,’ splashing on the latest recommendations from food tsar Henry Dimbleby. The Leon co-founder last year released the first major review of England’s entire food system in 75 years with the second part of the report now released one year on. The Mail estimates his proposals
Our planet is in a mess. Ice caps are melting and the glaciers are retreating. This summer in Canada, the mercury has already broken through 49 degrees Celsius, with August still ahead of us. Climate change worries me, and I think it should worry others too. But despite the party’s name, the Green party isn’t
The racist messages sent to England football players in recent days are shameful, but to suggest that the UK is a festering hotbed overflowing with racist thugs is a step too far. Out of the hundreds of thousands of social media posts about the Euro 2020 final, only a tiny number contained racist words. Of course, this doesn’t mean
The world doesn’t hear a lot from George W. Bush these days. The former president of the United States has spent his post-presidential life in a cozy, somewhat secluded existence on his Texas ranch in Crawford, about a two-hour drive south of Dallas. Other than issuing the occasional statement and urging Americans to get vaccinated,
Is the new normal here to stay? For the sake of our parliamentary democracy, let’s hope not. There is little doubt that holding the Government to account has been made harder by the imposition of restrictions during the pandemic. During the Covid crisis, politicians have been too keen to treat parliament as a normal workplace; the truth is
It’s time to think about your third Covid vaccine dose. That might sound like a premature suggestion when many people are still waiting for their second dose, and millions have not even received one. But Israel has just become the first place in the world to start giving a third, booster dose of the vaccine,
Much like Mark Twain’s apocryphal quote about arguing with idiots who ‘drag you down to their level and beat you with experience,’ Europeans should think twice about whether they want to try to compete with China when it comes to the use of economic power in pursuit of geopolitical ends. ‘It’s useless moaning about it,’
Who won the Euros? Race-baiters clearly. Sir Keir Starmer spent most of PMQs trying to label Boris as a bigot. The Labour leader craftily wove several arguments into one. He claimed that by failing to condemn fans who booed the BLM-inspired rite of genuflection, Boris was responsible for the abuse suffered by black players after
Remember when Labour MP Clive Lewis got into trouble for saying, ‘On your knees, bitch’? It was at a fringe event hosted by Momentum during the Labour conference in Brighton in 2017. Lewis uttered the line as a joke to the actress Sam Swann. People went nuts. Labour bigwigs accused Lewis of misogyny. He eventually
Boris Johnson’s uncomfortable session at Prime Minister’s Questions was largely of his own making rather than the work of Keir Starmer. As I wrote earlier, the Tories have tied themselves in knots over the question of taking the knee to the extent that they are now open to accusations that they don’t really care about
Next Monday is ‘freedom day’ when all social distancing restrictions are removed. Clubs will reopen, pubs will be packed, sports crowds will resume and the bells of liberty will ring out across the nation. Well, that’s the theory at least. The reality is, as Sajid Javid told the Commons on Monday, that all these venues
Inflation is on the rise again. For the third consecutive month, the Consumer Prices index outpaced the forecasters’ consensus, landing at 2.5 per cent in June, up from 2.1 per cent in May. It’s not just that inflation is overshooting expectations that should trouble us, but that its pace of growth is so fast: at the
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The Prime Minister looked visibly uncomfortable at Prime Minister’s Questions today, as Keir Starmer accused him of ‘giving racism the green light’ with the Conservative party’s stance on footballers taking the knee. It comes after a week in which other Tories – notably Priti Patel – have been criticised by footballers and begs the question
A billionaire who reduces his or her charity is a billionaire asking to be judged and found wanting. When they do so, not on the basis that their charity is squandered but because they fancy keeping more of their wealth for their own purposes, they demand to be judged and found wanting all over again. This
Could Angela Rayner be Labour’s first female leader? Her friends and allies seem to think so, judging by the level of briefing that has occurred in recent months. Beginning in the aftermath of the Hartlepool contest in May, the mischief-making culminated eight weeks later in the Times headline the day after the Batley and Spen
Boris Johnson’s approach to dealing with historical prosecutions in Northern Ireland has achieved that unique political feat in the Province: uniting both sides in revulsion at what is being proposed. Northern Ireland minister Brandon Lewis is expected to announce a statute of limitations ending prosecutions in cases which pre-date the 1998 Belfast Agreement. Reports suggest that this will apply
Skeletons don’t always lurk in cupboards, some of them hide under dance floors waiting for a particularly rousing party to dislodge them. Such is the story of one of Napoleon’s favourite generals, César Charles Étienne Gudin de La Sablonnière, whose missing remains were discovered under a dance floor in Smolensk in 2019, over 200 years
South Africa is ablaze once more. In the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal (formerly Natal) and Gauteng (which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria), the cities are burning. Shops and businesses have been turned to ashes; trucks are on fire; mobs of excited young men are smashing and looting; a Durban ambulance, trying to take a critically ill patient
Steve Baker’s warning to his colleagues about the way they respond to footballers taking the knee has shaken like a snow globe the debate about the Conservative party and racism. Sir Keir Starmer chose to focus on the matter at Prime Minister’s Questions, mentioning Baker’s message to fellow Tory MPs. That message said: ‘Much as we
New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the right to vote in parliamentary elections. But now, 120 years on from that landmark moment for female equality, Kiwi women are fighting a rear-guard campaign to defend the meaning of the word ‘woman’. As well as dealing with the fallout from the pandemic, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour
There was a time when Haiti was at the centre of the New World. It was one of the richest islands on the globe, producing cane sugar for the sweet tooth of Europe. It cultivated coffee, cotton and rice, and it produced rum. The Pearl of the Antilles, the island stood at the gateway to
Today is the 232nd anniversary of the great French revolution. Time to take the temperature of the nation. The regional elections of 20 and 27 June changed nothing of France’s regional complexion, but revealed much about the worrying state of the nation. The same regional presidents were re-elected to the 12 metropolitan regions: seven for
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Boris Johnson and his government won the vote today to cut foreign aid spending, but there were rebels and some very prominent ones, including former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and former Prime Minister Theresa May. What should the government learn from this in order to win potentially even more contentious votes down the line? To
The last few years have been tough for Jeremy Corbyn. One minute you’re being heralded by the trustafarians of Glastonbury; the next you’re leading Labour to its worst result since 1935. Rejected by the electorate, suspended by his party, the world’s unluckiest anti-racist has found himself embroiled in a series of minor self-inflicted scandals, whether that be speaking next
Inconclusive election results following a snap election; a politician at the helm who made his name on satirical TV shows; a football fanbase condemned for its racism; and a population that has a polarised attitude to the EU. Bulgaria perhaps has more in common with England than would first appear. Dissatisfaction spilled over onto ballot
Effective cabinet ministers are ones who work out what they want to do in a department on arrival, and then stick to that very small set of priorities whatever the political winds and storms. Michael Gove had this approach in the Education department, setting himself three priorities and then focusing on getting them delivered. Not
The government has won its vote on cutting international development spending from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent of GDP. 333 MPs voted for the motion, with 290 MPs voting against. The debate on the cut featured a number of politely furious arguments from Tory rebels, from Andrew Mitchell, who spoke of ‘the Chancellor’s
Following his re-election as Chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady would be well advised to start banging a few heads together. Because the Conservative parliamentary party has turned into a thoroughgoing disgrace. We’ve all read about the ‘transactional’ relationship between most Tory MPs and Boris Johnson – i.e. they will only continue to
There is a lot to unpack in Sir Keir Starmer’s suggestion that he would campaign for the Union in the event of a future border poll in Northern Ireland. It’s a welcome repudiation of decades of Labour policy, which has been to support Irish nationalism. Would-be members in the Province were directed to join the