All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
As feared, Covid-19 is not going quietly. The arrival of the Omicron strain in Britain – with cases already identified in Chelmsford and in Nottingham – is clearly not the news we wanted as we prepare for the Christmas holidays. The Prime Minister will hold a press conference later today, likely to mark a distinct change in
Sacré bleu! Plans are afoot to turn Notre Dame cathedral, once it’s restored, into what some have called a ‘politically correct Disneyland’. The plans, yet to be rubber-stamped, will turn the cathedral into an ‘experimental showroom’, with confessional boxes, altars and classical sculptures replaced with modern art murals. New sound and light effects will be
With Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s borders, the Black Sea is looking choppy. While that may seem to have little significance for us, in an age of globalised supply chains, international security commitments and Britain’s ‘tilt to the Indo-Pacific,’ that matters more than we might think. However, there is also an opportunity for the UK.
It’s the SNP’s second annual national conference this weekend and already the organ-grinders are turning out their favourite hits. The National – a self-described newspaper in breach of the Trade Descriptions Act – has again combined the stridency of Pravda with the editorial values of the Beano. Adoring coverage of the conference was kicked off with its
Has Azeem Rafiq been forgiven yet? He’s certainly working on it. After finding himself on both sides of a racism scandal, the former Yorkshire cricketer’s rehabilitation PR operation has been nothing if not swift. As the story broke last week that Rafiq had sent messages mocking Jewish people, he apologised immediately: ‘I am incredibly angry
All too often, the massed rows behind Nicola Sturgeon at FMQs can resemble a scene from one of Stalin’s party congresses. Row after row of poker-faced nationalists dutifully banging their desks at the latest edict from on high, interjecting occasionally with the latest pre-approved attack line or standard softball question to the Dear Leader: an army
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A new Covid variant dubbed ‘Nu’ has been discovered in South Africa and the UK has already put travel restrictions in place. Though early tests have shown that Nu is more transmissible, we don’t know conclusively if it is any more deadly or can evade vaccines. ‘We don’t know yet, whether this variant is more
Every week brings fresh proof of what a bunch of bourgeois snobs Extinction Rebellion are. The latest exhibit is their blockading of Amazon’s main distribution centres. The eco-loons and their apologists are dressing this up as a principled stand against venal capitalism. Pull the other one. This is just a noisy middle-class moan about the
Will the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19, be the black swan that pulls the world back — just when the pandemic seemed to be fading? Global markets certainly seem to think so, with sharp falls on Asian and European trading this morning. But what do we know about the new variant? The
Boris Johnson yesterday wrote to French president Emmanuel Macron suggesting escalated measures to stop the deadly human traffic between Calais and Kent. As voters in both France and Britain asked themselves how this terrible tragedy could have happened, the letter might be read as a nudge to the French, who have not merely been turning a
Irony has been declared many times in this pandemic but now, from Covid-riddled Germany comes the final proof: you can’t kill yourself now unless you’ve been vaccinated. As European countries battle to limit the spread of the virus, Verein Sterbehilfe – the German Euthanasia Association – has issued a new directive, declaring it will now only help those who
Anglo-French relations continue to deteriorate. Not even this week’s tragedy in the Channel can stop the point scoring between the two governments. Last night, Boris Johnson issued a letter to Emmanuel Macron which proposed, among other things, a bilateral readmissions agreement between the UK and France which would see those crossing the Channel returned to
Bob Crowe may have passed on but his spirit lives on. The militant Marxist’s Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) trade union is on a 24-hour strike today in a dispute over changes to drivers’ rotas as Sadiq Khan seeks to bring back the night Tube. Union heavies on the Jubilee, Victoria, Piccadilly, Central and Northern
Boris Johnson may well be right that the best deterrent to migrants and refugees crossing the channel in flimsy, life-endangering dinghies would be for the UK and France to agree a ‘bilateral readmissions agreement to allow all illegal migrants who cross the Channel to be returned’. The question is whether he was well advised –
There was an exchange in the House of Commons on Thursday afternoon that ought to be a scandal but won’t. It ought to be a scandal because it involves a Cabinet minister undertaking to do something that, in any other context, would bring waves of condemnation from across the House. It won’t because the scandalous
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The 27 migrants that tragically lost their lives whilst trying to cross the English Channel have sparked urgent appeals for Priti to resolve the migrant crisis. However, there is still no stopping some migrants attempting to flee their homes. ‘By 8.30 this morning, three more boats had arrived on the coast, even after the news
The next election won’t be like the 2019 campaign. It will be far tougher for the Tories. Ministers were struck by a recent presentation by the Tory strategist Isaac Levido to the cabinet a fortnight ago, in which he stressed that the next election would be much more like 2015 than 2019. Levido’s argument was
Are we cancelling former Isis sex slaves now? It would seem so, at least going by this barmy story out of Toronto, Canada, where a school-board recently pulled out of an event with a survivor of the Yazidi genocide amidst fears her story could ‘foster Islamophobia’. Nadia Murad is a Yazidi human-rights campaigner and Nobel
Anyone who thought the jury’s verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case might prompt some reflection among the political and media classes will have been rudely disabused over the last five days. The teenager was convicted in the court of elite opinion long before he set foot in the Kenosha County Courthouse and that sentence isn’t
For months now, Mr S has chronicled the tribulations of Susan Aitken, who is the first SNP leader of Glasgow City Council and appears determined to be the last, too. She has presided over a waste crisis in which refuse-strewn streets have become a familiar sight even in the city’s leafier suburbs and which threatened to
It’s hard for privileged white men to stay relevant in this age of identity politics but a number of fail-safe strategies have begun to emerge. Prince Harry and, to a lesser extent his older brother, have captured the mental health market by publicly discussing their issues. William’s school pal Eddie Redmayne, and pretty much the
The tragic drowning of more than two dozen people in the English Channel yesterday should remind us that closing down this irregular migration route has become a multi-purpose moral duty. Not only does the British state have a responsibility to do so to preserve its social contract with its citizens and the integrity of the
It’s a well-known fact that social media makes you miserable. While Facebook forever abounds with people apparently having a marvellous time, in exotic climes, never without ubiquitous smiles and exclamations of delight, Twitter seems too often awash with malicious imbeciles, who even when they are right, still get on your nerves. At their worst, Facebook
Boris couldn’t make it but fortunately there was one Tory premier at last night’s Spectator parliamentarian awards. Former Prime Minister Theresa May appeared to be having the time of her life at the star-studded bash, rocking a fabulous blue number and waltzing up on stage to win Backbencher of the Year to the strains of
President Erdogan’s aggressive foreign policy is what usually captures the attention of the international media, but it is at home where his biggest troubles now lie. Turkey’s currency, the lira, has tanked, hitting a record low of just over 13 lira to the dollar. Thousands of protesters will hit the streets in the coming days
Less than a quarter of Scots believe Scotland is likely to leave the UK within the next five years, according to a new poll. The poll also shows that secession does not command majority support. As we approach the second anniversary of the start of the pandemic, it seems getting back to normal is more
Yesterday’s tragedy in the Channel has been ten years in the making. The British tabloids this morning are inevitably pointing the finger at the French for the deaths of 27 migrants who drowned after their dinghy sank not far from Calais, but that lets off the hook those who ultimately bear responsibility for the migrant
After eighteen months of Covid, it was with a sense of relief and joy that MPs, peers, bag-carriers and hangers-on descended on London’s Rosewood Hotel. After all the twists and turns of the pandemic’s politics, ministers and opposite numbers enjoyed the chance to break bread and hear from some of Parliament’s leading figures collecting gongs
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With multiple weeks of bad publicity and rumours of some Conservative MPs sending in letters of no confidence, today’s PMQs witnessed much more noise than last week’s. However, is the Prime Minster hitting back at critics, including a more confident Keir Starmer, effectively? ‘Today I thought Keir Starmer looked like he was actually really enjoying
No prime minister since Tony Blair enjoys being in power as much as Boris. The notion that he might be kicked out by a nameless gang of cabinet lightweights is fanciful. But it makes for grabby headlines. Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer can sense that his star is on the rise. And he’s improving. At PMQs
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Freddy Grays talks to Mark P Mills, the energy and tech expert at the Manhattan Institute think tank about his new book ‘The Cloud Revolution’.
A strange new ideology has been growing over the last few years, you might have noticed — amid the day-to-day chaos — the slow, proto-planet-like formation. Currently, it has no name, nor an obvious leader. Its many thousands of proponents do not even seem, yet, to consider each other fellow-travellers. But to the onlooker, they’re clearly
‘Enough’, said Gary Neville this week as he (once again) attacked Boris Johnson. The ex-footballer is no stranger to attacking the Tories: in the past few months, the former England right-back has dubbed Johnson a ‘liar’, bizarrely suggested that the PM is a ‘spaghetti bolognese of a man’ and accused the Government of ‘incompetency’. Neville is clearly a busy man: as well