All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The spectacular Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear, missile and military sites and their commanders and scientists astonished the Israeli public as well as the world. It was a combination of accurate intelligence and brilliant execution by the Israeli Air Force and Mossad operatives. The intelligence preparations for this operation, codenamed‘ Rising Lion’, lasted more than
Last night, the Middle East witnessed its fiercest clash yet as Israel and Iran traded blows. A daring Israeli operation, orchestrated by Mossad and the Israeli Air Force (IAF), obliterated Iran’s top military commanders, including IRGC leaders, and struck ballistic missile sites and nuclear facilities. Iran initially retaliated with a barrage of drones, all of
Rachel Reeves’s spending review was the ‘most incomprehensible speech I’ve ever heard from a chancellor’, according to Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He spoke to me on today’s edition of Coffee House Shots. In this special episode, I was also joined by Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, to take a
Tel Aviv, Israel Israelis last night once again found themselves seeking shelter as the Islamic Revolutionary forces in Iran launched their long-anticipated retaliation for Israel’s 15-hour offensive against their nuclear and ballistic missile facilities. The Israeli strikes themselves had come as something of a surprise, not entirely unforeseen, but unexpected in their timing. Perhaps as
Leonardo DiCaprio got his Oscar after 23 years. King Charles was crowned after 70 years. And now David Beckham will finally get his knighthood. Good things come to those who wait – and how Beckham has waited. It’s no secret that Goldenballs has been gasping for a knighthood for a long time, nor that the
Conservative and Reform politicians have denounced this week’s post-Brexit Gibraltar deal as a betrayal. ‘Gibraltar is British, and given Labour’s record of surrendering our territory and paying for the privilege, we will be reviewing carefully all the details of any agreement that is reached,’ Dame Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, said. Meanwhile, describing Labour
No sooner had the Chagos deal been struck than attention turned to the Falklands. Would Keir Starmer support the Islands as steadfastly as his predecessors? Would he seek some sort of grubby compromise with Argentina? Can we trust him with British overseas interests? As the Islands celebrate their liberation day today, marking 43 years since
‘Do I think some women were born with penises? Yes,’ declared Stella Creasy in 2022, in a moment of characteristic defiance against biological common sense. The Walthamstow MP has built a career on provocation, ideology, and showmanship, but her latest crusade is more than just performance. Creasy is seeking to remove all legal deterrents to
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The Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons is joined by the outgoing boss of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Paul Johnson and the CEO of the Resolution Foundation Ruth Curtice to understand why Britain’s economy is in such a bad place. Given it feels like we are often in a doom loop of discussion about tax
In 2002 the remains of Sarah Baartman were buried in her South African homeland. She was among thousands of people around the world from whom body parts were collected in recent centuries and stored or displayed in museums. You might think, as tastes and norms change, returning these remains to their communities a simple thing.
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Israel struck military and nuclear targets in Iran overnight in a major escalation of hostilities in the Middle East has begun further strikes on Friday. Iran has vowed retaliation though President Trump has warned Iran and encouraged the Iranians to continue negotiations over their nuclear programme. Further talks had been due to take place this
Vladimir Putin’s summer offensive is fully under way: all day and night, Russian infantrymen run at Ukrainian positions in endless waves. Even when struck, the survivors don’t retreat or take cover but keep running forward, until there are so many of them that no amount of drones or shells can stop them. That’s how Russian
Today the Assisted Suicide Bill returned to the House of Commons. Amid its many flaws and complications, perhaps most important is that it marks a landmark change in the state’s attitude to the sick, the weak and the vulnerable. Leading the charge for the Bill are many wealthy, privileged liberals in the Esther Rantzen mould
Uh oh. Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones has found himself in a tight spot after his Question Time appearance on Thursday night. The Labour MP for Bristol North West told the BBC audience on the issue of Britain’s borders that ‘the majority of the people in these boats are children, babies and women’.
No one was especially interested in Jolyon Maugham’s take on next week’s abortion amendments, but the Babe Ruth of the bar has waded into it all the same. The fight is on as rival amendments to decriminalise abortion battle for support ahead of next week’s free vote on a change in the law. Now the
With the launch of Operation ‘Rising Lion’, Israel appears to have sought to take advantage of a narrow window of opportunity. Through its own actions over the last 18 months, the Iranian regime brought itself to a moment of extreme vulnerability. Tehran found itself in an uncomfortable position in which it continued to seek to prosecute
How much of the government’s Welfare Reform Bill will survive the mauling of backbench Labour MPs? If this bill even achieves £5 billion worth of savings by the time it becomes law, it will be something of a miracle. Once again, Rachel Reeves’ claim to be an ‘Iron Chancellor’ is about to be tested. No-one
Writing about Britain’s spending plans has started to feel a bit like swimming through treacle. It’s not that there aren’t lots of interesting observations to make about Wednesday’s £300 billion spending announcement. Such as the fact that the NHS sucks up the bulk of the resource spending with a 3 per cent rise in real
Israel’s overnight strikes on the Islamic Republic of Iran represent the initial salvo of what Jerusalem is calling Operation Rising Lion. In Genesis 49, Jacob tells his sons: ‘Judah is a lion’s cub/ from the prey, my son, you rise up/ He lies down and crouches like a lion/ like a lioness — who dares
On 5 June 1967, Israel destroyed three Arab air forces with a devastating pre-emptive strike at the start of what became the Six-Day War. Overnight, Israel has undertaken what appears to be a similarly devastating pre-emptive attack, this time on Iranian nuclear, military and terror facilities. Israel has undertaken what appears to be a devastating
Woken by sirens outside my window in Israel at 3 a.m. I made my way to the bomb shelter in the basement, reaching for my phone on the way. An unusual and urgent message appeared on the screen which had been sent to the entire nation: Home Front Command had updated its guidelines with immediate
In news bound to make Keir Starmer nervous, voters in 121 Labour-held constituencies with high rates of child poverty are reportedly prepared to support Nigel Farage at the next election and hand their seats to Reform. This shock projection, via the Financial Times and More in Common polling, came less than a fortnight after the
We live in a country in which petty grievances and perceived slights abound, and one in which resentments and gripes are taken seriously by the state. We saw evidence of this state of affairs in two unrelated reports this week. The first came from Leeds, where an employment tribunal found that the use of the
President Donald Trump was off the mark when he was asked about the likelihood of an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Thursday afternoon. “I don’t want to say imminent, but it looks like it’s something that could very well happen,” he said. Hours later, the Israelis conducted a major bombing campaign against dozens of
The NHS was a big winner at the Spending Review, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves announcing a ‘record cash injection’. Two hundred miles from the Commons in Manchester, NHS England Chief Executive Sir Jim Mackey, told healthcare leaders gathered at the NHS confederation’s annual ‘expo’ that the government had ‘done us a good turn’. There will
Assisted dying has attracted for me, and no doubt many other MPs, far more mail than any other issue. The weight of this mail on either side of the argument has been pretty much the same. It has also involved more surgery discussions than any other subject, and an online meeting for my constituents, which around a hundred
The secretly-filmed footage is a horror show. Hens are desperately trying to escape as they suffocate in a gas chamber. The birds, which are being killed for supermarket meat because they’re past their egg-laying days, gasp for breath. They appear to cry out as they die slowly. The floor of the gas chamber is littered
At secondary school open days, English teachers are always asked the same questions by anxious parents of year six students: How do I get my child to read more? Why has my child suddenly stopped reading? What books would you recommend to make reading less of a chore? For too many children (and adults), reading
While certain government departments celebrated Rachel Reeves’s spending review – Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner even threw a party the night before the Chancellor’s speech – economists are not quite as impressed. In fact, the Labour Chancellor has been accused of ‘making up numbers’ in her big speech after offering up rather incoherent guidance on
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There were clear winners and losers in Rachel Reeves’s spending review yesterday but some of her announcements around capital spending and investment saw her dubbed the ‘Klarna Chancellor’ by LBC’s Nick Ferrari for her ‘buy now, pay later’ approach. Clearly trying to shake off the accusations of being ‘austerity-lite’, Labour point to longer term decisions
Dominic Cummings delivered a Pharos Lecture in Oxford this week on why western regimes are in crisis. Here is an edited transcript of his speech: The old political parties, the old Whitehall institutions, the old media, the old universities, the old courts constitute a political regime. This regime has become cancerous. The cancer has metastasised
I recently did an online quiz to name the 100 biggest selling pop and rock acts in the USA. The Beatles came top – the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Queen and so on, along with the homegrown stuff: Elvis, the Eagles and Chicago. Noticeable by their complete absence were the Beach Boys. In the late
Dear oh dear. With just days to go until the Scottish Conservative conference, party leader Russell Findlay will have been hoping for a quiet news week. He has had no such luck however – at the eleventh hour, it transpires that yet another one of his Aberdeenshire councillors has defected to Reform UK. Lauren Knight