All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The economy is growing at a blistering pace, and likely to recover all its Covid losses by the autumn. Labour shortages are emerging across a range of industries, as the supply of Eastern European workers dries up. Prices are starting to edge upwards, house prices are soaring, and commodities are getting more expensive. But, hey,
Are the Conservatives going to repeat their mistakes of a decade ago on NHS reform? If a week is a long time in politics, perhaps ten years is such a lengthy period that it erases the memory entirely. The current Health and Social Care Bill is due for publication any day now and contains much
The Tories have a pension problem – and it’s not strictly financial. Over the coming weeks, the cost of pension promises is likely to be in the spotlight. The pensions ‘triple lock’, which the Prime Minister reportedly refuses to scrap, means that the state pension is upgraded each year in line with average earnings, the
Journalist, banker, academic, think tanker and now culture vulture — is there nothing to which George Osborne cannot turn his hand? The former chancellor has today been appointed the chair of the board of trustees of the British Museum — an institution that incidentally was spared from the 20 per cent cut he forced on
Tory MP Robert Halfon is right to say that the underachievement of white working-class students is a ‘major social injustice’. He is also correct to call for ‘a proper funding settlement’ so that we have an ‘education system fit for purpose’. But this much-needed debate has been overshadowed by a red herring in the Education committee’s report: the use of
A Conservative government that boasts it is a defender of free speech against the attacks of ‘the woke’ is about to impose the severest censorship this country has seen in peacetime since parliament abolished press controls in the 1690s. In an extraordinary power grab – which is all the more extraordinary for the absence of
When military personnel talk of ‘theatres’ they mean a zone of conflict. Moscow seems to take the term increasingly literally, though, regarding spin as an essential tool of martial statecraft. This was especially visible in yesterday’s claims that its Border Guard ships fired warning shots and Black Sea Fleet Su-24 bombers dropped OFAB-250 fragmentation bombs
The latest spark to ignite the culture wars is a report from the parliamentary education committee on the underachievement of working-class white boys. But this isn’t about race. The boys don’t underachieve because they are white. Their skin colour is merely a marker by which we can see that a certain cohort is doing worse
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It’s the five year anniversary of when the UK decided to leave the European Union and while the opposition are looking to try and put the referendum behind them, the government still seems keen to put any UK success squarely on the shoulders of Brexit. ‘There is an asymmetry in British politics now between about
At PMQs Sir Keir Starmer led on the tricky subject of rape. He cornered the PM with a precisely worded four-part question about the fact that 98 per cent of reported rapes don’t lead to criminal charges. The PM countered that Labour had recently voted against a bill that toughened up sentences for violent sexual
Today marks five years since the United Kingdom voted to Leave the European Union. London, as we all know by now, voted the opposite way to the rest of England — by a margin of 60 to 40 per cent. Ever since then, the capital has been portrayed as remote and out of touch, culturally
Assuming that reports are accurate, the world has just witnessed the most serious escalation between the UK and Russia since the poisoning of Sergei Skripal three years ago. Russian bombs and gunfire were reportedly discharged near HMS Defender, currently patrolling the Black Sea. The Kremlin has justified the supposed aggression by stating that the ship had strayed into
Ingerlund: 1 (Sterling) Czechia: 0 — Croatia: 3 (people with name ending in ‘itch’) Scotland 1 (Jimmy) A little better, solely because of changes in the team largely enforced upon old Horseface. Jack Grealish started because the hitherto largely ineffective Phil Foden is carrying a booking. Arsenal’s starlet Bukayo Saka was in the team largely because Mason
Oh dear. While all eyes in Westminster were on the dispatch boxes at Prime Minister’s Questions today, it appears an unsightly scuffle was going on just out of sight. Joanna Cherry, the onetime SNP darling sacked from her party’s front bench in February, has accused the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey of ‘unacceptable behaviour.’
Sir Keir Starmer had a powerful line of attack at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. He led on the government’s own review of the treatment of rape and sexual violence, which recommended sweeping reforms to the way cases are handled so that the current low rate of charges and convictions can be reversed. Prosecutions have fallen by
Will there be any new countries on the ‘green list’ when the latest revisions are announced tomorrow? Last time around there was expected to be some kind of relaxation – yet no countries were added to the green list. Instead, Portugal was removed and several countries were added to the red list. However, media minister
Israel has been the world’s whole-country experiment to establish how, and how fast, Covid vaccination can return life to normal (as much as life is ever normal in a country where there is constant tension over the rights and future of Palestinians). I am in Jerusalem, trying to understand the implications for stability in Israel
‘Times have changed, and whereas thirty years ago we believed Europe was our future, today we understand that we are Europe’s future’. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has never been one to shy away from controversy when it comes to the European Union. But on Hungarian Independence Day on Monday, he went a step further
It is five years today since the EU referendum. Despite David Cameron’s psephological guru Andrew Cooper predicting a ten point win for In on polling day, we all know what happened next as the Vote Leave team of Boris and Cummings trumped the Britain Stronger in Europe’s brigade of Craig Oliver, Will Straw et al. The
Few institutions are as treasured in the Palace of Westminster as the parliamentary choir – though perhaps the terrace canteen’s jerk chicken recipe runs it close. The choir is arguably the best embodiment of the cross-party spirit, in which Tory MPs, Labour peers and House staff members can all sing alongside one another. Or as the choir’s
As Keir Starmer’s re-run of the great Change UK centrist dad experiment sinks deeper into political quicksand, the importance of a party leader being able to project a compelling personality becomes ever more obvious. Even the pinko pundit class that was overjoyed by his election as Labour leader is now close to giving up on
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the Lagan Valley MP, has triumphed in the one-horse race to replace Edwin Poots as leader of the DUP, getting the top job at the second time of asking. Nobody else came forward to instigate a leadership election, meaning that his appointment will be rubber stamped when the party’s electoral college meets
The switch from a 16,000 Tory majority to a Lib Dem majority of 8,000 in Chesham and Amersham is a gamechanger. HS2 was a special factor, though even the Lib Dems did not say they would cancel it. But there was real anxiety that the Tory planning changes would threaten local communities. The Tories had
I am sitting by my TV waiting for the start of England vs Czechia. Why do I sign up for this inevitable disappointment, check my name on the list of the 40 million who think we’re due a trophy, sit down with cheap snacks and then fall asleep? The misery of it. For 55 years. As
After last year’s A-level results day debacle and the ongoing saga about catch-up funding, Gavin Williamson is one of the bookies’ favourites for the Cabinet chop. The incumbent education secretary has suffered some brutal headlines in the last 12 months and appears to have stumbled on the culture wars as his best bet for ministerial
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While Labour are shuffling people round yet again.. ‘There needs to be a change in messaging from the leader’s office, because otherwise it just looks like he’s rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.’ – Isabel Hardman And the DUP are getting ready to welcome in their third leader in less than a month… ‘Donaldson is actually in
Dido Harding’s campaign to become the next boss of the NHS in England took a high-profile turn this weekend. ‘Sources close to Dido Harding’ (perhaps ones occupying the same pair of shoes) briefed the Sunday Times about the Conservative peer and ex-boss of the £37 billion Test and Trace scheme pitch as a candidate. (If appointed, the
Few trends are as little remarked upon in British politics as the strange death of rural Labour. Back in 2001 the party held more than 100 seats in rural England and Wales; today the figure has slumped to just 17. Whereas once both comfortable shires and working class countryside constituencies were red on the map, now
In his first press conference, Iran’s new President unequivocally objected to renegotiating the Obama-era nuclear deal. Israel’s new Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, will be unimpressed. He reacted to the election of hardliner Ibrahim Raisi by saying that it’s ‘the last chance for world powers to wake up… and understand who they are doing business with’.
Labour’s candidate in Batley and Spen, Kim Leadbeater, reportedly pulled out of a hustings featuring George Galloway over the weekend. This makes sense. Not only is Galloway a master of bluster whose pompous bombast has a steamroller quality in a debate, but Leadbeater would have been debating the person of whom she is currently doing
The Apple Daily was born on 20 June 1995. Its opening editorial was a statement of intent, setting out its stall for what was to follow. ‘We belong to Hong Kong,’’ the paper wrote. ‘We are a newspaper for Hongkongers… If Hong Kong falls, we are not going to survive.’ From this bold start, few would
It is called managing expectations: priming the public for really bad news so that when modestly bad news arrives it comes across as good news. Today’s public finance figures is a case in point. We have become so used to ever-grimmer predictions of the size of the government’s deficit that the latest figures released this
The imminent departure of Labour’s communications team appears to have done little to galvanise its flagging social media game. Party staffers yesterday released a new campaign graphic on Twitter, labelling the government’s proposed liberalisation of planning laws a ‘Developers’ charter’ accompanied by the old jibe at ‘Tory party donors.’ Some online were quick to point