All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Sir Keir Starmer has become accustomed to Labour in-fighting since he became leader 18 months ago. But as the former DPP battles to drag his party into some kind of vaguely electable shape, has he been neglecting matters closer to home? For in northwest London, on Keir Starmer’s doorstep, a vicious party battle has broken out
Is Michael Vaughan a racist? I hope not. Certainly, referring to Asian cricketers as ‘you lot’, as he is accused of doing – and which he strongly denies saying – would suggest he is. Or, at the very least, that in the past he has been guilty of being egregiously politically incorrect. I’ve met Vaughan
A promise made is merely a promise waiting to be broken. If events complicate life for all governments it is nevertheless apparent some governments are more likely to abandon their promises than others. And by now no-one should be surprised that a government led by Boris Johnson finds it easier to jettison its pledges than
Rather like Germany with its ill-starred ‘Drive to the East’ in the 19th and 20th centuries, one suspects the EU is quietly regretting its keenness to absorb most of the states of eastern Europe in the early 2000s. If not, events in Poland and Hungary this week may well persuade them. For a long time,
It’s been a long and bruising week for Boris Johnson. The Tory sleaze row has dragged on – and even the Prime Minister’s attempt to bring the matter to a close by supporting a crackdown on outside jobs has run into problems. After a tetchy appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions and then the Liaison Committee,
Nato and the EU are fearing a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine. They have reason to be concerned, given that Russia would not blink to escalate while the West is still fumbling around on how best to respond. Brussels and Washington are in firefighting mode, while Russia chooses the when and the where. Annexation in the
I am 45, which means I’ve now had my third Covid vaccine. The experience of getting that injection crystallises a thought: Britain is starting to take the miracle of vaccination for granted, and that spells trouble for Boris Johnson. I don’t use that word ‘miracle’ lightly. The development and distribution of working vaccines with such
It seems that the fruits of high office haven’t changed Nadine Dorries. The Culture Secretary, who took up her brief eight weeks ago, last night hit out at Laura Kuenssberg on Twitter after the BBC’s political editor reported receiving a text from a Tory MP at the 1922 committee which said Boris Johnson ‘looked weak and sounded weak’
Boris Johnson didn’t enjoy his two hours in front of the Liaison Committee this afternoon, and not just because he was asked repeatedly about his handling of the Tory sleaze row. He also struggled with questions about what his government was up to more generally, and appeared at times exasperated with the select committee chairs
It’s all change at Mail towers. In shock news on Fleet Street, Geordie Greig, the well-connected editor of the Daily Mail since 2018, is to step down from his current post at the end of this week. Ted Verity, the current editor of the Mail on Sunday, will instead be Editor of Mail newspapers, a position that will
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Now entering its second week, the foray around members of parliament holding second jobs shows no sign of dying down. And, unfortunately, it seems whatever Boris Johnson tries to do to get himself out of this situation, he appears to just be digging himself and his party a deeper and deeper hole. ‘Boris Johnson hadn’t
What a crazy muddle that was. Boris has spent two weeks digging a hole for himself and Sir Keir Starmer’s job at PMQs was to give him a shove and watch him disappear. The Labour leader pointed out that some in the cabinet have apologised for backing Owen Paterson but the PM has failed to
On Friday night, the insurgent but still undeclared French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour was to address 600 of his supporters, the merely curious, and the media, in a ‘rendezvous’ at the Royal Institution in Mayfair. No prizes for guessing that the RI, a quintessential institution of the enlightenment prizing reason and inquiry above all, has
Students and teachers at Christ’s Hospital, a £36,600-a-year boarding school in Horsham, West Sussex, are set to be given ‘diversity training’. The plans, announced in June 2020, mean lessons will be given on ‘micro-aggressions and stereotyping’. Christ’s Hospital is far from the only public school to march headlong down this route; they are following a path previously trodden by
Throughout the Insulate Britain protests there was a suspicion that the group was deliberately trying to get its members behind bars during the COP26 conference — a suspicion that was enhanced when a spokesperson for the group told the Guardian on 24 October: It’s fair to say that there is absolute disbelief and surprise that the
Nicola Sturgeon is considering extending vaccine passports to Scotland’s cinemas, theatres and pubs. ‘We are also considering whether an expansion of the scheme to cover more settings would be justified and prudent given the current state of the pandemic,’ the First Minister said yesterday: she’ll decide next Tuesday. As she mulls, what data will she
Inflation is back, and while some people continue to cling to the idea that its resurgence is a temporary phenomenon, today’s figures further stamp out that optimism. Consumer inflation was up to 4.2 per cent in the year to October, a surge from just over 3 per cent the month before. This takes inflation to its
This week, I’m having puppies! First litter! The Johnsons were not doggy as we always moved around too much (my late mother claims it was 32 times in 17 years), but once you have a dog, life seems boring without. I have a theory that children give couples something to talk about and, when they
There are government projects gone haywire – and then there’s HS2. The High Speed rail project should never have been given the nod in the first place. Costs spiralled out of control from the very beginning: it was estimated to cost £32.7 billion in 2012, now this is set to surpass £100 billion. The technology
Boris Johnson has just had a particularly bad Prime Minister’s Questions, underlining his poor grip not just on the second jobs row but on other aspects of his own job. Sir Keir Starmer has had a fair bit of bad luck since becoming Labour leader, having to self-isolate five times as a result of positive
John Bercow may have gone but his successor is faring little better with the government. Relations between No. 10 and Lindsay Hoyle have been decidedly frosty in recent months, thanks in part to the Speaker’s mounting irritation with ministers continually making announcements to the press before Parliament. Now the row over Owen Paterson and the humiliating u-turn
It looks like a winter lockdown has come early for some. Nine Insulate Britain members have been jailed at the High Court today, after breaching injunctions designed to prevent disruptive protests. Despite the eco-activists’ protests – with one tearfully telling LBC that ‘I’m crapping myself this morning and I feel like crying’ – judge Dame Victoria Sharp said there was no
Is there anyone left in the Conservative party who is happy with Boris Johnson? The Prime Minister has now managed to wind up pretty much every single Tory MP with his handling of the second jobs row, opening up still more fault lines in the past 24 hours. His letter to the Speaker yesterday saying
After the farrago of the past fortnight, it’s damage control time in No. 10. Within the parliamentary party there’s a palpable sense of divide between the ‘oiks’ and ‘toffs,’ ‘officers’ and ‘infantry,’ old guard versus new. Some younger, newer members feel neglected and ignored, having repeatedly followed orders to go over the top, only for the whips to
‘They wanted me to fight, and I knew I had to leave, or die.’ My translator, a former English teacher from Syria, was explaining how, after the army knocked on his door one day, he had fled the country and moved more than 2,000 miles to Liverpool. This was 2018, the bloody civil war was
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The Prime Minister has written to the Commons Speaker to propose new lobbying rules for MPs. While some may welcome the measure, like former PM Theresa May, who gave a blistering critique of the way the Owen Paterson affair was handled, others in his party might not be so happy. ‘The challenge for him is
As MPs spent the afternoon debating second jobs, a former colleague who knows all about the subject was holding court elsewhere. George Osborne, the part time banker and full time mischief-maker, was unveiling a plaque in Piccadilly to the legendary caricaturist James Gillray – a satirist who would no doubt have had great fun with the former Chancellor.
The possibility of a political wing of a terrorist organisation becoming a party of government in an EU member state would normally be headline news. But that’s precisely what’s happening in Ireland. Sinn Fein is currently enjoying a consistent lead at the top of the polls in the Republic; a recent example from the Irish edition
Two weeks into this self-inflicted Tory sleaze scandal, Boris Johnson has set out plans to bar MPs from political consultancy roles and to make sure their outside interests are within ‘reasonable’ limits. Downing Street released this news just as Keir Starmer was giving a speech on Labour plans to bar most second jobs ahead of
Tulip Siddiq has campaigned nobly for the return of her constituent, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The Labour MP is again doing her bit to try and persuade the Iranian government to free the British-Iranian mum, who has been locked up on trumped-up charges in Iran. ‘After over four years in Evin Prison, Nazanin has been under house arrest
The faults in the Tory party were on show for all to see today, as MPs were forced to debate No 10’s efforts to block Owen Paterson’s suspension from the Commons. Ministers had hoped to quietly u-turn on their efforts to overhaul the standards system but following Sir Chris Chope’s last minute intervention, a very
On the night of 25 August 2020, Richie McGinniss, a somewhat gonzo video journalist, interviewed Kyle Rittenhouse for the right-wing Daily Caller website. Rittenhouse wore his cap backwards, had rubbery purple medical gloves on and an assault rifle dangling between his legs. He had decided for some reason that he, a 17-year-old boy, had to
I can still hear the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. Just a mile or so from us, thousands of Russian troops were dug in; shells landed nearby. It was so cold my phone kept switching off. Seven years later, Ukraine is heading into another sub-zero winter. And the Russian troops have returned. Moscow has now massed more