All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
This morning saw the G7 summit formally kick off in Cornwall with a traditional awkward ‘family photo’ of the different premiers and presidents together. As Boris Johnson led the leaders off the stage, he turned around to be confronted with an unsettling sight: french president Emmanuel Macon clasping the septuagenarian Joe Biden to his bosom. With one
The UK economy continued to rebound in April, with this morning’s update from theOffice for National Statistics showing GDP grew 2.3 per cent — slightly better than the consensus prediction of 2.2 per cent. The reopening of non-essential shops and outdoor hospitality on 12 April contributed to the boost. GDP now sits 3.7 per cent below its pre-pandemic levels,
On Wednesday it was revealed that 150 Oxford academics are boycotting Oriel College and refusing to teach its students in protest at its decision to keep the Cecil Rhodes statue. Steerpike has been sent a copy of the letter – which sets out the academics’ collective view that ‘Oriel College’s decision not to remove the statue
The link between Covid cases and hospitalisations has been broken, we keep being told – vaccination having reduced the severity of infections, especially among more vulnerable older groups. It is a point reinforced this morning by Public Health England which reveals that the number of cases of the delta (formerly Indian) variant have increased from
Turn on any television news broadcast and peruse any news stand on the eve of the G7 summit, and what was the favourite picture? Carrie and Jill take a barefoot walk along the Cornish sand beside the blue Cornish sea, and enjoy a frolic with little Wilfred (just past his first birthday). Ahhhh. Isn’t that
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As the G7 rolls on and the world leaders learn where their peers stand on certain issues post Covid… ‘There’s still a chance the Northern Ireland protocol could come up at the G7 and cause some problems…’ – Katy Balls …the wealthy western nations need to decide how best to help vaccinate the world’s poorer
Joe Biden wants to use his visit to Europe for the G7 summit and the Nato meeting to rally democracies to take on the autocratic threat posed by Russia and China. But in a sign of how difficult that will be, Emmanuel Macron made clear last night that ‘the line I’m advocating for France, and
The sheer scale of the outrage over Magdalen College Oxford electing to remove a portrait of the Queen from the postgraduate common room can seem on the face of it to be absurd; why should we care what pictures a group of students choose to put on the wall? We didn’t care when they put
A soccer contest is upon us. I know nothing of football as a sport, but even a dunce like me knows that these things are about more than 22 men chasing a ball for 90 minutes. Big sporting events such as Euro 2020 matter, especially for England and Englishness. Any big England game is a
As the nation waits to hear whether life can finally return to normal come 21 June, world leaders have jetted into Cornwall for the G7 junket in a bid to set the world to rights. Covid-19 and climate change are top of the agenda – but it isn’t all work and no play. Various social meets are
Today’s US-UK diplomacy didn’t get off to the best start, with the Times breaking the remarkable news about a US demarche — or diplomatic rebuke — to the UK government to complain about its approach to the Northern Ireland protocol. But the day has ended in a better place for the UK government. The US-UK
Now that Joe Biden has landed in the UK, many Brits may be realising what a stalwart friend they had in Trump. Within minutes of arriving on UK shores, Biden was denouncing Britannia, Boris, Brexit — you name it. Far from hailing the UK, America’s most cherished ally, BIden was showing Britain a bullying disdain that should be
Jeremy Corbyn has spent the past few weeks going on something of a road trip of British universities. Now sitting as an independent for Islington North, Corbyn spoke at the Oxford Union last month where he was asked if he had any regrets about his time as Labour leader to which he replied: ‘Regrets? I’m really with
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The long-anticipated G7 meeting in Cornwall has got off to a rocky start today, as it transpired that the US had lodged a ‘demarché’ – a diplomatic ultimatum – with David Frost, earlier in the week, over the UK’s position on the Northern Ireland Protocol. Could tensions spill over? James Forsyth points out that the
‘I was thrilled to meet your wife,’ Joe Biden told Boris Johnson during their first meeting at this week’s G7 summit. The PM’s eyes sunk. Where could this be going? ‘Yes, they’ve gone off to do something else,’ Boris replied, seemingly in the hope that Biden would too. The President was in a playful mood though.
Even a pessimist could be forgiven for being surprised by Joe ‘I’m Irish’ Biden’s ham-fisted intervention in the ongoing row over the Northern Ireland protocol. If Boris Johnson’s remark that the phrase ‘special relationship’ didn’t ring true before, they certainly must after the President opened his visit by quoting Y.B. Yeats on the Easter Rising…
Matt Hancock enjoyed an early boost in his evidence session to the select committees investigating the lessons learned from the government’s handling of the pandemic, when one of the committee chairs Greg Clark confirmed that Dominic Cummings had not submitted written evidence for the allegations he had made in his own session. Those allegations included
In recent months Jacob Rees-Mogg has kept a low profile in Westminster. The leader of the House is kept mainly these days to the confines of managing parliamentary business with the mile-long ‘Mogg conga’ queuing system last June being one of the few occasions he has returned to the limelight. So Mr S was delighted to see the
The High Court’s ruling that Boris Johnson’s government broke the law by awarding a Covid contract worth £560,000 has been loudly celebrated by campaigners. ‘The Government’s handling of pandemic procurement was a kind of institutionalised cronyism,’ said Jolyon Maugham, from the ‘Good Law Project’, which brought the case. But this isn’t quite the victory it
Companies are facing critical shortages of staff. Commodity prices keep spiking upwards. Central banks are printing money on an unprecedented scale, and governments are running deficits of a size that haven’t been seen in peacetime before. What could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a bit, as it happens. And the departing chief economist of the
Happy birthday Lindsay Hoyle. The Speaker of the House was bombarded with such messages today as he celebrated his 64th birthday by granting an urgent question to Yvette Cooper on the accommodation of asylum seekers at Napier Barracks. Last week, six asylum seekers won a legal challenge against the government after a judge ruled that their accommodation
At her employment tribunal, two years ago, Maya Forstater was told that her views ‘were not worthy of respect in a democratic society.’ That was after Forstater had been cancelled by the Centre for Global Development think tank, an institute that had employed her, when she was caught preaching the gospel of science and reason
What will Boris Johnson announce on Monday? The Prime Minister is due to update the nation on whether the final stage of the roadmap out of lockdown can proceed on 21 June as planned. However, with cases on the rise and the Indian variant spreading, various government advisers have spent the past few weeks taking to
Dorian Lynskey recently wrote a piece celebrating Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday entitled ‘Bob Dylan doesn’t like you‘. The article highlighted the disdain Dylan has for fans, critics, journalists, and even the Nobel Prize Committee. Feted as the voice of a generation, and often acting like it, he still has nothing but scorn for those who acclaim him
First we were told it would be just 12 weeks to ‘turn the tide’; then it was that the pandemic would be over by September (2020). But now, amid yet more calls to push back the 21 June reopening date, it appears one scientist is happy for the current restrictions of social distancing to continue
Rhodes must fall. At least, that’s the conclusion of 150 Oxford dons who have joined a boycott of Oriel college over its decision to keep its Cecil Rhodes statue in place. The protest may have made national headlines but who does it really serve? Certainly not the students at Oriel who will feel the brunt
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Today, talks between David Frost and the EU’s negotiator Maroš Šefčovič ended with little agreement about how to move forward on the Northern Ireland Protocol. As James Forsyth says on the podcast: ‘it didn’t end with either man walking out of the meeting, but you probably can’t say much more for it than that.’ This is partly
Any hope that a solution to the Northern Ireland protocol could be found ahead of the G7 summit have been dashed. This morning, David Frost – the minister in charge of Brexit relations – met with European Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič at Admiralty House on Whitehall to discuss the current impasse over Irish Sea
What is Prime Ministers’ Questions? Is it a simple contest of ideas? Or is it a judicial roasting in which a lone defendant, governed by strict rules, must face an army of malign inquisitors? Boris thinks it’s an open debate about policy. Speaker Hoyle sees it as a court-hearing over which he presides as judge
What are the chances of the G7’s agreement on a minimum rate of corporation tax actually coming into effect? While it was presented as a done deal last weekend, things are not going too well. Firstly, the G20 will have to agree — which is far from guaranteed given that smaller countries have less to
Normally when a Prime Minister goes on the attack in the Commons, it’s the opposition in his sights. Not so today, when Boris Johnson accidentally attacked his own MPs, including former prime minister Theresa May, for being ‘lefty’ propagandists. He was responding to questions from SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford about the cuts in foreign