All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Enough is enough. Yes, there were problems with last November’s election, but they have been litigated and audited for months. We know the outcome. To continue questioning those reviews and continue challenging the election outcome does lasting damage to our country. It’s long past time to stop. It is perfectly proper for candidates to demand
The death of the former solider Dennis Hutchings from Covid-19 during his trial for attempted murder is yet another example of the complex legacy problem which besets Northern Ireland. Hutchings, who was 80 years old, was accused of killing John Pat Cunningham, 27, in County Tyrone in 1974. Hutchings’ supporters – which includes a broad swathe
Should we worry about AY.4.2, the new Covid variant that has been in the news this week? The descendent of the Delta variant — what we once called the Indian variant — was first identified in July. It has since grown so much that in the week beginning 27 September, it accounted for 6 per cent
Is it time for another lockdown? Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, is urging ministers to implement sweeping ‘plan B’ winter measures, saying that immediate action is required to prevent the NHS ‘stumbling into a crisis’ arguing that ‘we should try to achieve the kind of national mobilisation that we achieved in
Michel Barnier is running for president of France as a Eurosceptic. He’s talking about pulling back powers to the French state and installing ‘a sovereign shield’ to allow France to impose its own immigration policy. But he’s about as credible as a vegan crocodile. Barnier was at the scene of the crime when the French
Throughout the uncertain days of the pandemic, a few things have remained constant: Devi Sridhar will tweet too much, Sadiq Khan will flip-flop a lot and MPs will, once again, vote to extend the draconian provisions of the Coronavirus Act. The emergency legislation was rammed through Parliament in March 2020 to give the government emergency powers to limit
The wonderful thing about woke narratives is that you only have to wait a while until they collapse. The core of Donald Trump’s appeal in 2016, we were told by the media, was that white supremacists and various gammons saw a chance to reverse racial progress. The results of 2020 showed that, in fact, black
Most economists and central bankers would have us believe that long-term inflation is a technocratic problem that has long been solved. Indeed, today’s millennials and Gen Z have experienced more grade inflation than price inflation, and don’t really understand what all the fuss is about. Markets, which are never terribly good predictors of major turning
Transgender high days and holy days are coming thick and fast. Today marks ‘International Pronouns Day 2021’. The organisers tell us that the third Wednesday of October is the day to, ‘make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace.’ I write a lot about transgender issues. It is niche and not something that is
You should be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it, so the old cliché goes. In diplomacy at the moment, it seems you should be careful of the threats you prepare for, because you may end up producing them. There is a growing trend in the West towards treating Russia and China
The world is gearing up for COP26, the UN’s climate change conference in Glasgow, due to be held in less than a fortnight’s time. Ahead of the eco-jamboree, ministers and mandarins have been busily telling the rest of us how to live, with the Treasury today unveiling the truth about how much going green will cost:
Why has the political debate following Sir David Amess’s killing moved so swiftly to focus on civility in politics? It’s a reasonable question that a lot of people – including my colleague Sam Leith – have been asking. The police are treating Amess’s death as a terrorist attack, and yet other MPs have been talking
The ship of state continues to run aground in Scotland, judging by the latest transport related fiasco to embroil Nicola Sturgeon’s government. Not content with refusing Westminster’s cash to fix his roads and admitting he has ‘no idea’ why rail unions are striking, SNP transport minister Graeme Dey has extended his incompetence beyond the boundaries of land. The
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With COP26 fast approaching, the Heat and Buildings Strategy has been published today along with the Net Zero Strategy. But what do these papers mean for the environment, you, and your boiler? Isabel Hardman is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls to dissect these plans as well as looking at why the NHS is
Who does the government think will be the 90,000 lucky people who succeed in pocketing £5,000 grants to replace their gas boilers with heat pumps? Just-about-managing homeowners in ‘Red Wall’ seats who strained every sinew to buy a draughty two up, two down – or well-off homeowners with nice period houses, lots of capital and
Time was when ‘to boldly go where no man has gone before’ was not just a line from Star Trek. It was a national dream. Space exploration transcended political divisions. When Nasa pulled off the first moon landing, the world watched in awe. Last week, the Star Trek actor William Shatner was blasted into space
For his critics, Boris Johnson offends the notion that the British are a sensible people so deeply we feel we no longer understand much of our country. How, we wonder, can so many voters support an obvious phoney? How does a prime minister who makes it up as he goes along get away with it?
Rob Roberts has had an eventful time since being chosen by the good people of Delyn to represent them in Parliament in 2019. In the past fifteen months he has been the subject of allegations of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct made against him by not one, but two, ex parliamentary staffers. Stripped of his party whip
The Conservative party doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to early elections — MPs are still scarred by Theresa May losing the Tory majority after going for a snap poll in 2017. But that hasn’t stopped talk of an early election building in recent weeks. This isn’t about a vote tomorrow or next
After the assassination of Jo Cox by a white supremacist, there was an angry insistence from progressives and the mainstream (the two were not yet the same) that the threat of the far-right be confronted. Questioning the role played by mental illness or even terming the assassin a ‘loner’ was framed as an attempt to
In the world I inhabit, the killing of Sir David Amess has been formally declared a terrorist incident, a suspect has been taken into custody, and the police have identified ‘a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism’. In a second world, constructed of headlines and commentary and tweets, a conversation is taking place that is
‘You can’t libel the dead’ is burned into the consciousness of any serious journalist or writer. It provides much-needed comfort: however tactful you have to be about the living, once someone has died you can say what you like about them without getting sued. Or can you? Seven years ago the European Court of Human
My memory of Colin Powell feels personal, even though we were 6,000 miles apart at the time. I was in Baghdad, covering the invasion of Iraq for the BBC. Powell was giving the speech of his life at the UN Security Council, accompanied by Powerpoint, trying to convince the world that Iraq had weapons of
The two-week COP26 climate change summit starts this weekend, with 100,000 expected on a protest march in Glasgow. And tomorrow, we at The Spectator will hold our own (virtual) summit looking at what lies ahead — and asking if history is about to be made, and how much of this is likely to be political theatre.
Boris Johnson announced this afternoon that Southend will receive city status as a tribute to the campaigning work of Sir David Amess, who was killed. Sir David’s best known Commons contributing was Inserting Southend’s bid to become a city into any question, no matter how tenuous, and it seemed an inevitable way of the government marking his
Did the Johnson clan breach lockdown rules last December? That’s the question being asked in Westminster today after a profile in Harper’s Magazine of Carrie Johnson reported that her close friend Nimco Ali spent Christmas in 10 Downing Street with the couple, despite pandemic restrictions on holiday gatherings. At the time, London was under Tier 4 Covid rules
This afternoon MPs are paying tribute to Sir David Amess, the long-serving parliamentarian who was murdered on Friday. It began with a minute’s silence, impeccably observed, in a chamber packed with members from across the House. The Speaker of the Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, told MPs that he was ‘sorry the House is returning in such
In the summer of 2020 the French Senate published a report on the ‘Development of Islamist Radicalisation and the means of combatting it.’ It was a wide-ranging review which included contributions from academics, writers, Muslim associations and politicians. Among those interviewed by the commission were the ex-security advisor Alexandre del Valle, Zineb El Rhazoui, a
Once the popularity of politicians was judged by how many babies they were asked to kiss – now it’s by how many kids are named after them. The Office for National Statistics has today revealed the most popular baby names for 2020, with Oliver and Olivia remaining the most popular names for boys and girls in England
My first full-time job, at the age of 18, was working for an MP. In the following 27 years, almost my entire career has been spent in or near Westminster. I know and have known lots of MPs. To coin a phrase, some of my best friends are members of parliament. This, of course, means
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Parliament meets today to pay tribute to David Amess MP who was stabbed to death at his constituency surgery last week. But what have we learnt about the suspect currently still in police custody? And going forward what can be done to keep our representatives safe? Katy Balls is joined by Isabel Hardman and James