All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
It seems like just yesterday that Vince Cable was the most popular Lib Dem in the land. Back in the heady days of the late noughties, Cable was regarded as the supposed seer who foresaw the banking crisis; a ‘safe pair of hands’ whose memorable jibe at Gordon Brown’s transformation from ‘Stalin to Mr Bean’ provided much mirth to
12 min listen
With the Chancellor’s leaked letter to the Prime Minister (which apparently he’d never seen) showing some disagreement about COVID policy, is this an omen signalling a fracas to come over future spending plans? Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth
Dare Poland stand up to the EU? The leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party Jaroslaw Kaczynski announced on Saturday that the country’s controversial disciplinary chamber for judges, the subject of a long-running dispute with the bloc over the ‘rule of law’, will be disbanded. The climbdown seems at first glance to be
It’s not been a great year for the LGBT rights charity Stonewall. In May founding member Matthew Parris accused the organisation of trying to delegitimise anyone who did not agree with its views after a free speech row at Essex University. Stonewall was alleged to have misrepresented the law in its advice to the institution
The protest movement against Emmanuel Macron’s Covid passport, which comes into full effect today, continues to grow in France. On Saturday over 200,000 men, women and children took to the streets, more than twice the number that demonstrated when the protests began on July 17. As a veteran of the Paris protests, I’ve found one
The Tokyo Olympics are over and fifth place in the medals table went to the ‘ROC’, the Russian Olympic Committee. Rather than being punished for its state-run doping programme, Russia has turned it into a perverse triumph, illustrating the weakness of sanctions as a way of trying to shape international behaviour. Of course, Moscow denied
Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s Prime Minister, is a hard man to read. He has a sum total of one facial expression and lives up to the national stereotype of inscrutability. Still, I’m pretty sure I know what was going through his mind at the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics on Sunday night: ‘Thank God, that’s
Last week Mr S reported that – following months of deliberation – the BBC had (finally) decided to uphold a complaint about a controversial blog post written by its LGBT correspondent Ben Hunte. The case in question concerned a court verdict in December in which senior judges ruled against children being given access to drugs that would allow
Throughout the summer Nigel Farage has kept up his focus on the migrant crisis in Dover. The onetime UKIP leader turned GB News star has spent much of the last six weeks denouncing the efforts of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) which he has dubbed a ‘taxi service for illegal trafficking gangs’ for picking up
As one of the embassy drivers I met in Beijing saw it, ferrying diplomats to meetings was secondary to his responsibility of lecturing us on China’s true place in the world. A conversational bully, to Mr Wang listening was a sign of weakness. Crossing Tiananmen with its vast picture of Chairman Mao, I interrupted his flow
This week has laid bare the terrifying situation faced by Belarusians in their home country and abroad. From Tokyo’s Olympic village to the streets of Kiev and the courts of Minsk, the iron grip of president Alexander Lukashenko only seems to be tightening. With athletes joining political opponents and exiled activists in being targeted by the
Many experts and modellers thought that the 19 July reopening would be a disaster. So far, that has not been the case. Daily case numbers actually started falling within days after 19 July, although that was far too soon to have been caused by anything to do with ‘freedom day’. The question now is how
Is Rishi Sunak facing the axe? The Sunday Times reports this evening that Boris Johnson threatened to sack his chancellor this week during a meeting with No. 10 aides. After a letter Sunak wrote to the Prime Minister arguing for an easing of travel restrictions made its way into last week’s paper, Johnson was left in
14 min listen
Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon seem to be battling for the position of most amiable leader. The First Minister invited Johnson to meet with her on his visit to Scotland, but the PM politely declined, instead inviting Sturgeon to a more formal meeting of devolved administrations. The Prime Minister’s visit to Scotland is part of
You could describe the UK planning system as a giant whispering gallery where landowners, pressure groups and developers all seek to bend policy their way. One such group is Unesco, an organisation with an inveterate habit of telling the British administration what to do about particular places in Britain and threatening consequences if it is disobeyed. You
Spain takes on Brazil today in the final of the men’s Olympic football tournament. Not interested? Well, if so, you’re probably not alone — Olympic football has a popularity problem. For decades it has suffered from unfavourable comparisons with the big Fifa and Uefa behemoths to the extent that many see the whole thing as
It is somehow fitting that during an Olympic Games a department of Her Majesty’s government is busy smashing records. In the very week that a man ran the 400 metre hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics in a previously unthinkable time of sub-46 seconds, the Home Office presided over the arrival of 482 irregular migrants on
Should Stanley fall? Debate is raging over whether a statue of the Victorian explorer Henry Morton Stanley, which was erected in his home town of Denbigh in Wales a few years ago, should be pulled down because of his racist views. Stanley is, of course, best known for the four words he uttered when he
In March this year, 35 years to the month since the end of the miners’ strike, environmentalists were caught dressing up as miners. Their media stunt was intended to protest against a proposed expansion to the Bradley coal mine in County Durham. Martin Raine, a real miner working at the site, was quoted saying: ‘It
The US has never been more worried by the rise of China than it is today. In my Times column today, I mention a new book by Joe Biden’s China director on the National Security Council which sets out why ‘China now poses a challenge unlike any the US has ever faced’. Rush Doshi notes that
Belarus’s opposition movement is gathering momentum. This week – just days after meeting president Biden – the country’s opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was in London to visit Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab. But what does this mean for ordinary Belarusians living under the rule of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the brutal dictator still in charge of the country?
30 min listen
Freddy’s guest on this week’s episode is the famed journalist Michael Wolff, author of three books on Donald Trump – the bestseller Fire and Fury, its very popular follow up Siege and the latest, Landslide. The final in the trilogy tells the story of the last days of the Trump presidency, including the 2020 election
10 min listen
The Prime Minister joked yesterday that thanks to Margaret Thatcher closing coal mines, the UK ‘had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from coal altogether.’ Is this typical Boris, or has he misread the room? Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.
The ‘party elite’ narrative has resurfaced this morning, after the Daily Mail splashed its findings that COP26 president Alok Sharma has travelled to a grand total of 30 countries over the past seven months, skipping quarantine upon return. Sharma is under pressure on two counts: first, that as the cabinet minister responsible for the United
During the Scottish parliament election campaign, Boris Johnson was criticised by the SNP for failing to visit Scotland. His absence wasn’t seen as such a bad thing, however, by Scottish Tories who took the view that a visit from the Prime Minister was a risky bet and could actually prove a voter turn off when it
If you want to be thanked by a grateful nation, don’t ever buy a failing football club, especially not in a city where the local team has a tribal following. That is the moral of the tale of Mike Ashley, who has just stepped down as chief executive of Sports Direct’s parent company. Never mind
It’s official: after eight years of a relatively pragmatic administration, Iran is now under new management. Ebrahim Raisi, a disciple of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the former judiciary chief, was inaugurated this week as Iran’s next president. Clad in a white shirt, black robe and thin-framed glasses, Raisi accepted a task that will
What, do you reckon you’d get from Princess Eugenie in 40 minutes, always supposing you were a woman trying to return to work, after furlough, or a baby or something? What insight would this amiable royal have to offer the rest of us? Sheryl Sandberg might conceivably have more to say but probably nothing you
This week, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which sets the UK’s vaccine policies, recommended that 16 and 17-year-olds be offered the Pfizer vaccine – leading to speculation that the jab could soon be offered to even younger age groups. Speaking at a press conference on the issue yesterday, the deputy chief medical
9 min listen
US intelligence agencies are combing through reams of documents from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to reports from CNN, which could provide a vital indication as to whether Covid was leaked. What would be the repercussions if it was? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.
The debate over Scottish independence has gone rather quiet since the Holyrood elections in May. Boris Johnson is visiting Scotland this week without the issue dominating. But, as I say in the magazine this week, the issue is likely to return to the fore this autumn. Sturgeon is on the verge of doing a deal
