All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
When I was a schoolboy, on the rare occasions I was required to line up against the wall to be picked for a football team, I would be picked last. It was fair enough: my abilities matched my interest level – zero. Not much has changed in the intervening decades, and thanks to my lack
The great ‘EU Reset’ of 19 May – when the first formal UK-EU summit since Brexit will take place – is rapidly approaching. Yet even before Keir Starmer and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen meet in London to thrash out an agreement, advance attempts to sell the new relationship are growing. That so much
Can the BBC ever be objective and unbiased? It’s a question many of us ask ourselves, sometimes in hope, often in exasperation. It’s also a question that the Corporation forever asks itself, but instead in the spirit of aspiration and ambition. So it’s ostensibly good news that it has announced plans to expand its Verify
LGBT+ is an ‘inclusive’ way to represent all the different identities in the longer acronym, says the BBC. What nonsense: the reality is that while lesbians and gay men often get lumped together we actually have little in common. It’s time for lesbians to break free of the LGBT+ label. As the LGBT+ acronym has
To the fires linked to Sir Keir Starmer’s property and car that have been probed this week. It now transpires that a 21-year-old man has been charged with arson with intent to endanger life over attacks at properties linked to the Prime Minister. Roman Lavrynovych, a Ukrainian national living in Sydenham, London, is alleged to
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The Prime Minister is in Albania today to focus on immigration: the government has announced that the UK is in talks to set up ‘return hubs’ with other countries to send failed asylum seekers abroad. Unfortunately for the government though, also going abroad are Britain’s millionaires. In the cover article for this week’s Spectator, our economics
While rumours continue to swirl about whether the Conservatives will strike a deal with Reform UK, exclusive polling shared with the Spectator suggests that voters aren’t all that convinced by the aligning of the Tories with Nigel Farage’s party. In fact, it appears that almost six in ten Brits believe the Tories and Labour are
Last week’s cheering news that the High Court has deemed Lambeth Council’s imposition of a Low Traffic Neighbourhood on West Dulwich ‘unlawful’, because they failed to take consultations with locals into sufficient account, has given a glimmer of hope to the benighted residents of Cowley in Oxford. In that once liveable outskirt, gridlock on the main roads caused by the imposition of the Cowley LTN has closed down
Rotherham whistleblower Jayne Senior has endured countless painful conversations with me. Across many years, we have reflected on cases of brutal sexual exploitation and explored cover-ups, bullying and brutal political scheming at the expense of children battling abuse. But the first time I heard her cry was when she phoned to share the devastating news
Rupert Lowe must currently be the most frustrated man in British politics. The MP has been exonerated of accusations brought against him by Reform, yet his political career appears to be over. The police have said that there is insufficient evidence to justify proceeding with charges after leaders of his old Reform party accused the
Starmer Chameleon is at it again. Now Sir Keir has announced plans for a Rwanda-style immigration scheme after scrapping a rather similar idea put forward under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party. It transpires that the Prime Minister has opened formal talks with a number of Balkan states about sending asylum seekers to detention centres overseas –
For clues as to where US policy towards Beijing goes next, look beyond Donald Trump’s chaotic and erratic tariffs and focus instead on the small print of the US-UK draft trade deal. It has a clear message: that if you want to do business with Washington, keep China at bay. The agreement itself doesn’t quite
Sir Keir Starmer, remarkably, has launched an immigration crackdown. Britain risks becoming an ‘island of strangers’ after the Tory ‘one-nation experiment in open borders’, he said on Monday. A Home Office white paper has introduced several measures which will supposedly bring the sky-high numbers down. Most interestingly, the government will extend the required qualification period
I started out as a reporter covering the criminal and civil courts in Ohio. I got to read every piece of paper filed with the clerk’s office, a bottomless source of stories. These were the days when people still trusted reporters and talked to us. I hung out with the prosecutors and cops, and wandered in and
The UK economy grew faster than expected in the first three months of the year. According to figures just released by the Office for National Statistics, GDP rose by 0.7 per cent in the first quarter – ahead of economists’ forecasts. If this pace were maintained across the rest of the year, Britain would far
They say that politics is all about priorities. But what happens when the public says you’ve got it wrong? Mr S has got his hands on some polling – and it doesn’t make for happy reading for No. 10. Some 76 per cent of UK adults say the government has the wrong priorities, with low
Well, well, well. Sir Keir Starmer’s big immigration speech on Monday prompted accusations the Prime Minister was trying to ‘out-Reform Reform’ – but if this is the case, it doesn’t seem to be working. A new survey by political advisory firm True North has recorded the highest vote share to date for Farage’s party in
A week of diplomatic manoeuvring, ultimatums and psychological gambits has ended with a sadly predictable result: Vladimir Putin will not be coming to the negotiating table in Istanbul. Nor will he be sending a single cabinet-level negotiator. Instead the Russian delegation will be headed by former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky – the same low-level minion
Across Europe, Nanny’s influence is growing: there has been a steady erosion of liberty for those of us who like to eat, drink, vape or smoke. Leading the pack in the 2025 Nanny State Index is Turkey where the state’s penchant for control borders on fetishistic, banning vapes outright and taxing alcohol off the scale.
The cold-blooded killing of unarmed tourists by terrorists in Indian administered Kashmir has horrified not only Indians but people all over the world. The conviction in India that Pakistan was somehow or the other behind this attack, led it to strike at nine sites in Pakistan which it regarded as ‘terrorist camps’. Pakistan, in turn,
After the horrific attacks at Frankland, after last week’s attack at Belmarsh, and after countless warnings, today’s news of three separate assaults on prison staff is grim, but unsurprising. According to the Prison Officers Association (POA), two assaults occurred at HMP Woodhill, the jail near Milton Keynes which holds Tommy Robinson and a high number
Sir Keir Starmer had a new song today at PMQs. The Tories are finished. He said it twice to Kemi Badenoch. It was a deliberate ploy. So what’s he up to? Kemi was ill-prepared for the session. She should have changed tack as soon as she heard Sir Keir’s opening statement about immigration. Kemi’s day
Our prisons are nearly full to bust once again so the Ministry of Justice has been flying some kites ahead of the review of sentencing led by recovered Tory David Gauke. The ‘leaked’ idea involves the reintroduction of remission of time spent in prison for good behaviour. While the Justice Secretary Shabanna Mahmood is said
Keir Starmer had a much more awkward Prime Minister’s Questions than he is accustomed to. This was largely because Kemi Badenoch was armed with the latest unemployment figures, but also because the Conservative leader was agile in dealing with the Prime Minister’s responses. However, the overall lesson from the session was that Starmer now wants
How do you make assisted suicide safe? In recent months, a large part of Kim Leadbeater’s answer has been to point to the involvement of psychiatrists. Having a psychiatrist sign off each death, Leadbeater said, would ‘add expertise’. They would be part of a much-touted ‘multidisciplinary’ approach. In particular, they would be able to check
As a subscriber-only special, get exclusive access to The Spectator’s Book Club Live: an evening with Max Hastings. Join The Spectator’s literary editor, Sam Leith, and the military historian and former Telegraph editor-in-chief Max Hastings, to uncover the real story of D-Day. They will be discussing Max’s new book, Sword: D-Day – Trial by Battle, which explores – with extraordinary
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Prime Minister’s Questions today, and there was lots on the agenda. It is often a fool’s game to guess what the leader of the opposition will lead on, but today she had a wide choice of ammunition – from unemployment to welfare to the government’s new stance on migration to the war in Gaza. Kemi
It’s an image that would have been shocking, even a few months ago: US president Donald Trump shaking hands with Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, a fighter for al-Qaeda in Iraq, imprisoned by the Americans, now interim president of Syria. Getting sanctions lifted is the greatest achievement of al-Sharaa’s presidency so far The pair
This week has seen much talk – again – of the ‘Treasury View’, and how that rarely defined set of values might be influencing this government’s approach to migration. First, let’s kill off some conspiracy theories that exist about the Treasury View. In general terms the Treasury View stands for cautious conservatism (with a small
J.D. Vance, perhaps the world’s most prominent Catholic layman, has found his political ideology at odds with the papacy for the second time in as many pontificates. Vance’s brand of Catholicism favours tradition and he is part of a growing cohort of young Catholics, sometimes affectionately referred to as ‘rad trads’. It is a Tridentine
While Nigel Farage’s Reform party has seen success in the local elections this month, their former MP Rupert Lowe has received a bit of good news himself. It transpires that the Greater Yarmouth politician will not face criminal charges in relation to an allegation of threats towards the party’s chairman Zia Yusuf – with Lowe
To the green thorn in Sir Keir Starmer’s side: Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband. The lefty veteran may have spent two decades in Westminster engraving stones and taking aim at airport terminals, but all that could be set to end in 2029 if Reform UK’s local election results are anything to go by. Analysis of
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President Trump is an America Firster, but he has an undeniable affinity for the Arab world. He would have made a good sheik: he doesn’t drink, he loves developing flashy properties to show off his power and wealth, and he’s brutally realistic about the role of oil (and other commodities) in world politics. On his
