All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Boris Johnson’s favourite phrase since he released his roadmap out of lockdown has been ‘cautious but irreversible’. These are the three words that supposedly describe the UK’s six-month timeline to freedom since it went into lockdown at the start of the year. But the phrase was notably absent from tonight’s press conference. Instead, the Prime Minister
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Apart from former nominee-candidate Andrew Yang, the Democratic Party has remained relatively quiet about the latest escalations in Israel and Gaza. Why won’t the Party comment? Freddy Gray talks to Dominic Green.
Edwin Poots is the new leader of the DUP. He defeated Jeffrey Donaldson by 19 votes to 17. The closeness of the race, the DUP’s first ever leadership contest, is a sign of how deeply divided the party is. While Poots is the new DUP leader, he will not be First Minister. He has been
BBC star Chris Packham has been no stranger to controversy in recent years. The Springwatch presenter has faced repeated accusations of bias, having retweeted Angela Rayner’s tirade against ‘sickening’ Tories, described those involved in hunting and shooting as ‘the nasty brigade’ and actively campaigned against the killing of ‘pest’ birds in the UK. But now
A 15-point YouGov poll lead and last week’s election performance suggests that things look good for the Tories in England. But some results are still causing concern in Tory ranks. In Cambridgeshire, the party lost control of the county council; in Oxfordshire, the Tory council leader lost his seat; and the Conservatives had their majority on Surrey County
If a week is a long time in politics, it’s an age for George Galloway. Last Thursday, he was standing for the Scottish parliament under the banner of a party calling itself All for Unity. It commanded a princely 0.9 per cent of the vote Scotland-wide, suggesting the word ‘All’ was doing some heavy-lifting. Before
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Cases of the Indian coronavirus variant have more than doubled in the last week, and Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, this morning said that jabs could be deployed in areas with higher case loads to contain its spread. Will the variant delay the 21 June unlocking? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
I received a message from a trusted contact in Israel yesterday telling me that no ground offensive was planned in Gaza. This was despite the fact that heavy armour and infantry reservists were massing on the border. I decided to hold the story and break it in the morning. Within hours, however, the official Israeli
So is the ‘irreversible’ lifting of lockdown really irreversible after all? There is a grim echo of what happened last year in the sudden panic over the Indian variant of SARS-CoV-2. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that he ‘rules nothing out’, following a meeting of the Sage committee over how to respond to the variant.
No, not this time, Boris. The Prime Minister’s ‘both sides’ response to the terrorist attacks on Israel underscores how Western political elites — left, right and centre — lose all critical reasoning when it comes to one tiny strip of land in the Middle East. Israel is under assault from Hamas, the Islamist mafia that
Should a teacher show a picture of the prophet Mohammed in the classroom? In the wake of the ugly scenes recently at Batley Grammar school when one teacher did just that, there are few questions more relevant to the work of a teacher right now. But when one trainee student at Manchester Metropolitan university contacted
The emergence of a free and open internet was one of the greatest achievements of liberal democracies. The creation of a decentralised web allowed ordinary citizens in countries all over the world to share and receive information. Now, fears about crime and moral panics about disinformation mean that many liberal democracies are making the web
Oh dear. Labour has been forced to suspend a leadership candidate for the Unite trade union from the party after he demanded that Home Secretary Priti Patel be deported. Left winger Howard Becket is in the running to replace the incumbent Len McCluskey but somewhat overstepped over the mark on Twitter yesterday in his attempts to prove his socialist
I’m almost starting to admire David Cameron. Almost. There is something that borders on the impressive about the former prime minister’s dedication to the destruction of his own reputation. He may have been a casually idle premier, but he’s really rolled up his sleeves and got stuck into the job of trashing his own name.
A common failing of pro-Union politicians down the years has been the stubborn belief that there exists somewhere a tidy ‘solution’ to the problem of separatist nationalism. With new polling showing that ‘devo-max’ would comfortably win a three-way referendum, it appears to be silly season once again. The history of unionism’s efforts to engineer decisive
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David Cameron is giving evidence to MPs today over his lobbying for Greensill Capital, in the latest round of embarrassment for the former prime minister. On the podcast, Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about the graceful way to leave Downing Street.
Keir Starmer is having a torrid time. Today brings another poll showing his personal approval rating falling. The Labour leader is now down to a net score of minus 22. But Starmer’s leadership, or lack of it, is far from being Labour’s biggest problem. The party’s fundamental issue is that its old electoral coalition has
Picture the scene. You’re on a train when the following message comes over the tannoy: ‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.’ Are you offended? One passenger travelling on a London North Eastern Railway (LNER) train was. ‘So as a non-binary person this announcement doesn’t actually apply to me so I won’t listen,’ the commuter wrote.
Following the election of Tracy Brabin last week to the West Yorkshire mayoralty, a by-election is set to be held in the Red Wall constituency of Batley and Spen. The seat in question boasts a Labour majority of just 3,525 votes with local Tories licking their lips at the prospect of another Conservative gain in
The hostilities between Israel and Gaza caught Netanyahu’s government by surprise. What started as a local demonstration by Palestinians against ongoing efforts to evict them quickly escalated into violent clashes with a heavy-handed Israeli police. Hamas then demanded Israel remove its forces from the area, including the nearby Al-Aqsa mosque, or face reprisals. When they
If social care reform were any deeper in the long grass of political priorities, it’d probably get mistaken for a hedgerow. It got a one-line reference in the Queen’s Speech this week, which does not even guarantee that the ‘clear plan’ promised by the PM in his first speech in the job will be published
This morning’s Scottish Affairs select committee session got off to a rocky start when Tory leader Douglas Ross clashed with SNP chairman Pete Wishart. A buoyant Ross, who led his party to its best Holyrood results last week, kicked off by welcoming Scotland secretary Alister Jack and his mandarin Laurence Rockey to the committee but
Boris Johnson wants to beef up animal rights. The new rules will include a ban on importing stuffed heads as hunting trophies, and possibly on fur as well; a mandatory microchip for every cat in the kingdom; no more exports of live animals for slaughter; a ban on keeping primates as pets; and, most bizarre
As we have often found with Covid-19, no sooner does a path seem to emerge out of the woods than the trees close in again. On Monday, the Prime Minister confirmed that the further relaxation of lockdown rules – including the reopening of indoor hospitality – would go ahead as planned next week. Daily totals
Two months ago The Spectator reported on what was keeping Rishi Sunak awake at night ahead of the Budget: an inflation resurgence that could damage Britain’s economic recovery as it comes out of the pandemic. He deliberately designed his March Budget with inflation in mind, trying to make the UK’s finances ‘Biden-proof’ if inflation or interest
They shift revenues around. They create endless shadowy shell companies. And they undermine the social model by dodging taxes. To the European Union, the American tech giants, when they aren’t busy destroying democracy and hollowing out local economies, are paying far too little to the state, and it is the only organisation with the muscle
It appears the Queen has become the latest figure to be dragged into America’s culture wars after attending the State Opening of Parliament on Tuesday. Her speech, which set out the government’s policies for the new parliamentary session, mentioned a bill to introduce mandatory Voter ID in British elections – something that has caused the monarch to become lionised by some
Members of the arts establishment have spent the past week outraged, following news that for the upcoming academic year funding for university courses in drama, dance, media studies and so on might have to be temporarily halved in order to better fund courses in medicine, nursing, pharmacology, the environment and the various sciences. Bearing in
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Boris Johnson has announced that an inquiry into the government’s Covid response will be launched next year. Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson about what could surface and whether it will shed any light.
Will the government learn the lessons of the public inquiry into its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic? Boris Johnson this afternoon confirmed he was indeed setting one up, to begin in Spring 2022. True to form, Sir Keir Starmer complained that the inquiry should start sooner; a point he makes with almost every announcement from
Last night the great and the not-so-good of Westminster piled into London’s O2 Arena to attend the Brit Awards, the UK’s first major in-person ceremony of the Covid era. Special advisers, Cabinet ministers and ordinary backbenchers were among the 4,000 in attendance to trial how live events might work after the pandemic, with no social distancing or face