All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
On 21 April 1961 France’s most senior generals staged a putsch in French Algiers, still an integral part of France. The military coup was in reaction to the policies of the president of the Republic, General de Gaulle, and his belated decision to abandon Algeria to independence. The generals felt this betrayed their honour and
Footage of a brutal late March attack on a 65-year-old Asian American woman in Manhattan drew widespread outrage on social media. It also made for a productive afternoon for Zhao Lijian. From his Beijing office, the Chinese government spokesman retweeted 20 posts and shared the video 12 times on his official Twitter account. ‘We can’t
Judging by the European press’ reaction to his address to Congress this week, US president Joe Biden’s domestic agenda is popular outside of the United States as well. ‘In the choice between going big and going bipartisan, big is winning, remaking America with government at the centre,’ the Guardian writes approvingly. Biden embarks on ‘a historic
Does Joe Biden think that Putin is a killer? asked ABC host George Stephanopoulos. ‘Mmm-hmm, I do,’ answered the President. Once, that would have been fighting talk. Today? Biden can insult Putin with impunity because he believes that Russia is, quite simply, no longer important or dangerous. Once a deadly serious enemy whose rivalry threatened
Like almost everyone else writing on the subject, I have no idea whether Boris Johnson told colleagues in October that he would rather ‘let the bodies pile high in their thousands’ than have another lockdown. When such words are reported, they are given to journalists ‘on lobby terms’ and are therefore unattributable. But surely the
It’s a tough gig defending this government. So tough in fact that the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson Allegra Stratton left the role before even giving a single press conference. The past week is a case in point – with No. 10 facing miserable headlines over the ongoing feud between Johnson, his fiancée Carrie Symonds and
The brutal defenestration of Arlene Foster as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party could have severe implications for an already volatile situation in Northern Ireland. It is almost certain that whoever succeeds her will lack the instincts which saw the outgoing First Minister try initially to make the Protocol work. Instead, the mission seems to
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Arlene Foster’s departure has left the DUP in a difficult place. Unionists could become disaffected if another relative moderate takes over, but younger voters might abandon the party if a hardliner becomes leader. What does this mean for Northern Ireland? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Denis Staunton, London editor of the Irish Times.
Rather like Lord Farquaad, the vertically-challenged establishment choice for Princess Fiona’s hand in marriage in the movie Shrek, Keir Starmer was on his high horse this week. The Labour leader manoeuvred Boris Johnson into making a Commons despatch box denial of ever having used a phrase about letting the bodies pile high rather than imposing a
‘One’s enemies one can count on — but one’s friends!’ Otto von Bismarck quotes have mostly gone out of fashion since the middle of the last century. But perhaps not as far as Dominic Cummings is concerned. Cummings describes Germany’s first chancellor — and the man responsible for the country’s unification in 1871 — as
Japan has just raised its target for reducing carbon emissions from 26 per cent to 46 per cent (by 2030 from 2013 levels). But how was this figure arrived at, environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi was asked? Through a careful analysis of the threat and a realistic assessment of what could be achieved, taking all relevant
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What’s wrong with American media? The Sunday Times‘s Josh Glancy, formerly Washington correspondent at the newspaper, joins Freddy Gray to discuss the how the last five years have changed the institution.
Last month Steerpike revealed that two sitting Haringey councillors suspended for claims of anti-Semitism had been quietly readmitted to the party despite Keir Starmer’s vow of a ‘zero tolerance’ policy on this issue. Following a backlash, both were quickly resuspended with one of them, Preston Tabois, being dropped from Labour’s list of candidates for next
In the latest episode of ‘You couldn’t make it up’, a court has ruled that it is lawful for carers in particular circumstances to assist their clients in paying for sex. The case was brought on behalf of a 27-year-old mentally disabled man who was described as wishing to ‘fulfil a natural desire.’ Since when
Boris Johnson is set for a vaccine boost next week when local election results start rolling in. As James Forsyth explains in this week’s magazine, the vaccine rollout is forefront in voters’ minds, with seven out of ten now inoculated or even fully jabbed up. For all the chaos raging around Johnson, with accusations from his
The US is booming. The UK is set to grow at the fastest pace in half a century. China is expanding again at a blistering pace. Stock markets are rising. And commodity prices are racing ahead. Across most of the world, economists are starting to worry about a runaway boom, stimulated by too much easy
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Boris Johnson’s mobile phone number has been available online for 15 years, it emerged last night. Why does the Prime Minister give it out so freely? John Connolly speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.
Evening Standard editor Emily Sheffield waded into the row over Boris Johnson’s flat refurbishment this week. Sheffield – a regular visitor to Downing Street in the Cameron era, when her brother-in-law was prime minister – insisted the No. 11 flat ‘is no skip’ as some have implied. As well as having the opportunity to check out the interiors
Arlene Foster has been forced out as DUP leader because of Unionist anger about the Northern Ireland protocol. She is blamed for being far too trusting of Boris Johnson. Her party’s anger with her has been compounded by how it has fallen in the polls since the protocol started being implemented. But as I say
There is a spectre haunting British universities: the spectre of institutional racism. ‘There is a lot of evidence that points towards universities perpetuating systemic racism, being institutionally racist,’ the University of East Anglia’s vice-chancellor, David Richardson, told an upcoming BBC Three documentary ‘Is Uni Racist?’. Viewers are likely to be left in no doubt that
On 26 May, Dominic Cummings will give evidence to MPs grouped on the health and science super committee, chaired by Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark. This will be box office politically, because – as I have mentioned – Cummings will prosecute Boris Johnson and his scientific advisers for failing to lock down early enough in
Alexei Navalny seems to undergoing a metamorphosis. Yesterday, we saw him attending another trial by video, looking gaunt after 24 days of hunger strike. But if anything, the more attenuated his frame, the more his moral certainty shone through it. An appeals hearing for a separate charge of insulting a Second World War veteran gave
Tony Blair must be starting to empathise with Samson this week. Can you imagine being a short-haired former Prime Minister, who on every rare appearance on the Today Programme and Remembrance Sunday has the Twittersphere baying for blood, demanding the police arrest him and send him to The Hague? Then he appears on ITV looking like David
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Keir Starmer was pictured shopping for wallpaper in John Lewis today, poking fun at Boris’s ongoing No. 10 refurbishment troubles. But is the Labour leader really just playing to the PM’s advantages? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth.
Are vaccine passports in our future? The ‘Covid-status certification’ review is underway, carved out of the Prime Minister’s roadmap and handed to Michael Gove in the Cabinet Office to assess and very possibly implement the scheme after Britain has been declared ‘free’. Since the first review update was published — clear on intention but vague on
It has been an interesting year for onetime Rada star Laurence Fox. The former Lewis actor turned Question Time guest announced he was running for London mayor last month but has thus far barely managed to make a ripple ahead of polling day in just a week’s time. A city-wide poll last week showed the
Labour’s Liz Kendall is today calling for the government to treat social care in the same way as it treats physical infrastructure. In a speech this afternoon, the shadow care minister said that ‘in the century of ageing, social care is as much a part of our economic infrastructure as the roads and the railways’.
The past year has accelerated all kinds of trends that were already moving through our societies. Social atomisation, the decline of the high street and communities, the rise of the nanny state — Covid and lockdown have brought all of these to the fore. Among the most concerning is the rise of Big Tech censorship,
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that the country will be heading into its first full lockdown. An early success story, this time last year Turkey was being hailed as a model for its swift actions that ensured the country saw a relatively small death-toll, relative to its size (39,000 people in Turkey have died so
Will the Downing Street flat criticism bounce off Boris Johnson? The Prime Minister is under fire this week over the refurbishment of the No. 11 apartment. After the Electoral Commission launched a formal investigation, today’s front pages make particularly miserable reading for No. 10. However, the Prime Minister has earned a reputation as a politician who
MI6 is on the hunt for a new Q and in the spirit of 21st century recruitment, Britain’s secret service has turned to the one truly indestructible force of modern life: corporate headhunters. Consultants Saxton Bampfylde – dubbed the Fortnum and Mason of labour exchanges – have been brought in to lead the search for Director