All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
In the days after the Duke of Edinburgh’s death, there was much eagerness to hear from a particular group of royal watchers: the folk of a few tiny villages in the South Pacific where the late Prince was venerated as a mountain god. When a video message did eventually surface, rolled out among the broadcasters, the
A gripping Romanian documentary has made history as the country’s first film ever to be nominated for an Oscar in the international category. But ‘Collective’, which is also shortlisted for best documentary feature at tonight’s ceremony, isn’t a source of national pride. In fact, far from it: the movie shines a spotlight on the country’s rotten
Few in Westminster have emerged with any credit from the fallout of the Greensill saga. A pandora’s box has now been opened with the lobbying activities of politicians both past and present now considered fair game. But one man who is clearly enjoying himself is the ubiquitous Sir Alastair Graham, the former chairman of the
12 min listen
Russian troops had been building up on the Ukrainian border for weeks now, only for Putin to announce their pullback this week. Moscow claims it was only ever a military exercise, but the troop presence was enough to fuel speculation of further annexation of parts of Ukraine. Fraser Nelson speaks to James Forsyth and Owen
Westminster’s much anticipated summer blockbuster dropped last night: ‘A Beacon of Hope: The UK Vaccine Story’ was released on 10 Downing Street’s Twitter and YouTube accounts just after 6pm. The video was teased on Twitter on 10 March, featuring a dramatic score and a tagline ‘coming soon’, raising questions as to how ‘soon’ it would
Knee-taking and fist-raising protests have been banned at the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, with the International Olympic Committee warning athletes who flout the rules that they will be punished. The IOC clearly hopes this will mean the delayed and accursed Olympics – already set to be loaded with a slew of joy-killing Covid restrictions – can take place without the
Prince Mohammed bin Salman is desperate to shake Saudi Arabia’s addiction to oil. Its price has still not recovered from an American fracking boom seven years ago, and decades of excess have left the world’s largest exporter now needing £55 a barrel to balance the books — more than Iraq, Libya, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and
Seldom have so many keyboard warriors and political activists professed so much dissatisfaction towards the government of the day. For some left-wing bloggers and tweeters, the number one cause of outrage of the moment is so-called ‘Tory sleaze’, a subject to be added to an already formidably long list of gripes towards Boris Johnson that
In 2015, I was nearly beaten by a far-right mob in Jerusalem. Thursday night’s riot in the holy city reminded me a lot of that evening. Thankfully, this time, nobody died, but that same feeling of tension, anger and violence was in the air. My run in with the mob began at a small vigil
Once upon a time an organisation was established to campaign for gay and lesbian rights. They faced opposition from the outset. They were widely condemned, even called out as a hate group when they talked about same-sex attraction. When they sought charitable status, a petition was launched, urging the Charities Commission to reject the application. Tens
How could the subpostmaster scandal, in which hundreds of small business owners had their lives ruined after being wrongly accused of taking money from the Post Office, have gone on for so long? The subpostmasters were sucked into a nightmare when the Post Office installed a new accounting system called Horizon to replace old manual
The triple guilty verdict on Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd was greeted with general relief across the United States. The massed ranks of police and National Guard waiting in the wings for possible disturbances were mostly stood down, and President Biden said that Chauvin’s conviction ‘can be a giant step forward in
When No. 10 briefed newspapers on Thursday that Dominic Cummings was the source of leaks of the Prime Minister’s text conversations with Sir James Dyson and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and pointed to Cummings as the ‘chatty rat’ who leaked news of the November lockdown, I said this looked like an exercise in
10 min listen
After damning accusations in the papers that Dominic Cummings leaked a series of the Prime Minister’s texts, the former No 10 aide has wasted little time in hitting back. In a blog this afternoon, he attacks the Prime Minister and those closest to him. Gus Carter speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson.
Downing Street has hit back in its war with Dominic Cummings, after the former aide published an explosive blog post about leaks and ‘possibly illegal’ plans to renovate the Prime Minister’s flat using donations. A No. 10 spokesperson this evening said: ‘This government is entirely focused on fighting coronavirus, delivering vaccines and building back better.’
Three national newspapers last night splashed on No. 10 source claims that Dominic Cummings was responsible for WhatsApp leaks about Boris Johnson’s government. Less than 24 hours later the former chief adviser has opted to return fire, unleashing a 1,091 blog post in vintage Cummings style. It begins in typically combative style – ‘the Prime
Dominic Cummings has released the following statement on his website: The Prime Minister’s new Director of Communications Jack Doyle, at the PM’s request, has made a number of false accusations to the media. 1. Re Dyson. I do have some WhatsApp messages between the PM/Dyson forwarded to me by the PM. I have not found
It’s St George’s day – a chance to celebrate England’s patron saint, and, for some sanctimonious characters, it’s also an opportunity to berate people by reminding them who St George really was. But there’s a problem with those determined to lecture others: they’re getting their facts wrong. In recent years, a peculiar narrative has taken
17 min listen
The Biden administration has announced that it will hike the highest rate of income tax and almost double capital gains tax to pay for its enormous spending plans. But will they stop there, or are more taxes on the less well off coming down the line? Freddy Gray speaks to Kate Andrews.
After weeks building up forces in Crimea and close to the Ukrainian border — over 100,000, all told — Moscow is now saying it plans to pull most of them back to barracks. Is this a climb-down, mission accomplished, or mind games? Of course, we’ll have to see what actually happens. We’ve seen footage of
You might have thought that Europe’s leaders would be wary of handing Brussels greater powers, given the various mishaps of the EU’s vaccine procurement and roll out scheme since January. But for German Chancellor Angela Merkel the sorry episode has served less a chastening warning about the dangers of Euro integration than a justification for a
17 min listen
Downing Street insiders have accused Dominic Cummings of being behind a series of lobbying leaks. But why is the Prime Minister’s team turning on the former adviser, and will he hit back? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson.
Count Binface, a man who claims to be a 6,000-year-old ‘independent space warrior’, is running to be London mayor. In the normal run of things, this sort of joke candidate would get little to no attention – but the 2021 London mayoral contest is not your average election. In fact, it is potentially the worst
As Disraeli’s famous maxim goes: England does not love coalitions. In Wales, by contrast, we can’t get enough of them. Throughout the devolved era deal-making has created and sustained governments, including the current Labour-led administration – backed by the sole remaining Senedd member for the Liberal Democrats, Kirsty Williams, and the independent statesman Lord Elis-Thomas.
Covid is far more fatal for the old than the young. But it is the young who have borne the economic and social brunt of the pandemic. It is, as I say in The Times today, a basic matter of fairness that the government now tries to help them. The government does have schemes such as Kickstart
It’s Saint George’s Day, which means it’s that time of year when Unionists must once again don their armour, saddle their horses, and ride out to slay that most terrible of dragons: an English parliament. This proposal rears its head every so often as a possible solution to the increasingly undeniable strain that two decades
After yet another week of government leaks of private correspondence sent by the Prime Minister, Downing Street has hit back. But it’s not to deny the contents of any of the messages – which range from WhatsApps with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince over football to discussions with UK entrepreneur James Dyson about ventilators – it’s
Many years ago I married into a family of the French working-class. They came from Aveyron, La France Profonde, and most were dyed-in-the-wool socialists. But at a barbecue in the summer of 2002 one, Fabien, admitted that he had cast his ballot for Jean-Marie Le Pen in the recent election. A quarrel ensued but the
On the day that senior Treasury officials and the Bank of England revealed quite how much David Cameron lobbied them last spring on behalf of Greensill for access to emergency loan schemes, I want to share important disclosures made in recent weeks that suggest Greensill was heading for collapse over many months. These represent the
13 min listen
Joe Biden is hosting world leaders for a virtual summit on climate change today. In attendance was Boris Johnson, who was keen to impress the President with his own green credentials. Will he succeed? Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference due to be held in Glasgow, isn’t until November, but work is already underway in Downing Street to put the government’s green agenda front and centre. After confirming earlier this week that the government will seek to cut carbon emissions by 78 per cent by 2035, Boris Johnson has
It was once my job to brief Boris on football. Then he was very much a free marketeer, now it is amazing to see that he wants to play the socialist sports lord, a task that defeated Tony Blair. The briefing took place on a Sunday afternoon in September 1998 when news emerged that Manchester