All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
David Ogilvy once said that ‘a good advertisement is one that sells the product without drawing attention to itself’. If so, the new Nike ad currently running in Japan is about as big a failure as you can get. It has certainly drawn plenty of attention to itself, producing more angry denunciations than sales. The ad snappily
Lorries will be backed up across Kent. The shops will run short of essential goods. Travel plans will be disrupted, and factories will start to close as British goods are shut out of their main export markets. As the UK comes to the end of its transitional deal with the EU, and as talks on
After the past few years, it is hard to take Brexit deadlines seriously; they have a tendency to always slide to the right. But Sunday night/Monday morning really is the final deadline, as I say in the Times this morning. There are two reasons for this. First, the Internal Market Bill and the Finance Bill
Never one to let a bandwagon pass by, Vladimir Putin launched his own national vaccine programme the moment Britain said it was starting its roll-out. Given how badly Russia has been hit, you would expect it to be a popular move. But Russians themselves seem cautious, not least because they mistrust the Kremlin. On Thursday,
10 min listen
The promising sign of late night negotiation pizza has caused some optimism in Westminster that a Brexit deal may be just around the corner. On the podcast, James Forsyth and Katy Balls discuss what to look out for in the coming days.
The beginning of the end for Theresa May was when she tried to see if she could pass her Brexit deal with Labour votes. So Boris Johnson will have shifted uncomfortably in his seat on Tuesday night when it became clear that the House of Commons had approved his tier system only because the opposition
That the left-wing Labour MP Clive Lewis should have organised a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel opposing the deportation of Jamaican criminals hardly comes as a surprise. Being against the removal of foreign nationals, almost irrespective of what they have done to deserve it, is pretty standard fare for a member of the Socialist
As a case study of how assertion can end up sounding like fact, I thoroughly recommend the Lancet’s report this morning claiming that the number of heat-related deaths globally has more than doubled in the past 20 years — and in particular the reporting of the story on the Today programme this morning. The message
Last week Eton College made the controversial decision to sack an English teacher after he refused to take down his YouTube video entitled ‘The Patriarchy Paradox’. In the 30-minute lecture, Will Knowland argues that the patriarchy results from biological differences rather than social constructs and that the system benefits women. Eton’s decision is not, as
Running London, you might have thought, should probably involve some knowledge of London. Living in the city would be a good start — or at least living in the same time zone. But Sadiq Khan’s top aide clearly disagrees. Jack Stenner, the Mayor of London’s director of political and public affairs, upped sticks and moved
With Britain leaving the EU, Brussels is adopting a new assertiveness – but Poland and Hungary are fighting back. The two countries are plotting a strategy of vetoing the EU’s latest budget because of a mechanism attached to it allowing the bloc to withhold money if a country falls short of its standards. Poland and Hungary fear
For four years, president Donald Trump radicalised international relations. There was a shift towards the nation state and unilateralism, beginning with the United States. He viewed intergovernmental organisations like the WHO or the World Trade Organization with acute scepticism thanks to what he saw as their bureaucratic sloth and partisanship. His perception of the European Union and Nato was
Boris Johnson is wrong if he thinks this week’s Tory rebellion on the tiered system marks the end of his party management problems. In fact, Tuesday night’s rebels tell me that the main purpose of the vote was to increase the likelihood that a good number of areas will be moved down a tier when
‘Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government programme,’ the free market economist Milton Friedman famously noted. So just how permanent will social distancing measures be? As more positive news about vaccines and their distribution rolls in, it will be a question that grows louder: how much longer will we be asked to live with
Today the United Kingdom became the first country in the West to clinically authorise a vaccine protecting against Covid-19, after the medicines regulator, the MHRA, said the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was safe to use. The announcement puts Britain ahead of Europe when it comes to rolling out the vaccine, as the EU’s own regulator, the European
Vanity photographers are a relatively recent addition to Westminster life, one that Mr S doesn’t wholly welcome. The growth of the in-house snapper has meant that politicians are able to control their image in a way that previous generations of ministers would have found impossible. David Cameron famously had his advisers cover any nearby exit
14 min listen
The UK is the first western country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine, it was announced today. The first doses of Pfizer’s jab will be distributed from next week, and the news has renewed hopes that restrictions could soon be lifted. But after last night’s vote saw 55 Tory MPs reject the new
That was risky. The PM came to the House for today’s session with nothing at all in his briefing folder. Not a fact. Not a statistic. Not a single detail to rebuff his opponents. Usually he tosses out figures in all directions to create the impression of authority and control. Today he had nothing more
Britain, we learned this morning, has become the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which is likely to be deployed from Monday onwards. Is Britain being reckless, or are other countries dragging their heels? The first point to make is that, however tempting though it may be to think so, it
When it comes to Boris Johnson’s skills as a politician, his particular communication style is regularly cited as a talent that makes him stand out as a leader. He was, after all, an accomplished journalist before stepping into the world of politics. So Mr S was a little surprised by the email that landed in
Keira Bell has won her case against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. As a transgender person, I am delighted for her but I am also relieved for the thousands of children who are chasing the impossible dream that it is possible to change sex. Bell’s victory is an important one for teenagers and
Prime Minister’s Questions didn’t feel particularly high wattage today. Sir Keir Starmer seemed to be using his questions to lay the groundwork for a future showdown with Boris Johnson. He used his first three questions to ask whether the government had done the necessary logistical planning to ensure the smooth roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine,
‘What if every single one of us was a raindrop?’ I have no idea what goes into the Californian drinking water, but the Duke formerly known as Prince Harry seems to have been knocking it back. We are fortunate indeed that, despite having fled State-side to secure greater privacy, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
Rapists in Pakistan will soon face a stark choice. Under a law backed by the country’s prime minister, Imran Khan, those convicted of rape can either be chemically castrated, face life imprisonment or even a death sentence. But while the new law sounds radical, it’s unlikely it will be enough to curb the wave of
In the last days of November, Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert was released from Tehran’s Evin prison and flown back to a welcome in Australia. A dual Australian-UK national, she had served two years of a ten-year sentence for espionage — pronounced after a secret trial. She had been in Iran for a conference and was detained
Over the weekend, Nigel Farage was involved in a rescue operation in the English Channel. Having headed out for a Sunday morning of sea fishing, Farage spotted two men adrift in an inflatable kayak about five miles off the Kent coast. The ex-kipper turned skipper called the coast guard before trying to pull the pair
For all the good news that has emerged about Covid-19 vaccines in recent weeks, it is clear that we are not doing a particularly good job addressing people’s reasonable concerns about vaccine safety. Before we go on though, it is important for you to know who I am, and who I am not. I am
This morning the UK became the first country in the West to licence a vaccine, after regulators approved the Pfizer/BioNTech shot. The ruling opens the way for the vaccine to be rolled out nationwide, after the UK purchased 40 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine. The Health Secretary has said we will have 800,000 doses ready
Boris Johnson may have just suffered his biggest Tory rebellion since the election but he is unlikely to be too down this morning. The Prime Minister is the receiver of some good news that could soon transform the political landscape. After positive soundings from several vaccine trials, the UK has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for widespread
What would the Labour party look like if Jeremy Corbyn was still in charge? On the long list of things that would be likely be different to Labour now under Keir Starmer are Brexit, the response to the EHRC inquiry and even whether Corbyn was still classed as a Labour MP. Now there’s a new item to
This evening, the House of Commons voted to enact the new tiered system, which will come into force when the national lockdown ends this week. Boris Johnson did not emerge unscathed though, with 78 MPs voting against his proposals, including 55 MPs from his own party. Labour leader Keir Starmer instructed his MPs to abstain
When Boris Johnson addressed MPs this evening on a Zoom call ahead of the Commons vote on his new tier system, his message to would-be rebels was simple: the unity of the Tory party is important so don’t give Labour the satisfaction of seeing a disunited Conservative party. Pointing to the light at the end of
DNA is the blueprint that encodes the instructions to make proteins. Proteins are the building blocks and the machines that power life. And proteins make up the tissue that in turn comprise the organs and muscles that make up us. Considering how crucial proteins are to life itself, there is still so much we do
