All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Well, well, well. Today the Office for National Statistics released its estimate for May’s GDP. It showed a contraction of 0.1 per cent, following a fall of 0.3 per cent the previous month. The trend is not a positive one for Rachel Reeves – but she doesn’t seem to be outwardly panicking – which is
Even as the British parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) published its stark warning yesterday that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Quds Force orchestrates spy rings on British soil, the UK continues its public ostracisation of Israel, the very country on the frontline of seeing down that exact threat. Britain must choose. Not between Israelis
15 min listen
On today’s podcast: sacré bleu – we have a one-in, one-out migration deal with France. In a press conference yesterday, Keir Starmer and President Macron announced a deal they hope will curb Channel crossings. But, as ever, the devil is in the detail, with some key concerns about the numbers and the time frame. Digital
Uh oh. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has been suspended by Unite the Union over the Birmingham bin strike – and the union has announced it is reviewing its relationship with the Labour party. It’s yet another blow for Sir Keir Starmer’s army as the union is one of the party’s biggest financial backers. Talk
Think of South Korea and K-pop, Korean cuisine, films, and perhaps even skincare products spring to mind. The fact that anything preceded by a ‘K’ immediately invokes something Korean is testament to the success of South Korea’s global soft power. But behind the sentimental love stories and bright lights, Asia’s fourth-largest economy is at a
As French President Emmanuel Macron visited Britain this week for the first French state visit in over a decade, a deal on tackling small boat migrants became the trip’s centrepiece. Ahead of the visit, in an apparent sign of greater co-operation, French police were filmed wading into the water to slash the sides of an
Among the many peripheral hangers-on at the UN, are members of a curious class of functionary known as special rapporteurs. Numbering about 80, these are in theory independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council to oversee either particular countries or particular issues. In practice, however, they tend to be drawn from the ranks of
The Islamic Republic of Iran is a ‘wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable’ threat to the United Kingdom. That was the sobering conclusion this week of the intelligence and security committee, which has spent several years examining Iranian policy and activity, taking evidence and analysing a huge amount of classified information. The committee’s chairman, Lord Beamish (former
The string of bleak economic updates continues. First we had the dire report by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) into fiscal risks, which showed how we’re hurtling towards financial disaster. Now we’ve got figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that reveal the economy shrank in May – the second month in a
Our two-tier Attorney General, Lord Richard Hermer, is in the news again. The controversial lawyer and ‘old friend’ of the Prime Minister, has issued new instructions to government lawyers which give him an ‘effective veto’ over all government policy and which also create a network of legal spies within government departments. The Hermer doctrine revealed
Imagine you are the parent of a primary-school aged boy. Outside of family, how many men do you think your son would interact with, compared to women? The answer is unlikely to be balanced. In the UK, 98 per cent of childminders and nursery workers are female – as well as 99 per cent of health visitors, 87 per cent of
As pressure intensifies on Israel to agree to a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, the country faces a wrenching national dilemma: one that evokes a harrowing moral and strategic reckoning. With approximately 20 live hostages still held by Hamas, Israel must weigh the sacred imperative of bringing its citizens home against the hard-earned
Just what was Wes Streeting expecting when, shortly after becoming health secretary last July, he offered junior doctors (who now like to be called ‘resident’ doctors to disguise the fact they are still in training) a thumping 22 per cent pay rise with no strings attached, no requirement to accept improved working practices to lift
Soaring crime and a growing air of discontent means that few Brits are happy about the state of their nation. There is one man, however, who seems to enjoy this deteriorating country quite a lot: the Ambassador of Japan to the Court of St. James’s, Hiroshi Suzuki. Paddington’s values have very little to do with what
Ross Greer is for Palestine, trans rights and riling up the Daily Express, making him the ideal candidate to lead the Scottish Greens. At an event in Glasgow today, the West Scotland MSP put himself forward as a successor to Patrick Harvie, who is standing down after 17 years at the helm of the environmentalist party
After days of intense discussions and slightly-less-intense boozy dinners, Keir Starmer has struck a ‘one in, one out’ migration deal with France’s President Emmanuel Macron. The returns deal will allow up to 50 small boat migrants to be sent back to France each week, with the pilot to begin in the coming weeks. At a
There was a sense of déjà vu to today’s announcement by Keir Starmer that he intends to ‘secure’ Britain’s borders. Standing alongside Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister pledged ‘hard-headed aggressive action on all fronts’ to crack the migrant crisis but warned that there is ‘no silver bullet’. The sceptic might argue that the real problem
Chauve souris de la lune There is an intense and consuming stupidity within almost everything George Monbiot writes, the lumpen prose devoid of both doubt and humour. Doubt and humour are blood brothers, of course – and enemies of the kind of bovine certitude which Monbiot peddles, a cacophony of privately educated green tinged nepo leftism
‘We are becoming a welfare state with an economy attached,’ said Kemi Badenoch in a speech on sickness benefits today. She’s right, though anyone who read the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) dire report this week knows we’re past becoming: we already are. The figures are staggering. The bill for sickness benefits is heading towards £100
The entente is still very much cordiale. Talks between Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron are ongoing on the third day of the Anglo-French summit. The key issue is migration: how best to stop the constant flow of Channel crossings that have seen 20,000 arrive here this year already? Like Rwanda, this deal faces numerous practical
14 min listen
There is the small matter of the Macron–Starmer press conference today, at which the Prime Minister will hope to announce a new migration deal with France. But we thought we would dedicate today’s podcast to Angela Rayner, with some MPs thinking that the answer to Labour’s woes could be to ‘give it Ange until the
Well, well, well. There has been a rather interesting appointment made to the Foreign Office board by David Lammy, as Karen Blackett joins as a non-executive director. This is not the advertising executive’s first brush with the now-Foreign Secretary however – as it transpires that Blackett is actually a Lammy donor, putting a whopping £5,000
35 min listen
The FBI has declared there is no client list linked to Jeffrey Epstein—an announcement that pours cold water on years of speculation about a secret roster of powerful figures tied to his sex trafficking crimes. But what does this mean for Ghislaine Maxwell, who remains behind bars for her role in Epstein’s network? Ian Maxwell,
As Sir Keir Starmer’s migration talks with French president Emmanuel Macron drag on, the TV segments on the subject are getting progressively weirder. Take this morning’s GB News piece aboard Nigel Farage’s boat. The Reform UK leader was supposed to be getting quizzed on the noises coming out of the Anglo-French borders deal – which
Like Forrest Gump, The Spectator has an amusing habit of turning up at the right moments in history. Boris during Partygate? There was a copy of our mag in one of the No. 10 snaps. The latest season of Industry? There was a fake front cover proudly on display. And now it seems that this
At this time of year, I’m usually immersed in Pamplona’s San Fermin festival, which burst into life on Sunday and runs until next Monday. The fiesta is famous for its daily bull runs through the narrow streets of the old town – an anarchic, life-affirming tradition in which I have participated six times. Unable to
Reform UK have today unveiled their latest defector from the Tories. Sir Jake Berry is, arguably, the most senior name to switch parties to date. A Conservative MP from 2010 to 2024, he served as Party Chairman under Liz Truss and was a lead proponent of levelling up as chair of the Northern Research Group.
The ‘grey zone’ is the kind of ominous jargon beloved of the military, but for once it is well named: a wide range of hostile activities between states which stops short of the threshold of full-scale conflict, including espionage, cyber disruption and disinformation. It is a state which is neither peace nor war, and it
When President Emmanuel Macron of France addressed the British parliament this week, he emphasised the need for both countries to reduce the risk from their ‘excessive dependencies on both the US and China’. This reliance on the Great Powers, Macron suggested, was a threat for Europe to be able ‘to invest in key technologies of
So, 260 Londoners died as a result of last week’s heatwave, of which 170 can be attributed to climate change. So claims Imperial College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Hot weather does kill people, or at least it does older people There’s just the one problem with this: the researchers haven’t
Ursula von der Leyen faces the biggest test of her European Commission leadership as MEPs gather to vote on a motion of no-confidence. Today’s vote, the first of its kind in 11 years, has been brought by right-wing MEPs in relation to von der Leyen’s secretive negotiations with a pharmaceuticals boss during the pandemic. But while
Infected blood victims have been ignored, inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff told survivors and their families at London’s Westminster Chapel this afternoon. A new 200-page report into the scandal was published today, delivering a damning verdict on the actions – or lack thereof – of politicians in the rollout of the compensation scheme announced last
We are deep into the AI boom – an age in which large language models have moved from novelty to necessity at a pace that has outstripped our capacity to reflect or adapt. There is breathless enthusiasm, endless hype and a sense that caution is for the timid and delay for the doomed. But sometimes, something