All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Europe or America – the eternal British dilemma. Keir Starmer made clear he rejects such a binary approach in his Guildhall speech in December. But with Donald Trump threatening tariffs on the European Union, Labour’s attempts to ‘reset’ the European relationship face an almighty challenge. Yet that hasn’t deterred Nick Thomas-Symonds – Starmer’s trusted lieutenant
What are the real intentions of Donald Trump’s trade war? Does he really believe tariffs work to boost economic growth domestically? Does he see them as tools to prop up American businesses, as his Vice President does? Or, as in his first term, are threats of import levies almost purely about leverage – and if
Sir Keir Starmer has been on another overseas visit. On his 18th trip in seven months as prime minister, he travelled to Brussels yesterday to talk to European Union leaders about defence and security, an area on which he is keen to expand cooperation. His mission was both practical and symbolic: he is pursuing a
Today’s Telegraph splash could have been designed in a laboratory to trigger Tory tempers. After months of deliberation, the paper reports that Angela Rayner’s department now plans to create a council on Islamophobia. This will draw up an official government definition for anti-Muslim discrimination and provide advice to ministers on how best to tackle it.
At last, some news of an industry in Britain that is flourishing. Unfortunately, it is one that is helping to suppress growth in every other sector of the economy. I am sure that the lawyers who have brought a case involving 60,000 female workers at Asda think they have won a famous victory after an
There’s reason for cheer at Reform HQ this morning: Nigel Farage’s party is leading Labour in a YouGov voting intention poll for the first time. According to the poll, Reform UK leads on 25 points with Labour in second place on 24 per cent and the Conservatives in third on 21 per cent. Meanwhile, the
These are dramatic days in the usually dull world of German politics. Last Wednesday, midway through a fiercely fought federal election campaign, the Bundestag Parliament narrowly voted to close the nation’s borders and curb the legal rights of immigrants. Two days later, the same assembly reversed ferret and voted a similar measure down. So what
US President Donald Trump’s long-standing threat to enact 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and Mexico didn’t materialise yesterday. Both countries were granted 30-day reprieves on Monday after they agreed to Trump’s demands to stop the flow of illegal immigration and illicit drugs like fentanyl across the American border. Discussions related to tariffs and trade will be
When I was a child, we lived in a two-up, two-down terraced slum in Walthamstow, East London with bombsites at the back. My father made me a doll’s house by dividing a box into four for the rooms. One year when we hadn’t any coal, I watched my doll’s house, disassembled, burning in the living room
The news that the Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the adenoidal android, has employed a voice coach is simply astonishing. ‘I’ll take no lectures from the party opposite,’ is one of Starmer’s most well-worn sentences. At least now we know who he will take lectures from: actress Leonie Mellinger, star of The Winters Tale and the
I was highly amused to see that JD Vance has administered a right old ‘fagging’ – or whatever public school boys call it – to the ghastly Rory Stewart. Better known in some quarters as ‘Florence of Belgravia’, Stewart has developed a habit of dashing about in a dish-dash in search of broadcasting dosh, pouting
Turning around a government that has lost its way is one of the trickiest feats in politics, all the more so if that government has enjoyed a long stretch of incumbency. The big beasts are gone, everyone who’s left is exhausted, the voter coalition is coming apart, and some begin to question the party’s purpose
Spain has been receiving some lavish praise of late in the British press. ‘Booming Spain is on track to a new age of prosperity’ was the headline in the Times last week, a response to the news that its GDP is forecast to grow by 2.5 per cent this year. The Financial Times was similarly effusive about Spain’s economy
The proportion of children staying away from school may be alarming – one in five – but the proportion of parents – almost one in three – who do not see school as a necessary part of their child’s daily schedule is even more so. Keir Starmer’s government understood that the connection between parents and
England ditched its blasphemy laws back in 2008. No longer would it be an offence to engage in ‘contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous’ speech concerning God. No longer would any poor soul be hauled off to jail, far less to the stocks, for the crime of profanity. So you can imagine my surprise when a
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The Spectator’s economics editor Kate Andrews and Social Democratic Party leader William Clouston join Freddy Gray to try and make sense of Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. He has since threatened the European Union, and has warned the UK. Is this a negotiation tactic or something more? What political
The Alye Parusa (Scarlet Sails) apartment complex in Moscow’s north-western Shchukino suburb bills itself as an exclusive place to live, and a safe one, too, with cameras, gates and 24-hour security. Neither this, nor his detail of bodyguards, saved Armen Sargsyan when, on Monday morning, a bomb with more than a kilo of explosive detonated
The Foreign Office was once described as a ‘palace of dreams’, yet these days it seems increasingly like a graveyard full of nightmares. Just weeks after the Gaza ceasefire, the outbreak of a tariff war in America is just another fresh headache for the Sir Humphreys of Whitehall. Yet with Trump returning to the White
Oh dear. It seems No. 10 aren’t keen to go anywhere near suggestions that Sir Keir Starmer might have broken lockdown rules. Back in December 2020, the Labour leader was receiving voice training lessons from actress Leonie Mellinger, who claimed status as a ‘key worker.’ This included a visit to Labour HQ on Christmas Eve,
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Trump’s tariff spree continues… After making good on his election promise to opt for another round of tariffs – a 25 per cent tax on imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10 per cent levy on Chinese goods – Trump has now turned his attention to Europe. In an interview with the BBC, the president
Education has been in the spotlight in recent weeks, as the government’s Schools Bill makes it way through parliament. So far, the legislation has grabbed headlines precisely for all the wrong sorts of reasons. Critics claim it will water down standards and that Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, is effectively doing the teaching union’s bidding.
Several women who worked with Russell Brand at the BBC have revealed that they were too scared to make official complaints about the lunatic’s behaviour. I dare say it will astonish you to learn that Mr Brand seemed to display a somewhat predatory sexual nature and was apt to touch young ladies inappropriately, though Brand
North America is now engaged in a full-blown trade war. Markets are reacting. Japan’s Nikkei was the first to indicate the downturn, falling 2.9 per cent this morning, while early trading on the FTSE is down 1.1 per cent. It’s not the cataclysmic shock some were expecting, though also not the ‘FANTASTIC’ response the President
Here’s one to make you paws for thought: SNP ministers are considering a ban on pet cats, in a bid to protect birds and other wildlife. Yes, that’s right, an official report for the Scottish Government suggests establishing containment zones where residents can be forced to keep their pets indoors, or stopped from owning them
An earlier version of this article suggested that the Green party has left the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme. We are happy to make clear that this is not the case. Not one major UK government department is still signed up to Stonewall’s Diversity Champions Programme. At long last, Stonewall’s toxic influence on free speech, equality law
Donald Trump loves giving two fingers to the world’s great political brains. Before the US election, for example, Rory Stewart predicted that Kamala Harris would strut to victory. The sage of the centrist dads had egg on his face when the Donald won with 77 million votes. But now he’s in power, there’s a less likely
It will hit back immediately. It will target the industries that will hurt the most. And it won’t be bullied or pushed around. We can expect to hear lots of tough rhetoric from European leaders today as the bloc prepares to retaliate against Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs of 10 per cent or more on
Life comes at you fast, eh? Only a few weeks ago I was grumbling in this very slot about the way in which the big AI companies were stealing copyright material in unimaginable quantities and using it to train their models without so much as consulting the owners of the work, still less compensating them. The reaction
No doubt Keir Starmer wants us to think he is being ‘grown up’ in accepting an invitation to dinner at an EU summit. But it is actually the reverse: he is behaving like a toddler in danger of being enticed into a stranger’s car by a bag of sweets dangled out of the window. As
How far will the Labour government’s European reset go? This is the question being asked in Westminster as Keir Starmer embarks on a Brussels charm offensive. On Sunday, the Prime Minister met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with the pair citing Donald Trump’s tariff war (launched over the weekend) as a reason why it’s a ‘good
Britain can’t cope, that was the response of Nigel Farage to last week’s disclosure by the Office for National Statistics that the population will hit 72.5 million in 2032. The leader of Reform said that Britain has already reached saturation point at 67.6 million, adding: ‘Our quality of life for all of us is diminishing directly
Who knew that being a voice coach qualified for ‘key worker’ status during the pandemic lockdowns? It has been revealed that the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer employed a personal voice coach as a ‘key worker’ during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite strict government guidelines at the time. The rules defined critical workers as those essential
President Trump hasn’t just inherited the problem of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Somewhere in the handover is a memo on Georgia, another troubled country on Russia’s border. Georgians who cherish their freedom have for over two months been protesting on the streets, infuriated by their government’s decision to suspend accession talks with the EU. And
Imagine you come across a small café in a back alley of Tokyo where you can travel back in time to talk things over with your ex-boyfriend, as long as you come back before your coffee gets cold. Or you stumble into an enchanted library, where the librarian gives you a book to cure your
