All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Perhaps Senator Kamala Harris would have performed better last night if she had remembered who she was debating. It was not — as she hoped it would be when she was a candidate in the Democratic primaries — President Donald Trump. Instead, it was a candidate with a radically different demeanour. Vice President Mike Pence
When the lockdown tiers are announced, it is inevitable that huge swathes of the north will be under much tighter restrictions than the south. It is not hard to see how a divided Britain translates into political trouble, as I say in the magazine this week. Labour and northern leaders will claim that support packages
History repeats itself — but sometimes in reverse. Only a pessimist would have predicted a global pandemic followed by a growing regional conflict. And yet the ongoing fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan — and its accompanying web of political ambition, ethnic tensions and territorial disputes — leads to uncomfortable comparisons with the start of the first world war. That
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Democratic Senator Kamala Harris and vice-president Mike Pence yesterday battled it out in the VP debate. Ms Harris accused the Trump administration of ‘ineptitude’ and ‘incompetence’ in its response to coronavirus, while Mr Pence said Biden’s plans to tackle climate change would ‘crush American jobs’. But who came out on top? Freddy Gray speaks to
The death of legendary axe grinder Eddie Van Halen is a sad reminder of how far rock music has fallen since those heady, head-banging days of the 1970s and 1980s when hairy, denim-clad blokes bestrode the earth, power-chording their way into our collective consciousness. Once the foundation of any self-respecting rock anthem, the obligatory guitar
Later today, two men will be sentenced for their part in the attempted murder of a prison officer at high security HMP Whitemoor in January 2020. Unfortunately, extreme violence against the men and women who put on the uniform has become almost normalised in a system beset with squalor, overcrowding and unchecked predatory behaviour. Even
So there you have it. Cambridge Analytica was ‘not involved’ in the 2016 EU referendum. The digital marketing firm that Remainers love to hate did not swing the British electorate towards Leave, as we were constantly told. In the words of the Guardian, no doubt uttered through gritted teeth, Cambridge Analytica did not ‘directly misuse
Britain’s judicial system may be about to give $1 billion (£770 million) to one of the world’s most notorious dictators. Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan strongman, wants access to gold reserves held by the Bank of England. The leader, internationally condemned for chronic mismanagement of the economy and facilitating vast corruption, says he’ll use the funds
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris is a former prosecutor. Vice President Mike Pence is a career politician. The debate between them was always going to be less lively and dramatic than the name-calling last week between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. But it wouldn’t be a snooze-fest – nothing in this election cycle is. Harris began
Vice President Mike Pence emerged from the 2020 vice presidential debate Wednesday night with a sound victory over challenger Sen. Kamala Harris. The debate was, of course, calmer and more focused on policy than the presidential debate between Trump and Biden last week. Although it may seem surprising that such conditions would work in favor
Tiresome things, words. And it is even more tiresome when people insist they retain their traditional meanings. Thus I suppose one may sympathise with Peter Murrell, chief executive of the SNP and — for this is not irrelevant to the subject being discussed here — husband to Nicola Sturgeon. In January 2019, Alex Salmond was
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Nicola Sturgeon today announced that 3.4 million Scots will be placed under increased Covid restrictions, with bars and restaurants shutting across a central belt which includes Glasgow and Edinburgh. What’s behind the crackdown, and could similar measures be announced in England? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.
So now we know the threshold at which Nicola Sturgeon pulls the trigger. If the number of daily hospital admissions for Covid-19 exceeds a tenth of the number recorded at the April peak, she will lay waste to the hospitality industry. From Friday, all pubs and licensed restaurants in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Forth
Well that was different. Boris arrived at PMQs as if he were modelling for one of his cartoons. The strands of his famous hairdo were standing up like the quills of a cornered hedgehog. Had he just placed his thumb in a power-socket to get an energy boost? Sir Keir was waiting for him, inscrutable,
‘Diversity’ — who today would dare to stand up and declare themselves against it? What, after all, is the alternative? Homogeneity? Uniformity? Indistinguishability? But there is clearly a problem with what that term has come to represent. It will come as no surprise then that June Sarpong, the BBC’s ‘director of creative diversity’, has been forced
Rishi Sunak received a fair amount of flak this week, after ITV reported that he’d told struggling musicians to retrain and find other jobs. The Chancellor appeared to actually be speaking more generally to the broadcaster about job losses when he said that ‘I can’t pretend that everyone can do exactly the same job that
Fake companies set up under false names. Phantom employees invented to claim compensation. Start-ups trousering loans for ventures that don’t exist. Meals that were never eaten. The British economy has been in a bad place for the last six months. But it turns out one small corner of the economy has been flourishing: defrauding the
The next battle over coronavirus restrictions is shaping up to be the 10 p.m. hospitality curfew. Sir Keir Starmer raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, asking Boris Johnson whether he was able to provide any scientific evidence for the measures — which mean all restaurants and bars must close by 10 o’clock. The Prime
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The latest national poll from CNN puts Joe Biden 16 points ahead of Donald Trump. Has the President’s short stint in hospital dented his re-election chances, or is an unsettled news cycle and an unrepresentative sample skewing the numbers? Freddy Gray speaks to Marcus Roberts, director of international projects at YouGov.
Although internationally recognised as belonging to Azerbaijan, the region of Nagorno-Karabakh is populated by ethnic Armenians, who fought a war of secession in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. The area is now an unrecognised but de facto independent republic with strong ties to the Republic of Armenia. Azerbaijan continues to claim the land and
Emmanuel Macron’s bold declaration last Friday that the Republic will eradicate Islamic extremism appeared to draw a swift response in Lyon. On Saturday evening 12 masked men carried out a well-coordinated attack against a church in the suburb of Rillieux-la-Pape in what the Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin described as a ‘shock against the Republic’. Attacks
We are at a critical moment in the second surge of coronavirus. Ministers, scientists and officials are deeply concerned about the rate at which Covid-19 is increasing in the North West, North East and Yorkshire and Humberside: they believe the daily quantum of infection is doubling every five to seven days in large chunks of northern
The world was a different place when Graham Linehan’s IT Crowd, which turned to IT support for comedy inspiration, was first broadcast by Channel 4. But last week, Channel 4 told Linehan they would be turning off one of his episodes and not turning it back on again. The Speech, originally shown in December 2008, which
Broadly speaking, there are two ways to respond to Communist China’s national security law. First, there is the Tony Chung way. Chung, a 19-year-old activist, set up a pro-independence movement and became the first person arrested under the repressive legislation, imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing’s dictators earlier this year. Then there is the Lord
Donald Trump is back at the White House after a scary three-day stay at the Walter Reed medical complex. For the President, that’s the good news. The bad news: his bout with the coronavirus hasn’t won him any sympathy points from the electorate. In fact, his numbers have only gotten worse. CNN’s latest national survey
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A Covid-positive Donald Trump returned to the White House yesterday evening after spending 72 hours at the Walter Reed hospital. After landing on the south lawn in a helicopter, the President removed his mask and waved to the media below, flanked by American flags. He later tweeted: ‘FEELING GREAT!’ But has Trump really recovered? Freddy
The great Pixar animated film ‘Monsters, Inc.’ tells the story of Sulley, a fluffy-haired, broad-shouldered and rather cuddly monster who creates energy by scaring children in their beds but then discovers that vastly more energy can be generated by making them laugh instead. I offer this not as a rival to Boris Johnson’s new plan
Peregrine Worsthorne died peacefully at home on 4 October 2020. Two weeks earlier I had visited him with my son Nicholas, at his home in Buckinghamshire where he lived with wife Lucinda Lambton and devoted young Croatian carer Luca. It was a beautiful day and we arrived for lunch after a long drive. Perry was
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Boris Johnson gave his headline speech to an empty hall in the virtual Tory conference today. But despite promises to ‘Build Back Better’, was the speech overlooking the country’s immediate troubles? John Connolly talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
How popular are circuit breakers? The latest Covid-19 news from Ireland would suggest support varies dramatically between the scientists and politicians. Speaking on RTE, Leo Varadkar revealed the National Public Health Emergency Team had recommended moving to ‘level 5’, which would have amounted to a ‘circuit break’ and another shutdown of the Irish economy. Pushing
Probably the most significant feature of Boris Johnson’s speech at the Tory conference is what it said about him rather than what he said. To put it another way, the Prime Minister seemed bouncier than he has in many months, thanks — he said — to shedding 26 pounds of flab since falling seriously ill
The main thing to say about Boris Johnson’s speech at this year’s online Tory conference is that it captures the present mood of the Conservative party almost perfectly. The problem with that is, that mood is one of confusion and soul searching about what the Conservative party actually exists to do. For a start, there
Should the Food Standards Agency be permitted to engage in torture in order to put a stop to the sale of horse meat? Should the Gambling Commission have the authority to issue licences to its agents to commit murder with impunity? That would be the astonishing outcome were the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct)