All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
What is the Conservative case for facing down Marcus Rashford on free school meals during the holidays? Ask a handful of Tory MPs, including the Prime Minister, and they’ll throw out a contradictory mess of answers. Many of those who are most uneasy with the way the government has refused to U-turn on the matter
Emmanuel Macron’s staunch defence of the right to publish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad proved popular in France. But now the president has a big fight on his hand abroad: French products have been removed from shops in Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan – and calls for a boycott are spreading. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is
A few years ago, when I was in the queue to catch a plane, a Spanish lady caught me watching her as she surreptitiously removed a sticker from her hand luggage, which meant it would have been stored in the hold. ‘Los españoles somos muy pícaros’ (we Spaniards are real rogues) she told me with
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Boris Johnson said the government would ‘do everything in our power’ to ensure children wouldn’t go hungry over Christmas, after backlash over their refusal to extend free school meals over the holiday. Tory MPs have criticised the position following a campaign by Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford, with Sir Bernard Jenkin saying the government had
How easy it has been for the government’s opponents to leap on the bandwagon of Marcus Rashford’s campaign to extend free school meals through the holidays. Nothing is more guaranteed to stir up emotion than the Dickensian charge that the government is out to ‘starve’ children – while MPs guzzle down subsidised booze in the
When they were first introduced in the spring, lockdowns were meant to be a way of controlling the spread of Covid-19. But, in much the same way that viruses themselves sometimes do, they have mutated into something far more sinister and potentially far more dangerous – a way of waging war on every form of
Throughout this year, the biggest worry for healthcare planners has been what happens if a second wave of Covid-19 coincides with a winter flu epidemic. We are now in what looks like a second wave of Covid-19 – and October is the month when flu cases tend to start rising. So are we on the
Is Labour finished in Scotland? There has been an assumption by many, particularly those in England, that the SNP behemoth will start to roll back at some stage; being in government in Holyrood will inevitably cause political gravity to take hold. Yet the SNP’s political humbling seems more remote than ever before, with a large gain
Crises often lead to new paradigms. The politicians of the day try to repair the damage, learn lessons and prevent recurrence. Frequently, they start by strengthening international institutions, or creating new ones. That has not happened over Covid. The international body which should have been most closely involved, the World Health Organisation, has been feeble.
The decision to implement lockdown was inspired partly by the appalling scenes from Lombardy, where hospitals were overrun and dying patients left in corridors. In London, ministers were terrified by the prospect of the same happening here. Today’s Sunday Times has published a long investigation from its Insight team looking at the Covid disruption in hospitals,
Brandon Lewis – Our position on free school meals ‘is the right one’ Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to extend the provision of free school meals over the school holidays has seen the government facing considerable criticism, with Labour forcing a vote on the issue in the House of Commons last Wednesday, which was
The most important fact about British politics is also the most mundane: the next general election is an awfully long way off. Given the extraordinary events we are living through, it is sometimes tempting to forget this and to suppose that a big political moment in any given week is going to have transformative consequences.
Throughout the pandemic, the government and its scientific advisers have made constant predictions, projections and illustrations regarding the behaviour of Covid-19. Their figures are never revisited as the Covid narrative unfolds, which means we are not given an idea of the error margin. A look back at the figures issued shows that the track record,
In the National Trust’s recent interim report, ‘Addressing our histories of colonialism and historic slavery’, nothing caused more controversy than its unfavourable mention of Winston Churchill, whose country house, Chartwell, it owns. The entry said that the British government’s response to the Bengal famine when he was prime minister was ‘heavily criticised’. It failed to
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Many on this side of the pond and on the stateside believe that there is a natural affinity between Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. So what will Anglo-American relations be like under a President Biden? Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Sir Christopher Meyer, former Ambassador to Washington, about the opportunities and the pitfalls.
Worse tales have emerged during the pandemic than that of the ‘Florence Three’ – Rhys James, Quinn Paczesny and Will Castle, who have all now returned home to Britain after 61 days incarcerated in a hotel in the Italian city. Some might say a couple of months stuck in Florence could have been a blessing
On Covid, there is a basic question: what is the government’s strategy? No one seems to know what ministers are doing and why. But how could we? Neither do they. The lockdown approach is based on a premise, which has turned out to be false: that we could suppress and eliminate the virus – or
What do Conservatives care about? First, high-quality education and academic attainment. Second, value for money for the taxpayer. Third, (unless you are an arch-libertarian) recognition that the battle that must be won is not between big government or small government, but good government. Combating child hunger should, therefore, be a cause that all Conservatives can
Italy is the only European country where Brexit is viewed with some sympathy and the British are not assumed to be off their heads. It is an odd state of affairs. The country benefited spectacularly from the EU. It transformed itself in a few years from a society of peasants and small craftsmen into an
In four decades working as an engineer and scientist, I have rarely known a more polarised time within the scientific field. The marketplace of ideas is depressingly split down the middle: you are either for herd immunity in the shortest possible time or for a full lockdown. There is, however, a third way: a method
‘Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.’ There are lots of sayings about statistics, but I think this one by Mark Twain best describes where we are at, regarding hospital figures and Covid-19. There are three questions that currently need answering when it comes to the Covid debate: firstly, are we experiencing a second
Donald Trump may have turned in a more effective debate performance last night, but Joe Biden is still the favourite to win the election next month. So, how would No. 10 deal with the election of a president who was so opposed to Brexit? There’s little doubt that the first few months of a Biden
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Tier three restrictions came into force in regions across the UK, including Greater Manchester, today. Blackpool Tower even lit up with an SOS message last night, as businesses warned they could not survive in the face of new measures. John Connolly discusses what the new restrictions will do to the North with Fraser Nelson and
Once more Lebanon is in crisis, and once more its leaders turn to what they most understand to solve things: ties of blood. Families are a big deal in that part of the world. And as Lebanon has stumbled into financial and political ruin over the past year, it is to family, or more correctly
Infections are rising. Hospitals will be overwhelmed. And very soon the vulnerable will start to die. From today, the Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford is closing down Wales with one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe, shuttering all but essential shops. For the next 17 days, hotels, pubs, restaurants and for a while, schools, will
Germany’s Social Democrats have remained quiet for months as their coalition partner, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, have tackled this pandemic. But it seems as if some have had enough. Social Democrats are fed up with how the federal government has relied on decrees and executive orders during the epidemic, rather than using the proper legislative
‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Philosopher George Santayana’s dictum is starting to look more relevant than ever in Spain, the country of his birth. The political temperature in Madrid has risen sharply in recent weeks and the language politicians are using has become unmistakably bellicose. The casual observer might
The Scottish Tories are decidedly unenthusiastic about suggestions Westminster devolve further powers to the Scottish Parliament. A proposal to stave off independence by giving Holyrood additional financial powers and control over immigration, contained in a strategy memo leaked earlier this week, has been met with a chilly response from the party. I asked if they
Former Vice President Joe Biden had one job in tonight’s final presidential debate: tread water. Don’t get rattled. If President Trump talks about your son, Hunter, as if he were an influence peddler or a Chinese Communist Party crony, take a breath and don’t take the bait. And definitely don’t get so angry that you
Donald Trump had arguably his best debate performance ever on Thursday night, for which he owes a big ‘thank you’ to the Commission on Presidential Debates. The CPD instituted a new rule for the debate in Nashville: each candidate would have their microphone turned off while their opponent was giving their initial two-minute response. This