All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
You can say it for Wes Streeting: he doesn’t hang about. Reacting to the heavy loss of council seats in last week’s elections, he is proffering £102 million of money for extra GPs’ appointments – hopefully to end what has been termed the “8am scramble”: a kind of Hunger Games which NHS patients have to
You’d have thought ex-Labour MP Mike Amesbury would have tired of making headlines by now, but the former politician can’t seem to keep his head below the parapet. Now the former Runcorn and Helsby parliamentarian – who prompted last week’s by-election after he punched a constituent – has called on Labour backbenchers to rebel against
Israel’s cabinet has given a green light an audacious plan to retake Gaza, signalling a serious shift in its approach to the war on the Hamas-controlled enclave. Approved on 5 May, the operation aims to seize the entire Strip, hold key territories, and maintain a long-term military presence – a stark departure from the hit-and-retreat
President Donald Trump has again demonstrated his less than impressive grasp of history with a statement on his Truth Social site on the 80th anniversary of VE Day – the end of the Second World War in Europe – claiming that the US ‘did more than any other country by far’ to win the global
Ash Regan quit Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP government almost three years ago in protest at the former first minister’s controversial gender reform bill. Regan rose to prominence after she left her role as community safety minister over the legislation and then stood, unsuccessfully, to be leader of the party in 2023 after Sturgeon stepped down. Fast
I have read countless commentaries explaining why we shouldn’t take Reform’s victories last Thursday too seriously. They are all wrong. I have the distinct impression that these were the most significant election results for a good few decades. Up here in the north, everyone I know voted Reform. More importantly, when I used to ask
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In this special edition of Coffee House Shots, Lucy Dunn speaks to the Holyrood leader of the pro-independence Alba party, Ash Regan. Regan was formerly a member of the SNP and even ran to be the party’s leader after Nicola Sturgeon resigned in 2023. She defected to the late Alex Salmond’s Alba party 18 months ago
Commemorations begin today to mark the eightieth anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. A military procession will leave Parliament Square and head to Buckingham Palace – the start of four days of events that culminate on Thursday, actual VE Day, with a service of thanksgiving from Westminster Abbey. Britain’s military top brass will be out
The other day, I had a dismaying experience while making my usual frugal lunch. Usually, a cheese sandwich does me. Two slices bread, salted butter, thick bits of the maturest cheddar Ocado has to offer, and a grind of salt and pepper: a lunch fit for a king. But even kings like to change things
Keir Starmer’s government has taken some important first steps to bring the welfare budget under control. But expenditure on disability and incapacity benefits is still set to increase to almost £100 billion by the end of the decade, so more changes are needed. Every aspect of the welfare system must be examined to see if
Oxford, said Matthew Arnold, was “the home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs”. Now Cambridge is giving it a run for its money. Oxford’s chancellor election last year was widely billed as a two-horse race between the elder statesmen Lords Mandelson and Hague; the latter in the end won handily. They both had their hang-ups
There were many tributes when John ‘Paddy’ Hemingway, the last surviving fighter pilot of the Battle of Britain, died in March. Prince William said he was saddened about the death of the ‘last of The Few’ while the prime minister saluted Hemingway’s ‘extraordinary life’. There were no such statements in February on the death of
The arrest of eight men – seven of them Iranian nationals – across the United Kingdom in two separate counter-terrorism operations is a chilling reminder that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a distant threat. It is here, embedded within our cities, probing the limits of our law, our patience and our willingness to defend
‘Germany is back,’ said Friedrich Merz, the man likely to be elected as the new German Chancellor this coming week. What sounds like a promise to some and a threat to others is certainly a sign that the new German leadership will aim to take a more assertive role in European and world politics. Merz
Though local polls and by-elections are notoriously unreliable guides to general elections, and a week is indeed a long time in politics, what happened at last week’s local elections could portend one of the greatest changes in our political system in over a century: the permanent presence of Reform UK, and consequently the demise of
Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been declared ‘right-wing extremist’ who are ‘against the free democratic order’ by Germany’s domestic intelligence service. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) can now increase its investigation of the AfD, including tapping their phones, intercepting their electronic communications, and recruiting informants within the party. Public servants, especially
Wes Streeting admits that Reform UK might become Labour’s ‘main challengers’ Thursday’s local elections were bruising for both main parties, and a huge success for Reform UK, who won 677 seats. On Sky News this morning, Trevor Phillips asked Health Secretary Wes Streeting if Reform were taking votes away from Labour’s working class base. Streeting
As thousands of protesters thundered through central Dublin over Easter weekend, waving a sea of tricolour flags, Ireland’s anti-immigration movement staked a bold claim. The legacy of the Easter Rising martyrs – who underwrote with their lives the founding of the Irish state – was theirs. ‘We will be a true following on from our
This week Lucy Powell, leader of the House of Commons, did something unusual for a politician: she spoke from the heart. Her dismissal of the rape gangs as a ‘dog whistle’ was no gaffe. It was not a ‘blunder’. It was a brutally honest expression of the government’s exasperation with this pesky scandal. It was
It is time to take seriously the possibility that the next president of France will be Jordan Bardella. His star power was persuasively demonstrated at Thursday’s May Day rally of the Rassemblement National (RN) in Narbonne, the heartland of the French right. It was part political rally, part disco. The demographic was startling. The party
The death of a Pope is a time for assorted reflections on the Catholic Church. Protestants can be wary of speaking up. Even the word ‘Protestant’ is not a very familiar one these days. Sure, most of us know that the Church of England is Protestant, and that Luther was Protestant and that the Reformation
To no one’s surprise, this week’s election results make miserable reading for the Tories, and the attacks on Kemi Badenoch have now begun. In an article in The Spectator, William Atkinson lambasts her as ‘an active barrier to the party’s saving itself,’ adding that she ‘had her chance to prove herself and has been found
David Cameron’s promise of an EU referendum in 2013 was designed to head off the apparent challenge to his party’s election hopes that was being posed by Nigel Farage’s Ukip. Although Ukip still did well in the 2015 election, the Conservatives won an overall majority. Unfortunately for Mr Cameron, he lost the subsequent referendum, and
Duolingo claims that it is ‘the world’s best way to learn a language’. The app – which has tens of millions of users – boasts a ‘science-backed approach’ that it says ‘delivers measurable results’. I’m not convinced: it seems to me that time wasted on Duolingo would be far better spent doing almost anything else.
The three members of Irish rap band Kneecap are ‘ceasefire babies’: they grew up on the streets of Belfast around the time of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. So did I. But the similarities between me and the band end there. Despite what some of Kneecap’s fans might think, there was nothing glamorous about
The UK has a peerless reputation for producing some of the catchiest and most imaginative pop music on the planet. Little wonder that a dazzling and diverse roster of home-grown artists (pop stars in old money) have exerted dominance over the international music charts for decades. Yet despite the fact we gifted the Beatles, David
Uh oh. Commons Leader Lucy Powell has found herself in hot water after making some rather careless remarks on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions yesterday. The Labour politician sparked outrage over her reaction to a point by Tim Montgomerie – the founder of Conservative Home who has since aligned himself with Reform – who brought
Tonight, Australia voted decisively for continuity. The Labor government of prime minister Anthony Albanese has not merely been re-elected. It has absolutely thumped the conservative Liberal-National party coalition, headed by Liberal leader Peter Dutton. At the close of counting tonight, Labor achieved a majority in the 150-seat parliament, winning 77 seats and leading in another
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As the parties regroup following the local elections, both Labour and the Conservatives have to face a miserable result. Lucy Dunn speaks to Isabel Hardman and pollster Luke Tryl about the anger and disillusionment amongst the electorate, and why Keir Starmer message ‘we need to go further and faster’ can’t cut through.
In the gilded corridors of Trump Tower and the manicured greens of exclusive golf courses, a new Trump is quietly ascending. At just 17, Kai Trump – the eldest of the President’s grandchildren – is executing what appears to be a carefully orchestrated entry into public life, blending the traditional pathways of political families with the modern
It’s always sad to discover that one of your favourite quotations was made up. After communism’s fall, Robert Conquest’s American publisher was said to have asked him for a new title for a republished edition of The Great Terror, his seminal book documenting Stalin’s mass murder of his own citizens. His suggestion? I told you
It was always unlikely that Prince Harry was going to take his latest and perhaps most humiliating legal defeat with calmness and equanimity, and so it proved swiftly afterwards. Not only did he give a lengthy interview to the BBC in which he alternated between anger and blame and claiming that it was his intention to reconcile with his
The Cholmondeley Arms is set just off the main road of the quaint, red-bricked market town of Frodsham. Not that this watering hole is much of a tranquil escape: it’s lavishly draped in Union Jacks and VE day memorabilia and boasts a spacious beer garden out the back. It doesn’t serve food and features a