All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Facebook has been accused of failing to combat extremism and hate-speech among its users. But as I found out this week, sometimes it does far too much to take down controversial opinions. Coffee House recently published an article by me with the headline ‘Michael Parkinson is right: men are funnier than women’. In the piece, I argued
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Polls consistently show a majority of Scots are in favour of independence – do they have a case? Fraser Nelson speaks to Andrew Wilson, former MSP and founding partner of Charlotte Street Partners.
Boris Johnson’s ‘green industrial revolution’, which was announced this week, looks doomed from the outset. From our heating to how we transport food, the proposals would mean a complete overhaul in the way we live. Yet barely a word has been said about the immense practical difficulties involved in Johnson’s ten-point plan for Britain to go
Paddy Ashdown once joked that he was the only leader of a major party to have presided over an opinion poll rating represented by an asterisk, denoting that no discernible support could be found anywhere in the land. While he was granting himself poetic licence in the telling of that anecdote – it was an occasional
Although China’s economy remains smaller than the United States’s in terms of nominal GDP (albeit ahead of the US in terms of GDP on a purchasing power parity basis) has it already surpassed it in another sense? Since 2008, China’s energy and momentum has arguably led to it overtaking its rival. A hundred years from
It’s all change at Jesus College, Cambridge. The marble memorial to Tobias Rustat is coming down. His portrait is no longer displayed. And his name has been removed from the conferences held at the college. Yet for one emeritus fellow of Cambridge’s Magdalene College, these steps do not appear to go far enough. Colin Kolbert, a retired judge, said:
The NHS plans to vaccinate everyone who wants a jab by early April, according to leaked documents seen by the Health Service Journal. This marks a shift in strategy from the government’s previous plan to only vaccinate the vulnerable. If successful, it would mean that all social distancing measures could be ended in April. The
Why don’t we have a minister for men? That’s the question Tory MP Ben Bradley asked this week, and he’s found himself the centre of a great deal of social media fury for doing so. I say ‘found himself’, but it’s highly unlikely Bradley really thought anything else was going to happen, not least because
Boris Johnson has been forced into an embarrassing row today, after the government published a report into allegations that Home Secretary Priti Patel bullied her staff – and which found that she broke the ministerial code. Despite this, the Prime Minister declined to punish Patel, which then led his advisor on ministerial standards to stand
Happy International Men’s Day! Sorry I’m late by one day, it’s just that I don’t really know what it’s for. I mean, yes, I’m grateful for its existence on International Women’s Day whenever someone says ‘Ah, but when is International Men’s Day?’, and I can reply: ’19 November’. But even then, it basically spoils a
They’ve only received a fraction of their old salaries. Many have missed out on months of work. And their pension contributions and holidays have been completely scrapped. So it is perhaps understandable that teachers, town planners and tax officials are feeling a little aggrieved. Except, er, no, sorry I made a mistake there. That was
Remember ‘immunity passports’? Back in April they were floated as a possible means by which we could all get back to a normal life. We could be tested for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 – the virus which causes Covid-19 – and, if we tested positive, we could be allowed to go about our business. The presumption
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Sir Alex Allen, a top civil servant in charge of the report into allegations of bullying at the Home Office, has resigned, but the Home Secretary Priti Patel, who is at the centre of it all, has not. Why is the Prime Minister so keen to ‘stick with Prit’? Fraser Nelson talks to James Forsyth
Boris Johnson announced his new ten-point plan for Britain’s transition to a net-zero carbon emissions economy this week. It is expected that other countries will follow. The EU has a stated aim of achieving a net-zero economy by 2050, with a 60 per cent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2030. This presents an
Some Tory MPs are hoping that Dominic Cummings’ departure from Downing Street will bring with it a vital lift to Boris Johnson’s premiership. Other Tory MPs have made up their minds about Boris already. Either they think he was always a flawed character whose only use was winning them the 2019 general election, a job
In the weeks before the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic became clear, Priti Patel was the biggest story in Westminster. In March, her most senior Home Office civil servant, Philip Rutnam, resigned and when doing so read out a statement in which he said he had been subject to a ‘vicious and orchestrated campaign’ against him after
Today marks Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR). Every year on 20 November, clusters of people gather to remember the hundreds of transgender people whose lives were cut short by violence in the preceding year. In 2020, like everything else, the candles, the readings and the list of names will be Zoomed across the aether. But who are
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The government has announced a £16.5 billion increase in defence spending, far more generous than previously expected. Will this new budget signal an end to the MoD’s spending blackhole? John Connolly talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
Whenever Donald Trump tweets something these days, it doesn’t take long before Twitter moves in with a warning. ‘This claim about election fraud is disputed,’ is one of the latest hectoring messages to be slapped on the outgoing president’s tweets. Yesterday no fewer than nine of Trump’s tweets were accompanied by similar links added by moderators. It’s
Boris Johnson’s comments about devolution having been a ‘disaster’ were not entirely wrong: it is hard to point to a problem devolution has solved. But given the popular support for devolution, it was a mistake for Johnson to say this out loud, I say in the magazine this week. The comment was a gift to
Oh dear. Readers may remember that back in March the Brexit talks between Britain and the EU were briefly derailed, after the EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier tested positive for coronavirus. Shortly afterwards, the UK negotiator David Frost also began to develop symptoms and was forced into isolation. You would have hoped after the incident,
The EU would like you to know that it doesn’t want to ban encryption. In fact, it correctly recognises that encryption is absolutely essential for our privacy and financial safety on the internet. That’s why a draft resolution – due to be tabled in front of EU leaders at a pivotal summit later this month
There’s a surefire way to tell Christmas has arrived. Forget the Oxford Street lights. Forget the sudden appearance of stacks of selection boxes in your supermarket. Forget Noddy Holder’s pained cry, ‘It’s Chriiiistmaaas!’ No, these days it isn’t really Christmas until we have the annual handwringing over The Pogues’ song ‘Fairytale of New York’. And
The Red Wall, Blue Collar Conservative, Old Labour, Workington Man – or whatever name you wish to attach to this loose coalition – will be unimpressed by Boris’s ‘green industrial revolution’. This group of voters, many of whom had never turned to the Tories before, backed Boris Johnson to ‘get it done’. Their vote for Brexit was a
Do face masks work? Earlier this year, the UK government decided that masks could play a significant role in stopping Covid-19 and made masks mandatory in a number of public places. But are these policies backed by the scientific evidence? Yesterday marked the publication of a long-delayed trial in Denmark which hopes to answer that very
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With essayist Mary Eberstadt, whose recent article for First Things argued that the riots in the wake of George Floyd’s killing come down to the sexual revolution and fatherlessness.
That looked pretty weird. The self-isolating PM attended parliament today from a remote location. His advisers had blundered badly. They might have created a warm, friendly look by seating Boris in a big leather armchair, lit by honey-coloured lamps, and surrounded by portraits of his latest children. Instead they’d emptied out a cubby-hole in a
Is Boris Johnson really Prime Minister? Or is Marcus Rashford? It’s not hard to see why some are confused. Whenever the Manchester United footballer has opened his mouth – not least on helping children who get free school meals during holidays – Boris has, often reluctantly, bowed to Rashford’s requests. Rashford’s latest project, a book club
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Boris Johnson has today announced a raft of new environmental policies, following the departure of Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain last week. Will it reset the direction of Number 10, or are more comprehensive changes needed? Cindy Yu speaks to Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
Jeremy Corbyn’s fan club has reacted with predictable outrage to the decision not to hand him back the party whip. Starmer’s refusal to do so was not ‘the right thing to do,’ said Labour MP Clive Lewis. ‘At a time of national crisis, division in the Labour party serves nobody but the Tory Government,’ said Richard Burgon. But Mr S wonders
The government’s Covid-19 strategy is designed to keep Christmas gatherings on the cards. But what might be the trade-offs? At this morning’s Downing Street press conference on Covid-19 data, Public Health England’s Dr Susan Hopkins and deputy chief scientific adviser professor Dame Angela McLean gave some indication of what tactics could be used to make
Keir Starmer had no control over whether to end the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn after only 19 days. Yet it was up to him, as party leader, whether or not to restore the party whip to the former leader. This choice represented another big moment for Starmer. He knew he had to do something before