All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The clock may be ticking when it comes to the Brexit talks but the news dominating Westminster today relates not to legal texts but personnel changes in Downing Street. Overnight the Times and Daily Mail both ran reports suggesting Number 10’s Director of Communications Lee Cain was in line for a promotion to Chief of Staff. However, shortly
America loomed large at PMQs. The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, blundered immediately. None of his advisers seem to know that Americans are highly sensitive to putdowns from snooty Brits. And Sir Keir – who is not just a posh Englishman but a Knight of the Bath as well – reinforced the stereotype by smearing
The decision to cancel next summer’s GCSE and A-Level exams in Wales has left teachers and pupils in uncharted waters. After Scotland scrapped its GCSE-equivalent National 5 exams in 2021 – opting for teacher assessments and coursework instead – England is under pressure to follow suit. But education secretary Gavin Williamson must stick to his guns and ensure that next year’s exams do
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Backbench Tory MPs are questioning the government’s plan for rolling out the vaccine. Meanwhile, rumours over a new Downing Street chief of staff have triggered a spat inside No. 10. Gus Carter talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
Hong Kong’s legislature has today moved one step closer to becoming a local branch of the Chinese Communist Party, after the disqualification of four of the most moderate, mainstream pro-democracy legislators resulted in the resignation en masse of every single pro-democracy legislator in protest. For the first time since 1997 the body now has no
The government’s successful deal to secure 40 million shots of Pfizer’s vaccine is a political coup in more ways than one. Not only have ministers successfully backed what looks like the winning vaccine from a pool of 150, it has also pipped the EU to the post. The EU has only just signed on the dotted line
Today is Remembrance Day, when we collectively pay our respects to those who died fighting for their country. It’s not usually considered an opportunity to indulge in activism or gross politicisation. Clearly though, Extinction Rebellion didn’t get the memo. This morning, the climate activists decided to use the opportunity to hang a wreath of poppies
When Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader and MP for Islington North, was suspended from the Labour party, many wondered how his fellow party members in the leafiest groves of north London would take the news. Today, it appears we may have the answer – and it seems as if all is not well in
‘A split party will be doomed to defeat,’ says Len McCluskey, with a hint of threat. The left of Labour are sabre rattling behind the scenes and starting to go public; talk of them actually leaving the party is becoming louder. They are annoyed at Jeremy Corbyn’s ongoing suspension more than anything, but there are
Donald Trump’s defeat in the US election was widely predicted, but what was less anticipated was the level of support Trump received from Muslim voters, a third of whom backed him, according to the AP VoteCast survey. It seems many Muslim voters reflected on Trump’s tumultuous time in office and liked what they saw: there was an almost
David Davis said something remarkable yesterday. In a debate on the membership of the Committee on Standards, he told MPs that the Tory deputy chief whip has 203 proxy votes. If Davis’s numbers are right, that is more than half the Tory parliamentary party. Obviously this is a consequence of Covid. But it has profound constitutional implications. If
News that the Pfizer vaccine is 90 per cent effective has sparked a number of questions about the prospect of a vaccine ending this pandemic. As a special adviser in the Department of Health and Social Care until recently, my job was not to be an expert in epidemiology or science. My job was to
Boris Johnson spoke to Joe Biden yesterday! Did you feel the thrill of it all? These Romans may be uncouth but they still know their Greeks. Or were you, instead, secretly annoyed that the new American president did not make good on all those breathless intimations that, summoning the ghosts of ancient persecutions and more
Imagine Donald Trump acknowledging that he lost the election and placing a formal concession call to Joe Biden. Now imagine the defeated one-term president spending the next four years preparing to retake his old job back. Find it hard to believe? Don’t. Because at the same time Trump is denouncing the election results, complaining about
What could possibly go wrong with the coronavirus vaccine? Boris Johnson has boasted that the UK is ‘towards the front of the pack’ when it comes to orders of the Pfizer/BioNTech inoculation, and health chiefs say they hope to start rolling it out from December, if it gets approval. The biggest ‘if’ now isn’t so
Although there has been much speculation of late that Boris Johnson will struggle to forge ties with Joe Biden, the pair’s relationship has got off to a promising start. After making his first phone call to America’s neighbour Canada, the president-elect shared a phone call with the UK Prime Minister. A Downing Street spokesperson says Johnson used
Oh dear. There has been much amusement today over the revelation that the graphic Boris Johnson shared to congratulate Joe Biden on winning the US election had originally been meant for Donald Trump. Still, it could be worse. Although there has been a lot of talk in the media of the Irish government’s close links to the
We all suffer from cognitive biases that cloud our judgment and lead us to the wrong conclusions. But now that we are in the middle of a pandemic, and restrictions are being put in place that have a profound impact on people’s lives, it is more important than ever that we look to the evidence
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The Pfizer vaccine is being lauded by many as the silver bullet that could end the Covid crisis. Meanwhile, the UK has seen a record number of redundancies. Also, No. 10 suffered serious defeat in the Lords last night over its controversial Brexit bill. Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Kate Andrews.
John Major has been a stalwart defender of the Union so it was disappointing to see his musings suggesting we should have two referendums on Scottish Independence. With the Scottish economy in serious decline the last thing we need is another three or four years of bitter division and uncertainty in Scotland. Appeasing the separatists
There are still safety trials to be completed. Data has to be collected, checked, double-checked, and then peer-reviewed. And we still need to find out whether it is the most effective of the various candidates currently in development or whether there is something even better just around the corner. But the Pfizer vaccine has already
Is it time for vicars to speak out against lockdown? As an Anglican priest, I’ve watched in bemusement as some of my colleagues have waded in on Brexit, Black Lives Matter, or Dominic Cummings’s trip to Barnard Castle. But why are many of these same voices silent on an issue that affects far more of
There is, as our presumptive and somewhat presumptuous president Malaprop told us on Sunday, a time to plant and a time for the other thing. There is a time for healing, and a time for massing your advisers in a garden centre and taking your enemies to court for stealing the election. A time for
Three days after statisticians called the 2020 US presidential election for Joe Biden, the loser of that contest continues to sulk in the White House like a spoiled eight-year-old kid and is brooding about the result. Trump’s campaign may still be holding meetings and convincing themselves that the race isn’t over – Trump’s political advisers
As befitting his public persona of a plain-speaking Yorkshireman, and making the kind of devil-may-care social transgression that is the privilege of the very old, Sir Michael Parkinson has declared that men have a better sense of humour than women. In a interview with the Australian Daily Telegraph, the veteran broadcaster, 85, was asked whether
Patrick Vallance has rightly come under fire over the use of statistics during the government’s now infamous lockdown press conference, but we ought to give him some credit for the UK’s preparedness for a Covid vaccine. It was Vallance’s forward thinking that established the taskforce responsible for securing 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine
In the last decade, the mega corporation has taken a lot of stick from just about everyone. But hold on. It is just about to rescue us from the worst global crisis since world war two. Drugs giant Pfizer — part of the Big Pharma — has announced that its Covid-19 vaccine was effective in
On this day in 1923, Hitler failed to seize power in Germany; in 1938, it marked Kristallnacht and the Nazi assault on Jews; and, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Each of these events impacted on the wider world – and that wider world will now impact on “The State We’re In”. The future of
Although the Prime Minister is known to be an optimist, he was at pains to play down reports of a vaccine breakthrough in Monday’s coronavirus press conference. After early findings from stage three of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine trial suggested it could prevent more than 90 per cent of people from getting Covid-19, Johnson
Joe Biden loves Ireland. He wears his Irish heritage proudly. ‘The BBC? I’m Irish’, he quipped when Nick Bryant asked him if he had a quick word for the Beeb. Which is all very nice. It’s good when people take pride in their heritage, even if it does come off as a bit ‘Oirish’ when
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The drugs firm Pfizer has announced that its vaccine — currently in stage three trials — is 90% effective. Meanwhile, Britain and the EU are entering the final stage of trade negotiations. Finally, No. 10 is ramping up its inquiry to discover who leaked news of England’s second lockdown. Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson
