All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
19 min listen
The EU said it could walk away from trade talks after the government announced that it planned to break international law in its Internal Markets Bill. But how will Ireland, one of the countries most affected by the government’s decision, react? Katy Balls speaks to Peter Foster, public policy editor of the Financial Times, Pat
Deaths of Covid-19 are overwhelmingly concentrated among the elderly. But now there is a new eagerness to blame young adults trying to live their lives in a normal way for the possible resurgence of the disease. With minimal actual evidence, we are told those under the age of 30 are not socially distancing and, worse
A few days ago, the results of a poll conducted in the Western Cape by Victory Research – one of South Africa’s most respected polling organisations – were released. They delivered quite a shock. Like recent Scottish opinion polls, they showed a small majority for independence among supporters of the Democratic Alliance (DA), now in
Jack Kennedy’s 1961 declaration ‘We choose to go to the Moon’ was treated with a little more enthusiasm than Boris Johnson’s ‘Operation Moonshot’ pledge this week. Both caused eyebrows to be raised, on cost and practicality. But the former was done, eight years later; the later is, at best, a work in progress – at
In the early hours of Sunday, a man walked round central Birmingham stabbing people. He killed a 23-year-old man, inflicted critical injuries on two other people and wounded five more. The police were accused of hanging about nervously in cars instead of getting out and tackling the man. Later, Supt Steve Graham gave a press
After Ted Halstead delivered his speech at the famously liberal TED conference, its founder Chris Anderson remarked, ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a conservative get a standing ovation before that.’ That is because Halstead was not a normal conservative. In a time of American polarisation, he had a genius for mobilising both sides behind
9 min listen
While Congress Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week gave an ultimatum to the British government over the latter’s plans to breach international law, it’s clear that London frequently finds Trump a difficult partner. So at the end of the day – is Biden better for negotiating a trade deal? Freddy Gray talks to the Spectator’s Economics
10 min listen
As England heads into stricter lockdown measures shortly, James Forsyth talks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson about the growing unease amongst backbenchers over the government’s strict Covid response. Is it time for the government to try harder to make a case for its approach?
This evening Boris Johnson used a video call to address Conservative MPs following unease over No. 10’s Brexit tactics. With a Tory backlash growing over the plan to break international law and rewrite parts of the withdrawal agreement relating to the Northern Ireland protocol, the Prime Minister sought to convince MPs of the necessity of
When Covid-19 vaccines arrive, are people going to agree to have them? Most of the world’s advanced economies have chosen to suppress the circulation of the Covid virus, SarsCoV-2, by lockdown, to great economic and social cost. And each of these national choices has been predicated on the assumption that the vaccines now under development
The UK economy continues to bounce back – but it’s the coming months that could pour cold water on a V-shaped recovery. The economy grew 6.6 per cent in July, according to data from the Office for National Statistics, with the return of pubs, restaurants, hairdressers and more non-essential shops giving us another boost back
The news over the last few days has been a tale of three trade negotiations. First came the threatened collapse of the trade talks with the EU over plans to override the Withdrawal Agreement. This was followed by a statement from Nancy Pelosi (the Speaker of the House of Representatives) that there could be no UK-USA
Boris Johnson will address his MPs tonight – and they are in need of some soothing. This week has strained relations between him and the parliamentary party. As I say in the Times, on Tuesday the government horrified the internationalist wing of the party by declaring that it was prepared to break international law in a
Nothing like a bit of alarmism to flog a few newspapers. In an apparent bid to capitalise off the Extinction Rebellion protests, the Guardian has set up a customised begging bowl at the bottom of each climate-related article asking readers if they’re prepared to ‘save the Earth’. Surely if one wanted to prevent climate change,
The UK and Japan have this morning agreed a new free trade deal between the two countries. With International Trade Secretary Liz Truss working to secure a number of FTAs for when the Brexit transition period ends, this is the first that goes beyond what the UK had under EU arrangements. Announcing the news, Truss said this marked
Architects are taught during training of the ‘looks like’ trap: just because a building resembles another building – or indeed something else entirely – it is not proof that was the intention. Yet critics of the British Library – who claim the building resembles a ‘battleship’, the ‘greatest symbol of British imperialism’ – appear to
‘So, what uni are you going to?’ It’s a question sixth form students are often asked. But for me, the answer is: ‘I’m not’. Despite being the only one in my year group to say this, I know it is the best decision for me. People have warned me that I will regret not having
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it? Six months after the imposition of lockdown, we were meant to be securely on a gentle path back towards normality, not facing fresh nationwide restrictions. So it is no wonder that the Government’s new ‘Rule of Six’ has proved to be the straw that has broken
If the UK government was just going to ignore international law, why did we bother leaving the EU at all? Before anyone gets too jumpy, allow me to explain. If you look at the Brussels laws the UK had to accept during its time as a member state, you’ll find that the government was almost
11 min listen
The EU gave an ultimatum today that, unless the UK shelved its Internal Market Bill within three weeks, it would be taking legal action against the government. With negotiations in a more acrimonious stage than they have been for a long time, are the talks about to break down? Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth
The statue of Winston Churchill has been defaced again with another piece of graffiti branding the most popular Brit of all time ‘a racist’. It seems the Met police has arrested someone on suspicion of criminal damage. Meanwhile, police finally cleared Parliament Square, ten days after the Extinction Rebellion protests first began. But not before a group
The drama has ramped up again in the Brexit talks. At today’s meeting of the Joint Committee on the Northern Ireland protocol, the EU demanded an explanation from the UK side of what was going on with the Internal Market bill. The UK argued that its clauses on Northern Ireland were needed as a safety
In a very specific and limited way, I have concerns about the Internal Market bill. It’s not a bad bill; on the whole, it is a welcome piece of legislation that attempts to bring some cogency to regulation and practice as we exit the EU. The bill will make it easier to trade and contract
It’s that old Covid chauvinism again. France is in denial about the severity of its new pandemic flare up and possibly a second wave. French news bulletins, but also supposedly authoritative newspapers like Le Monde, have concentrated on how badly things are going elsewhere. In the last few days, Spain was singled out as having
Does the government threaten the ‘rule of law’ by asking parliament to vote its way out of a Brexit treaty? The Society of Conservative Lawyers, which has advised Tory thinking since 1947, has released this statement from some members of its executive (on which I also sit) saying they are ‘deeply troubled’ by the government
In recent years, governments have increasingly opted to legislate to ensure they do the things they say they are going to do. In the UK, for example, the commitment to allocate 0.7 per cent of GDP to the international aid budget is legally binding, and in 2019 the UK became the first major economy to
Last April police officers found the bodies of two women, Mihrican Mustafa and Henriett Szucs, stored in Zahid Younis’s freezer. Before their murder Younis had served two jail sentences. The first came in 2005 after he married a 14-year-old in a Walthamstow mosque, got his child bride pregnant, and assaulted her. For this he was
Last week, we launched Spectator TV with The Week in 60 Minutes. Hosted by Andrew Neil and featuring James Forsyth, Katy Balls and yours truly, it aims to be a new fixture in your week: looking at the events passed in greater depth than you’d normally find. Every Thursday at 6pm – posted later on
Boris Johnson confirmed in his coronavirus press conference yesterday that gatherings will be restricted to a maximum of six people from Monday onwards. This is the legal number allowed to meet (with a few exceptions), and those who fail to comply will face fines or even arrest. In one way, this isn’t that much of a change to what’s allowed
One thing is keeping the temperature among Tory MPs in check: the government’s poll lead. It’s hard to claim that this or that event has been an election losing disaster when the opposition is still behind. The explanation for why the Tories are ahead despite such a torrid summer holds the key to what will
In the row about the Internal Market bill, some important constitutional propositions are in danger of being misunderstood. The introduction of the bill, which would empower ministers to disapply provisions of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement, has been widely reported as Government law-breaking. The Attorney General and Lord Chancellor have been criticised