All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Most of us have remained largely silent as we watched the scenes of disorder and destruction around the country in recent weeks. Driven by the desire to be clear in our opposition to racism, we turned a blind eye as protestors abused and injured police officers, chasing them around the streets of London with impunity.
Today the prime minister tried out his ‘spoonful of sugar’ routine. Boris has decided that no political problem exists that can’t be solved with a dose of bonhomie, a chorus of ‘build, build, build’, and a £600 billion bung to rocket-boost the economy. This ramshackle strategy was all he brought to PMQs. Against him Sir
Charles Dickens was not a nice man. He was horrid to his family, remarking on the birth of one of his sons that ‘on the whole I could have dispensed with him.’ When he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, an actress 27 years his junior, he threw his long-suffering wife out, and sent her
The declaration by US authorities that Huawei and fellow Chinese comms firm ZTE are national security threats is likely to have a clear outcome. It will knock the UK government further down the path it already seemed to be travelling: reversing its decision to allow Huawei to play a role in Britain’s 5G communications network. Boris Johnson’s government surprised
When Hong Kong was handed over from Britain to China with great fanfare on 1 July 1997, there was a cloud which hung over the process. The shadow of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre loomed large, casting doubt on whether the promises that Beijing had made in international law could be trusted. 23 years later, and Beijing
The scenes in Hong Kong are hugely depressing. The authorities are already using the new Beijing-imposed national security law to clamp down on dissent. The UK now has a moral duty to offer what help it can to those holders of British National Overseas passports. What is happening in Hong Kong reinforces the need for
Television chef Prue Leith believes that snobbery is still rife in Britain, and that it’s keeping working-class people in their place. Speaking to the Radio Times this week, Leith described Britain as ‘the most unbelievably class-ridden country’. She is right, but not for old-fashioned reasons we associate with that Frost Report sketch with John Cleese
Doctors have always been political. Medical school is often a cradle of social activism, driven by a syllabus underlining health inequalities and the cultural aspects of disease. Some medics inevitably take up politics: Che Guevara, Salvador Allende and Bashar al-Assad are just a few (notorious) examples. But there are plenty of others, and this crossover
The best thing I can say about Boris Johnson is that he’s not a real Tory. The Prime Minister belongs instead to the popular liberal right, though he seems to get less popular by the day. His appeal to right-wing voters is based on his promise to ‘get Brexit done’ and the demented, 30-tweet-thread rage-pain
One of my proudest moments as a Daily Telegraph leader writer came in 2015 when I managed to persuade my masters that their paper should bestow official praise on Harriet Harman as she stepped down (for a second time) as Labour’s interim leader and made way for Jeremy Corbyn. The resulting editorial (you can read
We’ve all been in a situation where our mobile phone starts ringing at the worst possible moment – whether it’s in a meeting, the middle of a play or in the silence of a church. Still, it was rather unfortunate for Labour MP Claudia Webbe that her phone went off right in the middle of
Dear fellow citizens, In the wake of the horrifying and brutal killing of George Floyd, many in the UK expressed heartfelt solidarity; widespread protests showed a genuine commitment to opposing racism. Since then, however, activists, corporations and institutions seem to have seized the opportunity to exploit Floyd’s death to promote an ideological agenda that threatens
This government may not be good for much but it knows how to manipulate language. Attacks on the ‘establishment’ are the cover it uses to smuggle ideologues and ‘yes’ men into the civil service. We all hate ‘the establishment,’ don’t we? Even when, and especially if, we have never met a permanent secretary. The establishment,
Today Boris Johnson launched his ‘new deal’ for Britain – billed as an economic recovery plan to follow the Covid recession. It sounds positively Rooseveltian. It sounds like a new deal. All I can say is that if so, then that is how it is meant to sound and to be, because that is what
15 min listen
The country is facing a post-pandemic recession that will leave millions unemployed and businesses bankrupted, so despite all the noise, is Boris’s ‘New Deal’ tackling the right problems? Our Economics Correspondent Kate Andrews joins the podcast today, and tells James Forsyth and Katy Balls why she thinks today’s announcement was little more than rehashing of
Theresa May is known for having an icy side – and it certainly isn’t the first Michael Gove has felt the cold. However, those in the Commons this afternoon were subjected to a veritable blizzard when the former PM interrogated Gove over David Frost’s appointment to the role of national security adviser. May clearly felt
Can antivirals help us defeat coronavirus? The odds don’t look good. The use of antiviral compounds against respiratory viruses has a chequered history. Hundreds have been tested; very few have made it to market. And even fewer make a difference. What’s more, the evidence of their impact on mortality rates – the most important outcome
Imagine if a vaccine for Covid-19 was approved tomorrow, and that within weeks we had all been vaccinated. Would life be able to go quickly back more or less to normal? Don’t bet on it. The long shadow of Covid-19 will mean mass panic every time another novel virus comes to light. Indeed, news of
Boris Johnson had hoped to use today’s speech in Dudley to draw a line under the past 14 weeks of lockdown and return to his election agenda. However, with the government announcing overnight that Leicester is to go into a local lockdown, the ongoing challenge of coronavirus isn’t far away. The Prime Minister acknowledged that some
China’s multi-pronged militarism against its neighbours in recent weeks is intended as a show of strength. In fact, it reveals a weakness at the top of Xi Jinping’s Communist party which could prove to be counterproductive. Why is Xi lashing out? A detection of dissatisfaction among China’s people, mixed with a perceived opportunity for China to
It may seem a bit premature to make a speech now about Britain after Covid, when that deceptively nasty disease is still rampant in other countries, when global case numbers are growing fast and when many in this country are nervous – rightly – about more outbreaks, whether national or local like the flare-up in Leicester.
Antibody tests on random samples of the population have so far shown much lower levels of general infection than the government’s scientific advisers claimed would be necessary to attain ‘herd immunity’. In London, for example, tests have shown that 17 per cent of the population have antibodies to Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. In
Dame Helen Mirren has called for a ‘huge investment’ in the arts, warning that the UK’s theatres are only weeks from collapse. The theatre, she said on the Today programme, is central to the ‘identity of our nation’ and ’embedded in what it means to be British.’ With live performances banned since lockdown, most people
The Liberal Democrats were once the progressive voice of fiscal restraint. Not anymore. Leadership hopeful Ed Davey has tabled nearly 130 written questions over the last two weeks in a bid to generate some much-needed coverage – costing an estimated £140 a pop. According to Mr Steerpike’s back-of-a-fag-packet calculations, these often pointless interventions set the taxpayer back a cool £18,000. Probing
Over the last few months, I have watched events with growing incredulity. So much ‘normality’ has been lost, and even when measures have been eased recently, it has always been with strings attached. This makes it feel like more restrictions have appeared; at the height of the epidemic, we were still able to get on a
It’s funny how politics works. This time last year, the talk was of whether Labour moderates should leave their party and join with the Lib Dems after some of them had already taken the plunge. Labour’s hard-left was unassailably in charge of the party and it seemed there was no way they could be defeated
The government’s decision to lock Leicester down, closing all non-essential retail from today and schools from Thursday for all but the kids of key workers and vulnerable children, is a hugely significant moment. The government’s whole Covid-strategy relies on replacing the sledgehammer of a national lockdown with far more targeted local interventions. Leicester will be
The Conservative party is no longer the party of the rich, while the Labour party is no longer the party of the poor. That is the central finding of my new report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). Boris Johnson is certainly a prime minister under pressure. Public disapproval of his government is drifting upwards.
16 min listen
Leicester is set to lock down locally. It’s an approach that the Prime Minister has dubbed ‘whack-a-mole’, referring to clampdowns on local clusters that will inevitably arise in the coming months. All eyes are on Leicester’s experience now as it signals whether or not the national lockdown is a thing of the past. Katy Balls
Now that we are two months past the peak of the UK coronavirus epidemic, many fear the emergence of a second wave of the disease and remain anxious about any evidence that reopening the country has gone too far. For this reason media headlines like ‘Germany’s R number rockets again – from 1.79 to 2.88’
At last, with the partial easing of lockdown, we have the consolation of an escape into the countryside. There, in the unquestioning simplicity of it all, we can leave society’s struggles behind. A sweet idea, but now rather behind the times, as shown by BBC Countryfile’s recent stirring into action. In its programme last night,
With the world’s attention focused on the ongoing fight against coronavirus, Syria’s conflict rumbles on. Hundreds of thousands have died. Millions have fled. Yet this isn’t even the beginning of the end in the battle for control in this blighted country. The reality is that the future for Syria is filled with darkness and turmoil.