All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Every prime minister needs a Willie, said Margaret Thatcher to a soundtrack of great national tittering. She was of course referring to William Whitelaw, her massively experienced deputy upon whose advice she relied to moderate her zanier impulses and views. Whitelaw fitted the bill as a non-ideological Conservative who had pledged his loyalty to her
What happens when a lifelong anti-monarchist meets a pair of vocal young royals? Might one expect a statement of principles from the republican, politely reminding the couple of their illegitimacy as would-be rulers? Or perhaps just a quiet detachment, civil but aversive. It seems that when Jeremy Corbyn and his wife Laura Alvarez met Harry
Among the encroachments on Milton’s three supreme liberties contained in Humza Yousaf’s Hate Crime Bill is a cloturing of the debate on gender identity and the law. Proposals to remove medical expertise from the gender recognition process have either stalled or been shelved, but not before their radical scope prompted a lively dispute about the
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Following the exam results fiasco, the Tories’ lead in the polls has dropped to just two points in the latest YouGov survey. With Labour on the up, what is Keir Starmer doing right, and should we expect further gains? Cindy Yu speaks to the Spectator’s deputy political editor Katy Balls and Stephen Bush, political editor at
Not all coronavirus research sounds like fun, but wouldn’t you just loved to have been at the session where 25 choristers were asked to sing Happy Birthday at varying volumes to determine whether or not it would be safe for choirs to get back to business. The exercise was carried out by academics collaborating with
In the popular imagination, veganism and environmentalism go hand-in-hand. Both are championed – often in one voice – by ultra-progressive types who protest that we should live more ethically and responsibly in order to save the planet. Both types argue that eating less methane-emitting cattle and consuming more agriculturally-efficient crops is the first step we
Many of us British Francophiles discover early on in our relationship with la belle France that there is an undercurrent of – well, to put it bluntly, Anglophobia. It is not quite blotted out by French geniality and (usually) courtesy towards les Rosbifs individually. When we first went to France many years ago, we were frequently
Last Sunday, BBC Radio 4’s The Reunion devoted 40 minutes to ‘Black Wednesday’, as our exit from the ERM was mistakenly called. No one mentioned that the underlying aim behind the ERM was to help create the conditions for a European single currency, and that our falling out ensured that Britain would not join. Only
Boris Johnson is desperate to avoid becoming the prime minister who oversees the break-up of the Union, yet it appears many voters are already resigned to the prospect of an independent Scotland. A new poll for Coffee House has revealed that 46 per cent of Brits think it’s likely that Scotland will leave the UK within the next
There is actually some good news emerging from the tragic gloom of the Covid-19 epidemic. Despite some relaxation of lockdown rules in recent weeks, markers of serious infection – hospital admissions and deaths – continue to fall. There are several reasons for this but undoubtedly a learning process has taken place and we now understand
If the second son of an ageing Marquess decided to dress in a pink bikini, rename himself Madame Frou Frou and hung the family Canaletto sideways in his crumbling Lincolnshire pile while lighting his farts we’d all chortle at the charm of the eccentric English toff. You can get away with almost anything if your
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UK debt has hit £2 trillion, the Office for National Statistics said today – an increase of over £200 billion on last year. What does this mean for the economy, how does the UK compare to the rest of Europe, and does Boris Johnson plan to keep on spending? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson
‘Our stand on Israel is clear,’ Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan said this week. ‘We cannot recognise Israel until Palestinians get their right’, he said. For Khan, the UAE’s deal with Israel – which will inevitably lead to more Muslim states formalising relations with Israel – counts for little. But Khan is no stranger to
Last month, Britain joined the club of countries whose national debt is greater than 100 per cent of economic output. According to an Office for National Statistics update, public debt exceeded £2 trillion, taking the debt to GDP ratio over 100 per cent for the first time in 60 years. A fast economic recovery will
Despite Boris Johnson’s call for Brexit negotiations to speed up, the seventh round of talks has today ended with little progress. Neither side is bothering to suggest the latest round was particularly productive. Instead, the comments today from Michel Barnier and the UK’s lead negotiator David Frost were focussed on attributing blame for the current deadlock. Barnier said
Somewhere on my coffee table lurks a recent Boden catalogue. It shows pictures of beautiful, healthy, impressively clean – and, of course, very well dressed – children. They spend their time cavorting on sunny beaches or striding down iconic London streets. This week, images of children have provided a rare moment of consensus in our
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Joe Biden accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination at their virtual convention last night, bringing his three-day coronation to an end with a well-received speech. Throughout this year’s DNC, speakers have warned that America’s political foundations are at stake in the upcoming election – Barack Obama urged voters not to let the Republicans ‘take away your
Joe Biden’s range of emotional expression has narrowed with age – when he wants to convey feeling now, he shouts. Anger is the only thing that gets through, even when he’s trying to be hopeful or inspiring. And his acceptance remarks at the Democratic convention were well short of inspirational: the nominee didn’t seem tired,
Italy was the first country in Europe to implement lockdown, so what can we learn from the country’s attempt to impose restrictions to stamp out Covid-19? And what does Italy’s experience of finding a path out of lockdown teach Britain as it emerges out of lockdown itself? Ten towns in the province of Lodi, Lombardy, and
With GCSEs out of the way, we didn’t have to wait long for the next campaign to make out the Tories to be a bunch of heartless monsters – and for the Tories to fold. This one revolved around the temporary ban on evictions for tenants of privately-rented properties, which was due to come to an
Last summer, a bare-chested Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League and interior minister at the time, roamed the trendiest beaches on the Adriatic coast drinking Mojitos and dancing to DJ sets. But twelve months on, the partying has stopped and Salvini has lost his magic touch: the League has been ousted from the government
On Belarus, the EU has been eager to talk the talk. But it has been slower to walk the walk. Belarus’s sham election – in which the country’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko won 80 per cent of the vote – was condemned by EU leaders as ‘neither free nor fair’. But Brussels stopped short of
In the same way that airlines overbook flights, universities send out more offers than they have places for on the basis that many applicants will not make the grade. But what happens when most of them do? Airlines often use financial incentives to persuade someone to surrender their seat and similarly universities have been known
Oops. Not only did the wall that Donald Trump promised to build never get built, but it turns out that some of his closest former confederates are now accused of deploying the slogan in the interests of building up nothing other than their own fortunes. A grizzled Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign adviser, wearing a
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Birmingham and Oldham are on the brink of reentering lockdown, with cases in both rising significantly in comparison to the rest of the country. But how severe is the outbreak, and can the government risk shutting down the UK’s second largest city? Cindy Yu speaks to Kate Andrews and Katy Balls about the contenders for
Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny is, as of writing, fighting for his life, hooked to a ventilator in a hospital in Omsk. He was flying back to Moscow from Tomsk when he fell suddenly ill, and many assume poison. Think the government did it? Of course not: according to the Kremlin’s lead
The halls of the UN are a habitual stage for empty gestures and vaporous rhetoric, but last Friday’s Security Council vote was a dangerous theatre of the absurd – and one in which two American allies played ignominious supporting roles. The Council not only rejected the Trump administration’s proposal to extend Resolution 2231, which restricts
LBC broadcaster Iain Dale has moved his Edinburgh Festival ‘All Talk’ series to Zoom, and yesterday he spoke to Alastair Campbell – the two clashed from the start. The former spin-doctor was seated in a strange, beige-tinted room which looked like a sauna. Dale asked where Campbell was, doubtless knowing that he likes to spend
The Manchester Evening News reports that political tensions are simmering as Oldham battles to avoid lockdown. Manchester itself could break through the 50 cases per 100,000 level by the end of the week – placing the city in the ‘red alert’ bracket. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, is opposed to Oldham going into lockdown, saying
News that rail fares are to rise by 1.6 per cent in January, and public transport fares in London by 2.6 per cent, would normally be met with outrage – how dare they jack up the fares again when the trains are late and I can’t get a seat. Yet this time around the news
A prime minister better known for his charisma than his policy achievements proroguing parliament to ride out a political storm. Sound familiar? No, it is not Boris Johnson, but the quintessential liberal heartthrob Justin Trudeau. Trudeau’s party promised not to use prorogation to ‘avoid difficult political circumstances’ When Johnson suspended parliament a year ago, Nicola
Home Secretary Priti Patel visited the port of Dover last week to gee up the beleaguered Border Force and offer words of encouragement to the British people. ‘It is our mission and objective to break this route up,’ she told her personal cameraman and tightly-controlled media team. Priti hot footed it out of the docks as