All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Barristers say there are two types of performers in court. The rhinos use brash, crude, overpowering blows. The snakes are subtle, unpredictable and deadly. Today at PMQs, the two beasts met. Boris came out of the jungle at full charge. ‘I think the honourable gentleman has been stunned by the success of the test and
The clash of styles continued at PMQs today. Keir Starmer came with a set of detailed questions and Boris Johnson attempted to push him back with a sheer weight of rhetoric. Johnson’s approach isn’t particularly edifying but it does deny Starmer the opportunity to land many blows in these sessions. The Labour leader hasn’t quite
The decision to significantly ease lockdown from early July marks a new chapter when it comes to the government’s approach to coronavirus. After a miserable few months, the hope in Downing Street is that with the number of confirmed new cases down to pre-lockdown levels, the government can return some form of normality – and
‘Diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ have become sacred doctrines within many of our major institutions, a religious fervour that has only increased since the senseless death of George Floyd. All across the globe, panicked corporations, desperate to be on the right side of history, have been rushing to meet demands for ‘systemic and structural change’, whatever that
It’s an inconvenient truth for campaigners trying to persuade Boris Johnson’s government to explore a four-day working week that the idea was first proposed by Jeremy Corbyn. During the 2019 General Election, Conservative MPs lined up to attack what became one of Labour’s flagship policies. With the election in full swing, one Tory MP went
When so-called ‘mad cow disease’ hit the headlines in 1996, I was in the final stages of finishing my medical degree. Understandably, I was already fascinated by the brain and its workings so I wanted to know more about this deadly malady which could be transmitted from animals to humans. Information back then was harder to come by without social
Even in these strange political times, it looks very difficult for a Conservative politician to become Mayor of London. In the 20 years since the advent of the mayoralty and the introduction of the London Assembly, only Boris – as we all know, an unusual politician – has managed to beat Labour, with successive terms
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Boris Johnson has announced further measures to ease the lockdown, and from the 4th July, more venues will be open than not, including restaurants, pubs, and galleries. It also marks a new phase in the lockdown, when social distancing will be guidelines, not law. But does the public actually want the lockdown to be eased?
As is often said, choose your statistics carefully and you can use them make just about any point you want to. But rarely does the Office for National Statistics put out two releases on the same day whose statistics point in totally opposite directions. If you listened to the BBC midday news, you may have
The rapidity and willingness with which workers have adopted and adapted to remote working has led some – including Rory Sutherland in this week’s Spectator – to hail a home-working revolution. But there are convincing reasons why the office won’t be another Covid casualty. First, while it is not inconceivable that coronavirus could accelerate the
Six years ago the kidnapping of 276, mainly Christian, schoolgirls by Islamist group Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria resulted in international condemnation. #BringBackOurGirls trended on Twitter and even Michelle Obama, then First Lady, posted an image of herself with the hashtag. For a brief period in 2014, an awareness of Christian suffering in Nigeria was
Covid-19 is here to stay. Whether it flickers in wait or rages like wildfire, it will remain part of our lives for the foreseeable future. As the vast majority of people who contract the SARS COV-2 virus recover after mild flu-like symptoms then, the onus should be on finding ways to reduce the mortality in
Speaking in the Chamber this lunchtime, the Prime Minister declared that ‘our long national hibernation is coming to an end’ as he unveiled the most drastic easing of lockdown yet. Phase three of the road map will see parts of the hospitality industry reopen from 4 July while individuals will be able to socialise with greater
Helen Whately, the care minister, is being tarred and feathered. She wrote a letter to an MP about student nurses, saying they are ‘supernumerary and not deemed to be providing a service’. The outpouring of fury online and, sadly, from some traditional media outlets provides an object lesson in all that’s wrong with the way
Its rescue fund will bail out the poorer states. It will fuel a rapid economic recovery. And perhaps most of all, it will finally turn the European Union into a fiscal union, raising its own money, and distributing it based on which region needs its most. The EU’s new €750 billion (£680 billion) rescue fund has
Infections up 15 per cent in a fortnight, with 37,000 recorded in a day. For those who are inclined to see it that way, the graph of US Covid-19 cases is confirmation of the folly of reopening society far too soon, and ‘throwing away’ all that hard work during lockdown, as Matt Hancock likes to
The mood in India simmers with retaliation following the death of at least 20 Indian soldiers in clashes with their Chinese counterparts on the decades-long unsettled border between the two countries. And there is bewilderment too at the muted reaction from India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. When Modi first came to power, he promised a
Imagine if on Saturday evening a white neo-Nazi had stabbed three men to death. Imagine, furthermore, if in the wake of the killings it had turned out that all three of the victims were gay. Or ‘members of the LGBT community’, to use the lexicon of the time. And then imagine if two days later
Welcome to C Day – where the ‘C’ stands for the ‘complexity’ of living with coronavirus. Because when the prime minister announces the return to something like normal living today, our revised way of life will feel anything but normal, and also bloomin’ complicated. For example, we’ll be able to have friends or family inside
The halcyon days of 2018 seem very distant. Two years ago, North Korea sent a delegation to the Pyeongchang winter Olympics; three summits took place between the leaders of the two Koreas; president Trump and Kim Jong-un wined, dined, and produced what John Bolton terms – in his latest book – a ‘substance-free communiqué’ in
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There’s a rebellion brewing on the backbenches – MPs claim that there are over 50 backbenchers who oppose the government’s proposal to loosen Sunday trading laws. On the podcast, Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson about whether there might be more to this rebellion than initially meets the eye.
Today, the UK Independence Party announced that Freddy Vachha will become the newest leader of the party. Vachha has been Ukip’s London Regional Chairman since 2016 and takes the reins from Richard Braine, who resigned just weeks before the general election last year after clashing with the party’s NEC. For those who’ve struggled to keep
He doesn’t know much about how to control a virus. Nor does he show much sign of being able to run an administration with any semblance of competence. But there is one thing that Donald Trump does know how to do. Hit a raw nerve. And in his decision to attack Germany, and its increasingly
Coronavirus and the fallout from it could have been a chance for the Church of England to talk about the grand vision of Christian hope and mortality. The Bible warns us of plagues and pestilence. It tells us that we live in a broken world. It makes it clear this pandemic is far from unprecedented.
Here are the outstanding questions to be taken by the Prime Minister and the coronavirus strategy committee he chairs (CS) today about how far lockdown will be eased on 4 July and thereafter. First, on socialising inside where we live; will we be allowed to meet with anyone we like indoors in groups of up
Is Boris Johnson heading for his first Commons defeat since the election? Plans are afoot in government to bring in legislation to suspend Sunday trading laws as part of a wider effort to get the economy going again. The Prime Minister and Chancellor first thought up the idea of relaxing Sunday trading as a way to make
It has become a truism that there are not enough liberal voters to get Labour a majority at the next general election. That Labour need to recapture some of the socially conservative vote to win. That they need the ‘red wall’ seats back to give them even the slimmest chance of victory. But for a
It’s not often that Japanese affairs get a mention in the EU, still less a condemnatory one. But that’s what happened last week when the EU petitions committee unanimously passed a motion censoring the Japanese government for failure to conform to international norms, and comply with international law, over the question of parental child abduction.
In all the reporting on the impact of the pandemic on employment, one important factor has gone unnoticed. It is the private sector that is taking the entire hit, with public sector jobs almost untouched. That 25 per cent drop in GDP over the last six months is overwhelmingly contraction of the private sector. Throughout
Matt Hancock: Lockdown to be eased again from 4 July This morning the Health Secretary Matt Hancock spoke to Nick Robinson, who was filling in for Andrew Marr. Robinson asked about the government’s plans to ease the lockdown after it was announced yesterday that the UK’s alert level was being downgraded from level 4 to
Since the turn of the century the share of income tax paid by the 1 per cent with the highest incomes has risen from 21 per cent to 30 per cent. Despite this, some academics claim that the rich avoid tax. A study released last week is a case in point. ‘Wealthiest in Britain paying just
As the toxic furore over statues continues, a number of left-wingers yearn to see the monument to Winston Churchill in Parliament Square replaced by one to Clement Attlee. In their eyes, the austere, long-serving Labour leader is far worthier of veneration than the cigar-chomping imperialist. To them, Attlee is the man who not only helped
