All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
23 min listen
The plans for a merger between the two departments has united three former prime ministers in their criticism. Andrew Mitchell, Tory MP and former International Development Secretary, certainly thinks it’s a disastrous idea, and claims that Boris Johnson promised to his face that this would not happen. Andrew joins Katy Balls and Jame Forsyth on
Russia, the old joke goes, has long been a country with an unpredictable past. On September 22, 1939, for instance, Soviet Brigade Commander Semyon Krivoshein stood alongside German Generals Mauritz von Wiktorin and Heinz Guderian in Brest-Litovsk, Poland, to review a joint parade of Wehrmacht and Red Army troops who had recently occupied the town.
Behind the cowardice and hypocrisy which many institutions are showing as they give obeisance to Black Lives Matter about any connection with the slave trade lies a dread word — reparations. Activists seek to claim actual financial liabilities payable to existing human beings for alleged, centuries-old wrongs. The institutions — Oxbridge colleges, for example —
The mini cultural revolution unleashed by the Black Lives Matter movement, this campaign of cleansing society of any reminder of a more racist past, has been remarkable in its speed and scope. Statues have been toppled. Sitcom episodes have been memory-holed. Actors have been forced into grovelling apologies for once playing a non-white character. Now,
‘Oh man, US farmers would never put up with all this crap!’ said the young American cowgirl. She was doing an internship on my farm last year and was shocked that we have to tag all our animals at birth and then record every antibiotic administered throughout their lives to ensure the complete traceability of
No one seems to think Boris Johnson has handled this crisis particularly well. But who might have done a better job than him? According to the Great British public, the answer is obvious: Mrs Thatcher. A poll carried out by Redfield & Wilton Strategies suggests that 34 per cent of people think that Maggie would have
As the coronavirus threat level moves from four to three, Boris Johnson has declared today that he is ‘sure’ all children will be able to be back in school full-time from September. Speaking at the daily press conference, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson repeated this pledge. But should Johnson hit his target, will parents comply? So far of the year groups allowed
Brewers Greene King is to make a ‘substantial investment to benefit the BAME community’ to make up for the compensation paid to its founder after slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833. Lloyds of London has made a similar announcement. The underlying assumption is that everyone classified today as black, Asian or minority
15 min listen
The government has downgraded the coronavirus alert level from 4 to 3, with the support of its scientific advisers. So is it about time to ease lockdown even further? Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson about this and the discovery of the magic money tree, as debt is now worth more than
Since the whole world is in crisis, a crisis in the world of publishing might seem like a niche issue. But something that has been going on at the publishers Hachette is worth noting. Not least as it may be a portent of worse things to come elsewhere. Earlier this month the publishing house was
Cynics might wonder whether the timing of Matt Hancock’s announcement this morning that the Covid alert level is to be reduced from four to three is an attempt to deflect the government’s embarrassment from the failed test and trace app. The cynics may well be right with the timing (although the decision is ultimately in
It’s welcome news, of course, that dexamethasone can reduce mortality in people with moderate to severe respiratory complications due to Covid-19. But to hail it as a big breakthrough – as the Health Secretary Matt Hancock did this week – is a step too far. Perhaps next week, Hancock will be shouting about the use
Winston Churchill: hero or villain? That was the question the BBC asked on its website on 10 June. It caused outrage in some quarters, but was Auntie taking its revenge for the humiliation it suffered at Churchill’s libertarian hands during the second world war? In the summer of 1940, a movement was launched in Britain
‘It’s a sad truth that much of our wealth was derived from the slave trade’, said London’s mayor Sadiq Khan. Others agree: for Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, ‘Britain was built on the backs, and souls, of slaves’. But there is a problem with this analysis; it’s wrong. Just like the story told of an island
If Emmanuel Macron is intending to extract a pound of flesh from the United Kingdom as the price of Brexit, that’s certainly not the optic he projected today. On his visit to London, he deployed the French air force to fly over the capital in formation with the RAF in a display of entente cordiale
For months now, the British public has been told there’s only one way to resume normal life: a successful virus-tracing scheme. Early on in the pandemic, the UK decided to go its own way in this area, rejecting Apple and Google’s established, decentralised app model by trying to launch its own one. NHSX would create a
Earlier this month, The Spectator‘s chairman Andrew Neil announced that we would be handing back the government furlough money. He wrote, ‘Instead of depending on furlough money from taxpayers, I have tasked the editorial and management teams to grow sales of The Spectator to 100,000 as quickly as possible.’ Reader response was phenomenal, with thousands signing up
11 min listen
The government is today announcing a switch from its NHS-built contact tracing app in favour of one built by Apple and Google. On the podcast, Katy Balls asks James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson – why has it taken them so long to admit defeat?
Brits are still waiting for their coronavirus track and trace app. Meanwhile, Germany’s version is up and running. But although Germany appears to have beaten Britain again when it comes to tackling the threat of coronavirus, not all Germans are happy with the new app. The app’s launch coincides with the further easing of lockdown
Trade talks between the UK and the EU are in a better place than they have been at any point since they started back in March, I say in the magazine this week. The two sides’ decision to commit to an intensified set of negotiations between now and August, some of which will involve face-to-face
Bolton is a peculiar and stubborn man – you can tell that from his moustache. He’s also a greedy hack. Earlier this year, when all his old neocon NeverTrump allies were begging for him to testify in the president’s impeachment trial, he decided to stay quiet. He wanted to keep his powder dry for his
Will the UK agree a trade deal with the US? Such an agreement has long been cited by Leave campaigners as a prize for Brexit Britain. When Donald Trump became President it was seen to increase the chances of such a deal being struck. While Barack Obama had suggested the UK would be at the ‘back of
At least we now know where Rishi Sunak is getting all the money from. The Bank of England has today unveiled the latest round of what should probably be called Covid rather then Quantitative Easing. It will print another £100 billion which in the roundabout way these things work will find itself in the Treasury’s
Scenes of disorder in Glasgow city centre on Wednesday may be a glimpse of the future as the radical right grows emboldened by recent race-related unrest. So far six men have been arrested on suspicion of what Police Scotland described as ‘minor public order offences’ and Scotland’s justice minister Humza Yousaf has described the behaviour as
Donald Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton has made a series of bombshell revelations in a new tell-all biography. Claims that the White House does not want aired in public, with Trump’s administration launching a legal bid to block the book’s publication. However the volume, which is supposed to be released next week, has been leaked in its entirety to the
Clashes between Indian and Chinese troops are shocking but nothing new. For almost twenty days, in the autumn of 1962, a handful of Indian soldiers surrounded by Chinese troops weathered incessant assaults, before being overrun in Walong, in the Namti plains; the Eastern most corner of India. No support came in 1962, from the shocked Indian
It’s hard to argue that English football is chronically racist. Unlike in many boardrooms up and down Britain, there are no all-white teams in the Premier League. The number of black players has doubled since the Premier League started twenty years ago. Yet instead of letting the players – black and white – do the
There’s no spinning it: if the U.S. presidential election were held today, it is highly unlikely Donald Trump would win a second term. And that’s saying nothing of the damning revelations emerging from John Bolton’s book about his former boss, whom he says ‘remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House’. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll
There is a crisis brewing in Scottish education. Not the long-running crisis of attainment gaps, falling exam performance and limited external oversight. The emerging crisis is about getting children inside the classroom in the first place. Scotland’s schools have been closed for 90 days now in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and are not due
A testy, ill-tempered PMQs. Sir Keir Starmer began by welcoming the anti-viral breakthrough achieved by British scientists. He got an instant slap-down. ‘I’m glad he’s finally paying tribute to the efforts of this country in tackling the coronavirus,’ said Boris, finding Sir Keir guilty of anti-British sentiment. The PM was road-testing a new jingoistic approach
Oh dear. It seems Matt Hancock has forgotten his own rules. Shortly before PMQs this afternoon, the Health Secretary was spotted slapping a chum on the back in a blatant breach of the two-metre distancing regulations. Less than a minute later, Hancock again disregarded his ministry’s own guidance when he leaned in to have a