All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Is Rachel Reeves really correct that her new-found enthusiasm for a third runway at Heathrow would be consistent with the government’s net zero targets and other environmental policies? Over the weekend she argued that a third runway would be good for air quality over London because it would mean fewer planes circling over the capital.
The news that the high street arm of the newsagent WH Smith is in ‘secret talks’ to be sold – talks so secretive that they have been splashed across every newspaper and broadcasting outlet in the country – should be greeted with a sigh accepting its all-but-inevitable fate. There can be little doubt that Smith’s,
Are exams… racist? Are exams snobs? If a report in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph is to be credited, academics at Oxford and Cambridge are taking this question seriously. In the hopes of closing the ‘achievement gap’ between white middle-class students (who scoop more of the firsts and 2.1s) and students from disadvantaged backgrounds or other ethnicities,
Over the last few years, defence spending has been higher up the political agenda than at any time since the end of the Cold War. The scale, intensity and sheer cost of the war in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in February 2022 provided a shock to the system – but it only reinforced what many
Railway arches are functional. If you want to keep a railway bridge horizontal, you’re going to need arches. Once, Network Rail owned these bits that kept the trains in the sky. But these days, they have a price on them, as retail space. There are currently around 5,200 businesses located in railway arches, and in 2018, Network
Has the merry-go-round of the global elite summit – epitomised by the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos, which concluded this weekend – had its day? As I saw at Davos when I was editor of the finance magazine Spear’s, the WEF has been out of touch for years. Its costs of attending are now
Last year, marking the tenth anniversary of Scotland’s independence referendum, I wrote an article for The Spectator looking at the state of Scotland’s political conversation and the prospects for the cause of independence a decade on from defeat. After setting out why I thought MSPs ought to pass a budget that crossed the nationalist-unionist divide, softening the
As Holocaust Remembrance Day comes round again, actual remembrance of the Holocaust seems fainter than ever. The arson attacks on synagogues in France and Australia, the mass-assault on Israeli football supporters in Holland last autumn, or the shocking recent scenes at the Oxford Union, where Jewish speakers were taunted, booed and sworn at by the
The CIA report concluding that Covid most likely originated from a laboratory leak of a man-made, or man-enhanced, virus raises an awkward and glaring question: why on Earth isn’t Britain’s own Covid inquiry even considering the possibility of a laboratory leak? The inquiry, which still grinds on even if most people have lost interest in
For years now, higher education has been convulsed by a never-ending hunt for racism. A certain type of academic or student activist sees it oozing out of every pore of campus life, from statues to ‘microaggressions’ to student bar fancy-dress nights. And yet, if you were looking for a clear-cut example of a racist university
Rachel Reeves heavily hints at third Heathrow runway As part of her upcoming speech on economic growth, Rachel Reeves is expected to announce approval for a third runway at Heathrow. Reeves refused to confirm this in her interviews this morning, telling Laura Kuenssberg, ‘You will see the plans [for Heathrow] when we set them out’.
Working from home has had a terrible effect on my state of mind and it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. Which is why I want to defend it in a week of it being under attack. On Monday, on the BBC’s Panorama, Stuart Rose, former chairman of Asda, said he believes ‘productivity
Australia’s national day, which falls today, has two purposes. It is an opportunity for Australians to celebrate who they are and how fortunate we are to live in a stable democracy, thousands of miles from terror, strife and conflict. But it also marks the end of Australia’s languid summer when it’s time to get back
Like the definition of an old man in a hurry, since his inauguration Donald Trump has been pumping out orders and vetoes like Lieutenant Kilgore summoning napalm strikes in Apocalypse Now. Such has been the shock-and-awe of his legislative blitz, some of Trump’s less newsworthy diktats have gone nearly unnoticed. But hidden away in one White
A revealing, damning and fascinating diplomatic memorandum, sent in 1994 from the US embassy in Moscow to the State Department in Washington, D.C. has recently been declassified. It is also a gripping and lacerating read, even for the non-specialist. It comes at time of heightened tension and ongoing head-scratching: why are US-Russia relations so terminally
Britain is turning sadness into sickness. More than four in five GPs believe that the ups and downs of normal life are being wrongly redefined by society as mental disorders. The news, from the Centre for Social Justice’s (CSJ) report Change the Prescription, follows comments from Tony Blair, who said: ‘You’ve got to be careful of
Israel’s critics want you to acknowledge its uniqueness as the only country to enjoy the triple distinction of being a colonial, genocidal, and an apartheid state. Whether Israel is, or was, colonial I leave to the historians and political scientists. The question of genocide will eventually be decided by the International Court of Justice. In
In the morning darkness at the reception of our central Kharkiv hotel, 25 miles from the Russian frontlines, the night porter’s face was creased with sleep. As we made our way towards the door to catch the early express to Kyiv, he handed us a small keyring with a yellow and blue plastic ornament. They
There is a new theme park coming to Britain – though without big dippers and ghost trains. It will be an historical attraction with Vikings, knights and Tommy Atkins in the trenches. It will be Britain’s equivalent of the wildly popular Puy du Fou, a historical theme park in western France which opened in 1989 and now
‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,’ wrote Allen Ginsberg in his famous poem Howl. I thought of it the other day on reading a column by the alleged ‘comedian’ Stewart Lee in the Observer: ‘Nascent neo-Nazis are looking for confirmation bias for their worst instincts, but back in the
Universities are facing their biggest crisis in modern history, yet most are in denial and living in la-la land. Warning bells have been ringing for some years, but the descent has been precipitous. Just 25 years ago, Tony Blair unveiled the ‘knowledge-based economy’ to be powered by universities. They stood tall, untouchable, almost universally admired.
To govern is to choose. So what have Labour’s ministers chosen to hung on their walls? Raiding the Government Art Collection for the pick of the portraits is one of the perks of being a minister, along with a red box, car and driver. Mr S has done some digging and via a Freedom of
With four weeks to go until Germany heads to the polls for its federal election, Elon Musk has just given his third public endorsement of the country’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. Beaming into the hall live from the States at the party’s campaign launch in Halle (Saale), Saxony-Anhalt, the tech billionaire appeared to
A quarter of a century after the first series of Big Brother, there is still some life in reality TV. Most of it is dross, but reality TV at its best tells you something about the human condition. What The Traitors (BBC One) tells us is that people are very good at lying. We over-estimate
Blame Covid. That’s the origin of the BBC’s hit game-show, The Traitors. Workplaces are still deserted as people sit in their kitchens tapping away at their laptops but they crave the drama of office politics. This show lays on conspiracies and intrigues galore. The setting is a quaint old Scottish castle where a random group
The ceasefire in Gaza may be holding, but student activists aren’t happy. Yesterday, ten students from the Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) protest group stormed the Radcliffe Camera, the eighteenth century library, ‘occupied’ it and founded the ‘Khalida Jarrar Library’ named after a Palestinian activist and one of the 90 freed as part of the ceasefire
13 min listen
For the past fortnight, Canada’s Parliament has been empty. After Justin Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader, all the polls are pointing to the likelihood that Canada will become another example of the West’s shift to the right. This is partly due to the incumbency problem (and the ongoing internal struggles in the Liberal Party), but
Is anyone else getting a bit fed up of reading weepy newspaper stories about how the skiing industry is being killed off by climate change? Apparently, 80 ski resorts in the Alps have already closed for good due to a lack of snow, and according to the OECD only 400 of the 666 ski areas
‘Could we get a precise definition of fascism before all this kicks off today?’ So asked Merryn Somerset Webb, a senior columnist at Bloomberg, just before polling day in America. It was – and is – a question worth asking. The election of Donald Trump was inevitably going to draw the comparison, particularly after Kamala Harris (remember
France’s 2025 census has ignited a predictable but exhausting row. The controversy centres on a seemingly innocuous question: ‘Where were your parents born?’ Cue outrage from the French left, who have called for a boycott of the question, declaring it racist and a dangerous gateway to discrimination. The fact is that many on the left
The word ‘oligarch’ returned to the media lexicon at Donald Trump’s inauguration this week when some of the world’s biggest technology entrepreneurs took their seats while US cabinet ministers were asked to sit dutifully behind them. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg felt the need to demonstrate loyalty to Trump. The President did not
The UK and Europe have had plenty of time to get to grips with the inevitable, that President Donald Trump will demand a substantial rise in defence spending. When he threw this demand at Europe the first time he served as president, the impact was like a fox entering a hen coop. Lots of fluttering wings
Amr Salem mingles cheerfully with foreign investors and members of Syria’s interim government in a five-star hotel in Damascus, and why not? Salem’s disposition, clothing, and manners fit the scene. Yet Salem was, in fact, a minister in Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the officials he warmly greets are members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), with
Freeloaders rejoice: Waitrose is bringing back free coffee for customers even if they don’t buy anything. This is a bad idea that will make shopping in what was once a nice supermarket even more miserable. The reintroduction of free coffee means more people through the door, and therein lies the problem Before the pandemic, the
