All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The north tower of Malaga cathedral stands nearly 300 feet high. The south tower doesn’t. According to the plaque at its foot, the funds originally destined for its completion were instead diverted to help the rebels fight against the British in the American war of independence. Whenever I look at that south tower – well,
What are we thinking about Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner whose officers have lately ‘taken a knee’ at unlawful protests, failed to prevent the defacing of cherished national monuments, been injured in their scores and chased out of London housing estates? Weak, woke and woeful, right? That was certainly my view. Indeed, I
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Now that Huawei is banned, China hawks in the Conservative Party are turning their attention to social media platform TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company. It comes as the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives in the UK today to meet with Conservative backbenchers and the government to discuss China further. Cindy
Two ‘c’s come easily to Boris: charm and cheerfulness. He has always believed that he can charm his way out of trouble and to be fair to him, he often has. He is also a naturally cheerful cove. He is never happier than when dispensing good news, even if it has been necessary to invent
Relations between the UK and China came under even greater strain over the weekend. In a fraught interview on the Andrew Marr Show, the Chinese ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming said his government was still ‘evaluating the consequences’ of the ‘very bad decision’ by the UK government to ban Huawei from 5G networks by the end of 2027. It
When they come to write the history of the Union’s demise, there will be three guilty men. Tony Blair was a transformative prime minister, but he nodded through devolution after allowing himself to be convinced that it was an administrative change, rather than an unravelling of the United Kingdom. Many believe Iraq to be the
On Saturday afternoon, Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds released a charming picture of their baby son, Wilfred – the first publicly released picture of the child since he was born in April. The PM and his partner were on a Zoom call in Number 10 to thank the midwives of University College Hospital for delivering
Vegetable-seller Kairat Samarkhan didn’t know why he had been summoned to the police station. ‘I had to empty my pockets and hand over my belt and laces. Then they started to ask questions,’ he says. After days of interrogation, during which he was hardly allowed to sleep, officers pulled a sack over his head and
When Liu Xiaoming agreed to come on the Andrew Marr show, he ought to have expected that – as the Chinese ambassador – he’d be asked about Uighur Muslims. He doubtless came on to bemoan the Huawei decision. But as anyone with a social media account could have told him, video footage of people with
Liu Xiaoming – No Muslim concentration camps in Xinjiang Today’s Sunday interviews took a heavier focus on foreign affairs than usual, with Andrew Marr counting not one, but two ambassadors among his guests. He began by speaking to Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador, and confronted him with aerial footage appearing to show restrained Uighur Muslims
There has been an emotional response to the case of Shamima Begum, quite rightly. It is not clear to me that lawyers are better equipped than politicians to navigate such emotions, but sadly we live in an age which is increasingly demanding legal answers to political questions. What is perhaps surprising is that, with uncharacteristic
In 1739 a London attorney called John Theobald fell into a dispute with a man called John Drinkwater, widely regarded as ‘the most litigious Fellow in London’. Theobald met with Drinkwater’s enemies in a Holbourn tavern, and they decided ‘the Way to perplex Drinkwater and bring him to Terms, was to indict him for Barretry
The Black Lives Matter frenzy against statues may have passed its peak. The issue has been co-opted by the bureaucracies in government, Church, universities, etc. As their various committees study lists of allegedly offensive monuments, they should remember something which has hardly been mentioned: localism. Most statues are erected not because of a general national
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James Forsyth writes in this week’s Spectator that the Union is the biggest challenge facing this government, despite everything that is going on with the pandemic. Support for Scottish independence continues to grow north of the border. On the podcast, Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and our Scotland Editor Alex Massie about what the
There’s talk of reparations in the air. Lobbyists from around the world are demanding sin-payments from former colonial powers. Let me add my voice to the clamour on behalf of this island’s indigenous Celtic people. My family are from Llanelli in Carmarthenshire and I believe that my compatriots have an excellent case to make against
Huawei’s 5G path is blocked. In a few months’ time, Huawei may no longer see the point of paying six-figure sums to Lord B and his attendant knights,’ I wrote in this space on 20 June. I underrated its ruthlessness. It took only a few weeks. Lord Browne, its UK chairman, is out. Sir Ken
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Freddy Gray interviews Thomas Frank in Spectator USA’s second online event. Frank argues that populism isn’t frightening, but rather an account of enlightenment and liberation; it is the story of American democracy itself, of its ever-widening promise of a decent life for all. To catch Freddy’s next event, subscribe to Spectator USA now.
Few politicians have come out of the corona crisis as well as Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. As the face of the metropolitan area’s official response to the pandemic, the 68-year-old former cabinet minister has won plaudits for her nightly face-masked updates and guidance briefings. For her efforts, she was rewarded with a landslide in last
The cost of Covid-19 in the UK, in 45,000 lives lost and considerably more if ‘excess’ deaths are included, in long term illness for tens of thousands, and in damage to our prosperity, is changing everything. But did the shock have to be so great? Could the government have done more to protect us? Among
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In a press conference from Downing Street today, Boris Johnson set out the road to ‘significant normality’ – but not until November. It’s a more cautious position than had been previously briefed, but is even this timeline too optimistic? John Connolly talks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson.
Normally Fridays are spent thinking about how to unwind from work. Today though Boris Johnson announced changes to government guidance to get the public back to work, and more specifically, their place of work. From 1 August, the guidance will be changed to give employers more discretion to decide whether their employees should keep working
The numbers have seldom been better for Nicola Sturgeon. Ten months from the next Holyrood election, the SNP is polling 55 per cent on the constituency ballot and 50 per cent on the regional vote. Support for Scexit has swung into the majority. Almost three-quarters of Scots say she has handled the Covid-19 pandemic well,
‘Blackpool woman accessed child abuse images in hospital bed’. It’s a good headline, in that it catches your attention. But there are two things making it an effective headline, at least in the sense that it gets attention. One is the notion of someone looking at child porn in a hospital – that’s a shocking
People living in England have become increasingly concerned in recent weeks, as Public Health England’s (PHE) figures demonstrate a relentless daily toll of more than a hundred Covid-associated deaths, several days a week. This is in stark contrast to the more reassuring recovery in neighbouring regions (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland), where there are days with
On Wednesday, the new French Prime Minister Jean Castex made his general policy statement to the National Assembly. We know things are getting serious in France because the new Prime Minister was wearing a proper suit: charcoal-grey, well-cut, elegant. No more of the boyband blue drainpipe little numbers sported by his predecessor, tailored to Macron’s
It is startling to see the Court of Appeal take over the Home Secretary’s responsibility in deciding who should be allowed to enter the UK – judging for itself the relative importance of national security considerations. But this is what the Court did in its judgment today, by opening the door for Shamima Begum to return
Days before the release of the becalmed Intelligence & Security Committee (ISC) report on Russian political interference, we suddenly started to hear news of Moscow’s meddling on Thursday. It’s almost as if the government, sensitive about appearing like it wants to bury the report, suddenly wants to steal the thunder and look serious. Surely not.
Tomorrow Boris Johnson is expected to unveil his plan to get the country back to the office. However, the past 24 hours have offered a reminder of the pressure the Prime Minister faces on both sides when it comes to forging a path forward. On Wednesday night, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey addressed Tory
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Chris Grayling failed to win the chairmanship of the Intelligence and Security Committee on Wednesday evening. In his stead, Julian Lewis clinched the position, and No 10 withdrew the whip from Lewis. On the podcast, Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about why this happened and whether it’s better to rule by
The greatest danger to the current government is the state of the Union, I say in this week’s edition of the magazine. Prime Ministers can survive many things but not the break up of the country they lead. Number 10’s position is that there won’t accept a Scottish independence referendum in this Parliament. Given that
Earlier this month the BBC came under intense fire after it released a clip from its podcast ‘No country for young women’ in which guests were asked: ‘How can white women not be Karens?’ On the show, the academic Dr Charlotte Riley explained that ‘Karens’ are women who are unwilling to accept that their whiteness