All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Frankly, most people knew little about Robert Prevost before his election as pope, so there’s been a scramble to unpick Leo XIV’s past record to judge where he might take the papacy. ‘The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist,’ he told journalists We know already that
After the next election, Bob Blackman’s role as chair of the 1922 Committee should be much easier. With the Conservative party set to be wiped out across the country, it’s not inconceivable that the Harrow East MP will be the last Tory left in the Commons. It is the only seat in the country where
Around 40,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Square last night, the mood markedly more expectant than the evening before. While Wednesday had felt like a formality destined to disappoint, Thursday hummed with anticipation – and it delivered. The general consensus in the run-up to the conclave was that an American pope was unlikely. As the
To the Green party, whose membership will be called on to vote for their next leader this summer. Currently the party operates a curious policy whereby its next leaders or deputies, if job-sharing, must be of different genders – with Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer currently occupying the top job, having been elected in 2021.
The numbers, as the saying goes, don’t lie. And heading into the conclave two days ago, anyone who could count had reason to expect a pope at least in the mould of Pope Francis, who appointed the majority of the cardinal electors. Even so, few predicted the first American Bishop of Rome to emerge in
The presence of Chinese president Xi Jinping as ‘guest of honour’ at Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day military parade in Moscow today, which will include soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is both chilling and fraudulent. Chilling, because it is the most explicit endorsement yet by Xi of Russia’s militarism and its poisonous narratives about
It was a quiet lunch shift at the pub in Oxford where I work, the kind of day when the bar feels more like a confessional than a business. A lone customer, a woman with a light accent I took for Dutch, had just finished her meal and approached to pay. Playing the host, I
In theory, we’ve got the first American Pope, Robert Prevost. Born and raised in Chicago, university educated in Philadelphia. Parents French/Italian and Spanish – hence his command of four languages. Did Leo XIV so much as mention the US during his first speech from the balcony? He did not. Maybe conscious that being an American cuts
It feels a bit facile and tasteless to say that the first American Pope, Leo XIV, has been elected to counter the influence of Trumpism. Popes often change in the role and, since Catholicism is a religion and not an electoral party, the servants of the servants of God tend to defy political caricature. Consider
‘America is OPEN FOR BUSINESS’, President Donald Trump shared on Truth Social, just as the details of the US-UK trade deal were coming to light. It was an important clarification. Not only did the substantial tariffs announced on ‘Liberation Day’ suggest, strongly, that this might not be the case, but the President’s rhetoric since then
Keir Starmer says it is a ‘fantastic, historic’ day after signing a trade deal with the United States, but is the agreement really something to celebrate? Ten per cent tariffs, announced last month, still apply to most UK goods entering the US The government is no doubt cock-a-hoop to be the first country to get
Well, well, well. It transpires that civil servants working across Whitehall are turning to artificial intelligence to figure out how different policy proposals will be received by their real government ministers. Mandarins from the Department for Education, the Home Office and even the Cabinet Office have been clocked signing up to software that enables them
26 min listen
Trump has announced a beautiful new deal with the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and President shared a phone call to congratulate one another. It is the first trade deal agreed after Mr Trump began his second presidential term in January, and after he imposed strict tariffs on countries around the world in April. Freddy
15 min listen
It’s a massive day for the Labour government and for Keir Starmer, as the UK becomes the first country to sign a trade deal with the US following the tariff turmoil of last month. Donald Trump described it as a ‘full and comprehensive deal’ … although we are still waiting for some of the details
Calling someone Darth Vader. If that’s as bad as your workplace banter gets, I’d suggest you find a more entertaining place to work. Yet, incredibly, an NHS worker not only took enormous offence to being compared to the bucketheaded villain of the Star Wars franchise, she also took her employers to a tribunal. She’s just
With an inconclusive first and second day at the Conclave – to date – speculation in Rome is mounting that there may be deep divisions inside the Sistine Chapel. We may be in for an intense session of vote trading and complex geopolitical chess-board negotiations. The next pope, especially if it is one of the
Another day, another Downing Street blunder. Now it transpires that No. 10 sent a group of lobby journalists halfway across the country for a meet with Prime Minister Keir Starmer – only to belatedly clock they’d been directed to the wrong place. A pack of political journalists have found themselves stranded in the West Midlands
Once again Pakistan’s strategy of asymmetric warfare against its larger South Asian neighbour has plunged the region to the brink of a wider war. Long-term Pakistani support of anti-India militant groups – in particular Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) – continually destabilises the region. The attack on tourists in the honeymoon location of Pahalgam meadow in Kashmir
In the early morning of May 7, India launched missile and air strikes – referred to as Operation Sindoor – at nine locations within Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Indian authorities said it was a response to the April 22 attack in Pahalgam, which left 26 civilians dead, most of them Indian tourists. The stated targets
On Wednesday evening an esteemed group of Spectator subscribers gathered in London for the latest Coffee House Shots live event, where editor Michael Gove interviewed Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf and former Conservative MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg. The discussion focused on last week’s local elections, what they mean for both Labour and the Conservatives, and
Interest rates have been cut to 4.25 per cent. The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted by five to four for what will be the fourth rate reduction since August. The decision breaks with the direction of the US Federal Reserve, which held rates yesterday after refusing to bow to pressure from President
The eco-activists are back in the news this morning after Carla Denyer announced she will not stand again as co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales. The parliamentarian has claimed she will instead focus her energies on her MP role after leading the environmentalists for the last four years alongside co-leader Adrian Ramsay.
After Elizabeth II died on 8 September 2022, it became of paramount national importance that a suitable memorial was constructed in memory of her and her unparalleled reign. Since it was announced that some of the leading architects in the country would be in competition to come up with something that would act as a
To Scotland, where some rather curious polling has been published – suggesting that after next year’s Holyrood election, Reform UK could become the largest opposition party north of the border. The Survation survey for True North projects the current party of government, the SNP, will become Scotland’s largest party – taking a third of the
More Indians? Bring them on. The more the better. The prospect of a forthcoming tidal wave of immigration following Labour striking a trade deal with India is the best news in years. The last tidal wave of Indians arrived from Uganda and they were a shot in the arm of moribund Britain – where because of
Russia’s Victory Day celebrations on 9 May should mark a triumphal double apotheosis for Vladimir Putin. Not only will it be the 25th Victory parade since the beginning of his presidency, but is also the 80th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany, which Putin has appropriated as a fundamental ideological pillar of his
We had the shock of ‘Liberation day’ when punitive tariffs were levied on imports from virtually every country in the world. That was the destructive part of Donald Trump’s trade war. Now we enter phase two: trying to put things back together again. The announcement of trade deal with a ‘big and highly-respected country’ (believed
Later today, Donald Trump is reportedly set to unveil a trade deal with the UK. He’ll make the announcement alongside ‘a big and highly respected country’ which is said to be Britain. If the reports are true then it would make the UK the first country to secure a deal since Trump’s tariff turmoil began. The
It’s musical deals in world politics at the moment. Last week, Donald Trump and his senior officials intimated that a big new trade accord with India was imminent. Yet on Tuesday, Keir Starmer announced that he had reached a major agreement with Delhi. Then, late last night, the New York Times reported that Trump will
New mothers everywhere, rejoice, for the NHS has your back. And your sanity, apparently. Data released last week shows that 64,000 women accessed specialist perinatal mental health services last year, a rise in demand of 10 per cent compared to 2023. Describing the newly provisioned services as ‘lifesaving’ to perinatal women – the period encompassing pregnancy
I was born in 1983, and when I was a child, the second world war still had a significant cultural presence in British life. The youngest veterans – men born in the mid-twenties – remained relatively sprightly. The war was recent enough that there were men around who had been senior officers or otherwise involved
When Winston Churchill told Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at Tehran that history would treat them kindly, he spoke with the certainty of a man who would write that history. Churchill’s The Second World War has not only shaped our view of that war, but also of Britain’s place in the world that followed
The 133 cardinal electors participating in the conclave entered the Sistine Chapel yesterday, singing Veni Creator Spiritus. As they conducted their first vote – which resulted in black smoke – they were no doubt unable to avoid contemplating the highly damaging stream of revelations that have plagued the frontrunner to be the next pope, Cardinal Pietro