All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
This afternoon the government announced the official launch date for its age-verification scheme for online pornography. As of 15th July, X-rated websites (or at least some of them) will have a three-month grace period to ensure that all UK visitors are over 18. If they fail to do so, the government will block them from
The purge continues. The latest victim is Barry Humphries. The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is renaming its Barry Award after Humphries was accused of expressing transphobic views. And so-called transphobia, as we know, is the deadliest sin in the PC era. No one may deny the truth of transgenderism. No one may blaspheme against the
24 August 2024 At the opening today of the rebuilt Notre Dame Cathedral, after the disastrous fire in April 2019, President Macron defended his decision to retask it with a new mission as a “house for all faiths, and also for those who have no faith.” “Notre Dame is a symbol of France, it has
Why is Extinction Rebellion being given such an easy ride? It isn’t hard to imagine the outrage which would rightly follow if, say, Brexiteers were to smash windows, block roads and bridges in the cause of trying to force the government into a no-deal Brexit. We would never hear the last of the Guardian condemning
The Extinction Rebellion group of climate change activists have caused widespread disruption in the capital this week, as they blockade busy roads in central London to bring attention to the UK’s efforts to tackle global warming. Today, they ramped up the protests by specifically targeting public transport. In a press release, the group said that
In a press release this morning, the Liberal Democrats announced the candidates who will be representing them in the forthcoming European elections on the 23 May. A second referendum to ‘stop Brexit’ has been their flagship policy since the country voted to leave the EU, and so a good result in these European elections is
What is the maximum point of danger for the government in the coming months? After Theresa May secured a six month Article 50 extension, many MPs along with the Tory grassroots are irate and calling for her to go. However, it’s still not clear how they could force the Prime Minister out before December (when
Tory MPs agree that Theresa May’s days in Downing Street are numbered, but when it comes to picking her replacement things aren’t quite as clear. Ever since May’s third bungled bid to get her withdrawal agreement through Parliament at the end of last month, the Tory leadership race has heated up. Boris Johnson remains the
“Paris outraged, Paris broken, Paris martyred, but Paris liberated!” intoned General de Gaulle on 25 August 1944 from the Hotel de Ville on his first appearance before the French people following the capital’s liberation. The following day he attended the Te Deum at Notre Dame Cathedral, that other high symbol and site of memory and
Attempting to explain Brexit in 90 seconds might remind you of a Monty Python sketch, but this is what Jeremy Hunt attempted in front of a class of Japanese high school students on Monday. The foreign secretary gave a carefully worded summary of the Brexit situation using the graded language of the English language teacher he
Sadly, politician misleads public is regarded by most people as a dog bites man story. But it is still quite rare for a politician to be caught in a straight untruth. This is what happened to Richard Burgon today, though, when video emerged of him saying that ‘Zionism is the enemy of peace’ when he
In what Communities Secretary James Brokenshire described as ‘the biggest change to the private rental sector in a generation’, the government has announced a ban on so-called ‘no-fault evictions’ of tenants by their landlords. ‘By abolishing unfair evictions, every single person living in the private rental sector will be empowered’, Brokenshire claimed. The Prime Minister
In American law there is a concept called ‘the fruit of the poison tree’ which means that if the source of some alleged evidence is rotten, or has been wrongfully obtained, then everything coming from it is also recognised as tainted. After this past week I would suggest a similar concept enters the lexicon in
In 2016, Labour’s shadow justice secretary and Corbyn ally Richard Burgon was asked a rather simple question by Andrew Neil when he appeared on the Daily Politics. The show took place shortly after allegations were made in the Daily Mail that the MP has said ‘Zionism is the enemy of peace’. As you would expect, in the
The conversation in France changed abruptly last night. Perhaps the blaze in Paris was the wake-up call that France needed. My neighbours, and all of France, seem deeply shocked. Almost numb. The fire seems to have touched a nerve. Whether this sentiment is transient remains to be seen. Notre Dame cathedral will be rebuilt. It
The timing of the burning of Notre Dame could not have been worse for Emmanuel Macron. The spire of the 850-year-old cathedral collapsed into the flames at 8pm, the time scheduled for his televised address to the nation. The president had planned to tell his people in the broadcast what measures would be taken after
On the afternoon of 13 April 1919, troops commanded by brigadier-general Reginald Dyer opened fire on thousands of unarmed Indian protesters massed at an enclosed garden in Amritsar in Punjab known as Jallianwala Bagh. When the shooting stopped – and it stopped only because Dyer ran out of ammunition – some 500 people, mostly Sikhs, lay dead.
The European Union already has a lot on its plate. The continuing doom of Brexit, upcoming parliamentary elections, a resurgent and ever strident nationalist movement across the continent and migration to name only a few. But over the last week, Libya can be added to the list. The armed conflict just across the Mediterranean is
Last Thursday the Prime Minister told MPs that ‘if we were able to pass a deal by 22 May, we would not have to take part in European elections and, when the EU has also ratified, we would be able to leave at 11pm on 31 May.’ Her point – since picked up by ministers
Speaking on the radio this morning, the Foreign Secretary refused the temptation to condemn the Legal Aid Authority’s grant of legal aid to Shamima Begum. He was right to do so. We give legal aid to those accused of murder and genocide. This is not because we have sympathy with murderers and genocidal killers but
It is not good form for the British to be awkward and obstructive. The art of the compromise was the polite British way of doing things. Or so it used to be thought. But Europe’s axis has tilted since Theresa May’s inability to secure an exit from the EU. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s recent tweet calling for
Civilisation only ever hangs by a thread. Today one of those threads seems to have frayed, perhaps snapped. It is impossible to watch the footage coming out of Paris, all that can be done is to groan and turn away. It is not possible to watch the spire of Notre Dame collapse. It is not
Firefighters are continuing to tackle a blaze that has devastated Notre Dame in Paris. The medieval cathedral’s spire and roof have both collapsed as a result of the blaze. President Emmanuel Macron, who has arrived at the scene of the fire in the centre of Paris, said: ‘Like all of my countrymen, I am sad
Almost every day, somebody somewhere recycles the idea that President Donald J. Trump doesn’t want to be president. He never did, they say. His heart is not in it. He wants to protect his business empire first and foremost. He doesn’t like having to answer to Congress. You’ll have heard these arguments in one form
People are protesting on the streets of London again. But this time it’s got nothing to do with Brexit. Instead, activists belonging to campaign group Extinction Rebellion have attempted to bring London to a standstill today by blocking roads as part of what the group says is the ‘last best shot at survival’. Some of those
As Tory leadership rivals get their campaigns up and running – and start to work out how to torpedo their rivals – Game of Thrones returns to our screens. Now in its final series, the back-stabbing/front-stabbing fantasy drama sees various characters fight and plot their way to the Iron Throne. So, Mr S was curious
Dear Remainer parliament. Although we’re the voters who spurned the petition for this very course of action, we the undersigned formally request that you please revoke Article 50 at your earliest convenience. For Philip, Oliver, Dominic, Amber, Greg, et al (forgive the familiar first names, but over the last few months we’ve come to feel
David Lammy – ERG far-right comparisons ‘not strong enough’ Andrew Marr interviewed David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham who has been at the forefront of calls for a second Brexit referendum. Lammy doubled down on comments he has made about not ‘appeasing’ the pro-Brexit European Research Group. Marr challenged him on the remarks made to
As tensions in Westminster continue to grow over Brexit, it’s become commonplace for politicians to use language that would have been unheard of in the past. Yet, even in these febrile times, the Labour politician David Lammy managed to go a step further earlier this month when he compared the ERG faction of the Tories to
The latest challenge was to submit an extract from a novel that chronicles the adult life of a well-known fictional hero from children’s stories. I enjoyed Jess McAree’s account of Paddington Bear’s Conrad-esque voyage — ‘evicted by Brexit, residence visa revoked’ — to the heart of darkness in deepest Peru. Hugh King, D.A. Prince and
A once famous question posed to job-seekers at Microsoft was ‘Why are manhole covers round?’ The question was revealing not because there was a single right answer, but precisely because there wasn’t. It helped elicit whether the applicant was someone happy to supply one plausible answer or someone who looked beyond the obvious. At a
The news that 83 per cent of Conservative voters are over 45, compared to 53 per cent of Labour voters, is depressing. That was a finding of a poll carried out by Hanbury Strategy for Onward, a right-of-centre think tank that’s just produced a report called ‘Generation Why?’. More alarmingly, Hanbury discovered that the ‘tipping
In his famous speech to both Houses of Parliament in March 1960, General de Gaulle praised Britain: ‘Although, since 1940, you have gone through the hardest vicissitudes in your history, only four statesmen [Churchill, Attlee, Eden and Macmillan] have guided your affairs in these extraordinary years. Thus, lacking meticulously worked-out constitutional texts, but by virtue
In acknowledging post-colonial guilt, William Dalrymple asks us to perceive how others see us. If only those critics could ever see themselves (Books, 6 April). The Amritsar massacre of 1919 was a failure, but how many more families were affected by the Amritsar massacre of 1984? More people were killed by the Indian republic in
