All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
At PMQs this week, Sir Keir Starmer got a proper grilling for a change. Kemi Badenoch used smarter tactics: short questions sharply focused; half-truths instantly rebutted. The Tory leader abandoned her normal habit of covering the entire spectrum of Labour’s shortcomings. She focused on their worst error: economic stagnation caused by the tax-grab Budget. Why,
Somewhere in an office on the south bank of the Thames, a man is writing in green ink and signing himself simply ‘C’. He is doing these things because all of his 16 predecessors have done so since 1909. Sir Richard Moore is Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), more popularly known as MI6,
Football’s most revered promulgator of platitudes is at it again. Sir Gareth Southgate, the former England manager, has warned that vulnerable young men are falling victim to ‘callous, manipulative and toxic influencers’. Delivering the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, Southgate said the young are falling prey to an ideology that asserts success is measured by money and
There are three thankless posts in a modern Labour government. There’s the Chancellor, who has to announce the tightening of belts and the hiking of taxes; the Home Secretary, who must busy themselves cracking down, banging up and throwing away the key; and the Work and Pensions Secretary, who is charged with Scroogeing every last
Keir Starmer didn’t have to defend his welfare cuts until later in the session at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, because Kemi Badenoch decided to focus on the looming increase to employers’ national insurance contributions. She was right to do so ahead of the spring statement, and her attacks were, for the second week running, much
Imagine if, following an Allied raid on Nazi positions, the newspapers the next day told us about nothing but the civilian casualties. No mention of the fascists who were killed. No utterance of their names, no information about their ranks. Instead, just pained commentary on the suffering of the innocents who tragically found themselves swept
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is once again plunging Israel into a deeply polarising legal and political crisis. Over the weekend, he announced his plan to dismiss Ronen Bar, the chief of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service. This was followed on Tuesday by his decision to renew the war in Gaza, by violating the fragile
Nicola Sturgeon may be stepping down at the 2026 Scottish parliament election but fear not, the SNP’s Dear Leader won’t be out of the public eye for good. While many might have expected the former first minister to retire to the shadows after the rather tumultuous two years she has faced, it appears the Queen
The Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin will have felt some relief after his visit to the White House last week. While Trump criticised Ireland for poaching American pharmaceutical companies, the general consensus was that Martin had walked away pretty unscathed. In fact, the mood was so optimistic following the encounter that Tanaiste Simon Harris, also in
Support for Nigel Farage’s party in Scotland is surging. This is despite the fact the Scottish group has no party leader, no parliamentarians and next to no operation on the ground. On his recent trip to Glasgow, Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice struggled to explain any devolved policies and even failed to remember the names
At 3am last Thursday morning, council contractors and police descended on a Bristol neighbourhood to install roadblocks under the cover of darkness. Fadumo Farah was one of the residents who got up that night to see what was going on. She was shocked to see dozens of police officers and security guards with drones. It ‘felt like a
As if Brits haven’t had enough elections and leadership competitions lately, north of the border political parties are gearing up for the 2026 Scottish parliament poll. While the embattled SNP has had a rocky few months, now Scottish Labour is under fire thanks to Sir Keir Starmer’s unpopular policies. But there is one party that
President Donald Trump’s creative diplomacy in the Ukraine conflict – which entails bullying the victim and making unilateral concessions to the aggressor – has achieved its latest non-result. After a telephone conversation that lasted for an hour and a half, Trump failed to convince his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to accept the US proposal for
Tesla and its hyper-active boss Elon Musk are having a bad month. On both sides of the Altantic, there have been protests against the ‘Nazi-mobile’ and the ‘Swasti-car’. The electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer’s sales are collapsing across Europe, and its stock is in freefall. On top of all that, its main rival, China’s BYD, has
So who won from yesterday’s phone conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin? Arguably, no one did – but nor did anyone really lose. Efforts to end the fighting live, maybe to die, another day. Putin managed to find a third way between agreeing to an unconditional ceasefire – which the Russians believe would benefit
Might a headscarf bring down France’s coalition government? The question of whether the Islamic garment should be permitted on the sports field has revealed the ideological differences within Prime Minister Francois Bayrou’s fragile government. On the one hand, there are left-leaning ministers such as Elisabeth Borne (Education) and Marie Barsacq (Sport and youth) who see
The Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall announced a range of cuts to benefits payments in the Commons on Tuesday in a bid to save money and get people back to work. On the evening broadcast round that followed, Labour MP and pensions minister Torsten Bell was quizzed on Newsnight about what exactly the reforms
Yesterday, the German parliament approved a historic amount of debt-funded investment in defence and infrastructure. Over the next few years, Germany may spend up to €1 trillion (£841 billion) on its depleted military and crumbling roads, buildings and train tracks. These eyewatering amounts of money are intended to act as the glue with which to
Once upon a time, America practiced ping-pong diplomacy to try and improve ties with Mao’s China. Now Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are talking about organising hockey matches in America and Russia to bolster relations. Given that the two sides would be playing in ice rinks, it would be hard to say that Russia, which
And so it begins. Welcome to the first episode of the latest season of Putin’s Theatre of Fugazi – the longest-running drama in global geopolitics. The first takeaway from yesterday’s nearly two-hour phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin seems, at first glance, a positive one. Putin conceded, in principle, strong support for a
Syria’s new constitution quickly drew a lot of criticism. Signed by President Ahmed al-Sharaa last week, the document aims to help guide the country through the next five years following the ousting of the dictator Bashar al-Assad. Yet many in the country have already rejected it, claiming it gives the president too much power, promotes
In the vestry of the church where my father was priest, there was a large wall-mounted plaque commemorating some long-dead worthy of the eighteenth century. I cannot recall his name, but he left a large bequest to the parish for the support of ‘poor persons known to be of good character.’ There are similar inscriptions
Controversy surrounding the live-action version of Snow White, which is released on Friday, suggests there is little likelihood of a happy ever after for Disney studios bosses. The £210 million remake of the beloved 1937 cartoon classic has been branded too woke and labelled ‘2025’s most divisive film’. It could be a recipe for disaster at the
As a former teacher, I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that Bridget Phillipson ranks among the worst Education Secretaries this country has ever seen. Yet when Phillipson described the Tories’ attempt to ban phones from the classroom as a ‘headline-grabbing gimmick’ back in January, I found myself nodding along in agreement. She was right. Unfortunately,
It may be taking him longer than the 24 hours he pledged on the campaign trail, but it appears that US President Donald Trump might be getting somewhere on halting the war between Russia and Ukraine: following a call lasting an hour and a half, he has persuaded Vladimir Putin to agree to a partial
The termination of US government funding for the two venerable radio stations Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL) by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) shows how blindly fanatical the Tesla owner’s axe-wielding has become. Musk claims RFE/RL is run by ‘radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1 billion
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This afternoon we had Liz Kendall’s long-awaited address in the Commons on Labour’s plans for welfare reform. The prospect of £5 billion worth of cuts to welfare has split the party in two, with fears of a rebellion growing over the weekend and into this week. Her announcement was a mixed bag, including: restricting eligibility
It’s a gaffe a day with David Lammy – but now his latest intervention has ruffled more feathers than usual. On Monday, the Foreign Secretary was firm in his view that, after Israel’s recent suspension of food, fuel and medical deliveries to Gaza, ‘this is a breach of international law’. Leaving no room for error,
The welfare state is grotesquely unfair. There are people who receive thousands of pounds from the taxpayer with little government oversight, even when they have no genuine need for the cash. They spend it on things like cars, flat screen TVs and other luxury ephemera. And there is a sense of entitlement among these scroungers,
To underline that there was government agreement on the welfare cuts and reforms she was announcing, Liz Kendall had Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband and a slew of other cabinet and senior ministers sitting behind her in the Commons. The Work and Pensions Secretary announced ‘decisive action’ on the benefits system, which she said
The people’s republic of Holborn and St Pancras is not exactly fertile Tory territory. But it was in a swanky office in Keir Starmer’s north London patch where Kemi Badenoch chose to make her big energy speech this morning. Rather than dwell on her long-awaited policy commissions, the Conservative leader spent the bulk of her
A Vanguard-class submarine used for Britain’s nuclear deterrent has resurfaced after a record-breaking 204 days at sea. Relatives gathered on the Rhu Narrows point yesterday to welcome back their loved ones as the sailors returned to HM Naval Base Clyde, in Scotland. When the submarine departed last year, it was still summer, President Biden was in
To Donald Trump’s America, where outrage spread across the nation’s left-wing papers at the weekend after it emerged that a Brown University professor had been deported from the country. Dr Rasha Alawieh had, the New York Times reported, a valid visa and a court order temporarily blocking her removal – and yet that didn’t stop
The top mandarin at the Home Office gave the game away. At a somnolent session of the Commons home affairs committee, Sir Matthew Rycroft revealed that Labour had dropped a key pre-election pledge, made just 72 hours before polling day. Instead of moving all asylum seekers out of hotels ‘within 12 months’, as the party