It is always interesting to watch the debates that roil a nation. So far as I can see, the current debate in parliament mainly consists of trying to work out whether the NHS is competent enough to kill people or not. This week one of our greatest Home Office ministers – Jess Phillips MP –
A spectre is haunting Wales. Fresh from Reform’s election victories in Westminster, Nigel Farage is turning his attention westwards, to Cardiff Bay. He wants Reform to replace the Tories there as the main challenge to Labour in May 2026, creating a major platform for his party ahead of the 2029 general election. The man plotting
How rare it is to be given a second chance. That’s what the American people have handed Donald Trump. His second shot at the presidency means avoiding past mistakes, which in TrumpWorld means finally harnessing the full power of the state. Even in the last year of his first term, Trump was struggling to fill
Did you sign it, then? And if so, what were your expectations? That Sir Keir Starmer would look at the figures and say – perhaps with a tinge of remorse – ‘Yup, that’s it, I’m bang to rights, we’ll have an election?’. Or were you simply hoping to annoy him? If so, I assume you
‘Et remarquant que cette vérité, je pense, donc je suis, était si ferme et si assurée, que toutes les plus extravagantes suppositions des Sceptiques n’étaient pas capables de l’ébranler, je jugeai que je pouvais la recevoir sans scrupule pour le premier principe de la Philosophie que je cherchais.’ Pardon my French – and I translate
I mentioned some weeks ago that one of the great points of interest – not to say enjoyment – in our era will be seeing how Keir Starmer’s government copes with the incoming Donald Trump administration in Washington. It is fair to say that many Labour MPs, not to mention the mayor of London (who
Right after Donald Trump’s landslide, I opined on YouTube that this turning point could sound the death knell for Woke World – an observation that decayed to hoary cliché within hours. I also supposed that Trump’s triumph might signal to the UK that all that diversity, equality and inclusion/systemic racism guff is totally yesterday –
I was thrilled to learn that our government intends to enjoy an ‘open’ relationship with China – one of my favourite countries, as I am sure it is yours. Sir Keir Starmer announced this intention when he bumped into Xi Jinping at the G20 beano in Rio de Janeiro. He also said: ‘We want our
Welcome to the United States of Disruption. From his ‘Winter White House’ in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, Donald Trump has been busy lobbing hand-grenade cabinet appointments in the direction of Washington and watching on happily as each one blows up in a variety of stunning ways. Explosiveness is the point. ‘Personnel is policy,’ Trump’s transition team like
In the months before the general election, the Labour party had an internal debate about starting a ‘national conversation’ on assisted dying. Keir Starmer had promised Esther Rantzen, the veteran broadcaster with terminal cancer, that if elected he would hold a vote on it. Wes Streeting, in the health brief, argued that it might be
You would think that we Europeans might have learned a thing or two about anti-Semitism over the past century or so – and perhaps come to understand pragmatically, if nothing else, that what begins with the vicious persecution of Jews usually moves on to murdering lots of other people, too. But no. Or if we
It’s amazing how many people have responded to what they think of as the shattering catastrophe of Donald Trump’s victory by crafting: making rag rugs, ceramic pots, knitting scarves. A woman I know from long ago is so traumatised that she has started quilting. I’m not sure what sort of quilt she’s making – a
We hear a lot about white supremacy these days. But for some reason we rarely hear about black supremacy. I wonder why? There’s a lot more of it around. For Butler, describing someone as white or as trying to be white is clearly a great insult While it is vanishingly difficult to find an overt
I notice that the police are not treating the killings of those children in Southport as a terrorist attack. While the principal suspect has been charged with allegedly producing ricin and allegedly possessing a PDF document called ‘Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: the al Qaeda training manual’, we have been told that
It’s always intimidating to write for a readership more clued up than you are. I file this on the very Tuesday the international commentariat have relentlessly claimed is the most consequential election day in American history. Now, in my ignorance, I suspect this superlative reflects the blinkered vanity of the present, and I’ve braved expressing
At her first shadow cabinet as Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch walked into the room and declared that there were ‘still too many people’. Various advisers hastily left. It was an indication of how she plans to do things differently. Even the invitation list for politicians has been slimmed down – the shadow attorney will not
You can hear it already. Rising from the tents of the dejected Democrat camp comes the whimper of self-reproach. It’s all our fault. Liberalism created this monster. There’s a distinct whiff of mea culpa in the air. Nostra culpa, nostra maxima culpa for the alienation of half the American people. Donald Trump and his mob?
There are certain rules in British public life that are worth noting. Such as this one: if someone is killed by a jihadist or someone who could plausibly be connected to immigration in any way, the British public will not be informed of the possible motive – or at least not until it becomes impossible
I have been trying to interest MPs of all parties in joining my call to persuade Barbados to say ‘thank you’ to Britain for the extra 17 years of life they enjoy as a consequence of their distant ancestors having been forcibly transported, hundreds of years ago, from Africa to the Caribbean. Nobody is quite
There were no civil servants present when ministers gathered for their weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The reason? It was time to talk politics. On the eve of Labour’s first Budget for 14 years, Keir Starmer tried to rally his ministers around a common message: blame the Tories! He spoke of the so-called fiscal black