Fraser Nelson is editor of The Spectator
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Humza Yousaf faces the biggest crisis of his leadership to date – with his fate in the hands of former SNP leadership rival Ash Regan. Will Humza step down before he is pushed? Or is there a narrow gap through which the First Minister can fight on? Lucy Dunn speaks to Fraser Nelson and Katy
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After two and a half years in government together, Humza Yousaf has terminated the SNP’s governing pact with the Scottish Greens. The decision was rubber stamped at a hastily arranged meeting of the Scottish cabinet on Thursday morning. It preempts a vote by rank-and-file Green members on whether to walk away from Yousaf’s government after he ditched
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This morning Rishi Sunak delivered a press conference making the case that the Rwanda Bill should become law today – and the government is ready for when it does. James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson about what could be an all-night parliamentary showdown on the Rwanda vote, and whether an early summer
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This week: the usual targets First: Trump is on trial again – and America is bored rather than scandalised. This is his 91st criminal charge and his supporters see this as politicised prosecution. As an American, Kate Andrews has seen how the law can be used as a political weapon – so why, she asks,
The Spectator runs the UK’s only double-blind internship scheme. We don’t ask for a CV, we don’t use your name. We don’t care where (or whether) you went to university, we anonymise your application. We give each applicant a city name, mark out of 100 and give offers to the best ones. You’ll come in
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It’s 18 months since Liz Truss left Downing Street and her new memoir, Ten Years to Save the West, is out. She gave her first interview to Fraser Nelson on Spectator TV, covering why she wants to abolish the Supreme Court, Donald Trump, her husband’s warning that her leadership bid would end in tears, and
Some 300 missiles and drones were dispatched by Iran towards Israel last night, the largest such assault in history. The IDF say 99 per cent of them were shot down by the air forces of Israel, the UK, US and Jordan. So rather than weaken Israel, Iran’s attack has ended up convening showcasing an extraordinary
When Israel assassinated a top commander in Iran’s Quds Force in Damascus a fortnight ago, it knew that Tehran would have to respond with a direct attack. So news this evening – that Iran has sent a swarm of kamikaze drones that will take nine hours to reach Israel – is in line with those
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The row over Angela Rayner’s tax affairs has deepened today. This morning, Greater Manchester police have announced that – following a reassessment of the case – they will open a formal investigation into Angela Rayner. What does this mean for Keir Starmer? And why would it be so difficult for him to sack her? James
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On Thursday night, Conservative MP William Wragg admitted that he handed over the phone numbers of MPs, aides and a journalist to a man he met on a dating app. William Wragg will retain the whip after apologising for his actions. Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak is eager to talk about the National Insurance cut that comes
On Monday, the UK welfare state will expand to cover 15 hours of free childcare for working parents with two-year-olds. In September, this will be extended to infants of nine months or more. Next year, cover doubles to 30 hours. The total cost: £5.3 billion a year. It’s the ‘largest ever expansion of childcare in England’s
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Labour kicked off their local elections campaign today with a joint op-ed from Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner in the Times promising to empower localities and put an end to the regional divide. This is all encompassed in their Take Back Control Act … where have we heard that before? Rather than a seamless launch, the Labour
In the end, it was watertight. The House of Lords has just voted through a new law banning foreign governments from owning British newspapers and magazines. Any ‘material influence’ has been banned, so neither the United Arab Emirates or any ‘foreign power’ will be allowed so much as a 0.1 per cent stake in The
Last week, a rebellion in the Lords drew a government pledge to ban foreign governments and their proxies from owning British newspapers and magazines. It was a historic moment for the defence of press freedom in the era of acquisitive, well-connected autocracies. It will have global significance. But the devil was always going to lie in the
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Over the weekend, speculation about a plot to oust Rishi Sunak and replace him with Penny Mordaunt circulated the papers. It came after one of the worst weeks of the Prime Minister’s premiership and the looming May elections. This morning, key Cabinet ministers including Kemi Badenoch and Ben Wallace have come out in support of
Something happened today which, if it were any other country, would be seen to be remarkable: Vaughan Gething, the new First Minister of Wales, became the first black leader of any country in Europe. But having a non-white leader is not remarkable in British politics. The governments of London Scotland, Wales and the UK governments
No foreign power will ever be allowed to buy a UK newspaper or magazine: that’s the upshot of this week’s debate in parliament. The new law, due in a few weeks, is also expected to rule out minority stakes. So what next for us – and the Telegraph? It has been said that the Emiratis may have been our
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Rishi Sunak has finally confirmed what most MPs already knew: there won’t be a May general election. Speaking to ITV News West Country on Thursday night, the Prime Minister was asked if there would be a general election at the same time as the local elections on 2 May. He replied: ‘There won’t be a
Newcomers to England who start a family are often slow to realise that one of the biggest factors in the Game of Life here starts with the 11-plus exam. If your children are at a school where anyone is sitting such exams, you may find – as I did – that your children want to
In a landmark ruling for press freedom in Britain, the government has today moved to outlaw ownership of national newspapers and magazines by foreign powers. The text of the proposed new law has not been published but it would appear to rule out any Emirati ownership – in whole or in part – of the
