Fraser Nelson is editor of The Spectator
Few phrases are more likely to get the blood of ministers going than the words ‘Urgent Question’. Today it was the turn of media minister Julia Lopez, who was summoned to the House to answer MPs’ queries about the sale of the Telegraph and The Spectator to RedBird IMI, an entity bankrolled by the United
The Emirati / RedBird IMI bid for the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator is opening up a wider conversation: how much of our national infrastructure should autocracies be allowed to buy? The Emiratis have been on a bit of a spree in recent years. They have 10 per cent of Heathrow airport, 15 per cent
After years of scandal and intrigue, the Scottish National party has not lost its ability to shock. The UK Covid Inquiry has moved to Edinburgh for three weeks and in the process has exposed Nicola Sturgeon’s government to some robust scrutiny. The verbose, preening Hugo Keith has been replaced with Jamie Dawson, a more incisive
George Osborne was originally meant to fill this slot. We were always rather mean to him when he was chancellor (deservedly so) so it pains me to admit what a good diary writer he is: always stylish, engaging, ready to spill some beans. He had agreed, but then suddenly pulled out, leaving us scrambling. Something
Rishi Sunak seems to have a New Year’s resolution: to claim that taxes are falling and say it so often that people start to believe him rather than their own lying payslip. He says that the last Budget was the biggest tax-cutting event since the 1980s, etc. He tells today’s Sunday Telegraph that more welfare
Before the year ends, I’d like to tell the story of Karol Sikora and attempts to have him removed from a Spectator-sponsored discussion on the NHS at the last Tory conference. It offers an insight not just into how we work at 22 Old Queen Street but the dynamics of sponsored discussions. The Tory conference
Back when Radio 4’s Thought for the Day was original and insightful, Lionel Blue was a regular source of rabbinical wisdom and dodgy jokes. Sometimes he’d come up with a phrase, a concept, that let you see the world in an entirely new way. One certainly changed how I see politics: his notion of ‘moral
A major milestone has just been passed: Britain has become the first major country to halve its carbon emissions. The rapid pace of UK environmental progress means that our output is now below 320 million tonnes – less than half the 652 million tonnes of our 1970 peak. This is in spite of Britain now having
A few weeks ago, I chaired a debate in Westminster about the falling birth rate and its implications. It was organised by the Centre for Social Justice, which I’ve long been proudly involved with. Miriam Cates, a Tory MP, was on the panel as was Rosie Duffield, a Labour MP. But when I arrived, Duffield
In the dying days of Rishi Sunak’s leadership campaign, he gave an interview to The Spectator about lockdown which he was grilled on today at the Covid Inquiry. At the time he was speaking candidly as he had nothing to lose: it was clear that Liz Truss would win the Tory leadership contest. Now, he
Rishi Sunak has a new approach to Net Zero, defining himself against ‘zealots’ and acknowledging the side effects of proposed green taxes. He’s replacing the old, often hyperbolic precautionary-principle logic and bringing in the language of tradeoffs: stressing the importance of democratic consent and the futility of green taxes that voters will not accept and
Throughout the various Covid meetings, Sir Patrick Vallance was scribbling in his notebook almost as much as Michael Gove, leading Boris Johnson to assume that he was keeping a diary to be published afterwards. This made sense to Johnson who started to tell friends that Vallance knew ‘more about arse-covering than face-covering’ (Vallance had refused
Humza Yousaf is one of the most prominent Muslims in public life. This is tangential to his being elected SNP leader and First Minister of Scotland, but has handed him an unexpected role during the recent Israel-Gaza crisis. It’s one that he is taking seriously and, in my view, discharging well. Yousaf doesn’t discuss his
Something strange is happening with teenagers’ mental health. In Britain, the US, Australia and beyond, the same trend can be seen: around the middle of the last decade, the number of young people with anxiety, depression and even suicidal tendancies started to rise sharply. Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at New York University’s Stern School
The triviality-obsessed Covid Inquiry has today been having fun with Dominic Cummings’s emails and finding rude words he used about colleagues. Trying to draw anything substantial from this is hard but one line did jump out at me: Boris Johnson saying ‘I no longer buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff’. The inquiry should be asking:
Does it matter if the chief scientific adviser referred to Rishi Sunak as ‘Dr Death’ In a private message to a Sage adviser during lockdown? This embarrassing fact came out last week in the Covid inquiry, an apparent reference to his Eat Out to Help Out scheme. Some have argued that publishing this comment, made
One of Britain’s best-known cartoonists, Steve Bell, says he has been ‘effectively sacked’ by the Guardian after drawing Benjamin Netanyahu. It wasn’t published, but he released it on Twitter (above). It depicts Netanyahu operating on his own stomach, showing a cut in the outline of the Gaza Strip. Bell then used Twitter to say what
I’m in Sydney for the Voice referendum result – and it’s already over. No has won, by what looks to be a 60/40 margin. So an ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice’ will not be added to Australia’s democratic apparatus after an Aboriginal-led campaign asking Australians to reject identity politics. The results had heavy overtones
Rishi Sunak today revealed a new enemy that he’s defining himself against: ‘the 30-year status quo’. Why this period? Because it includes Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and Boris. Sunak wants to lump them together as a melange that includes Starmer. This was the crux of his speech today: to cast himself as the candidate of
A new Rishi Sunak is being launched at Tory conference and one I saw first hand being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Manchester this morning. This version is more feisty, ignores attempted interruptions and is, in general, spoiling for a fight. The Prime Minister is trying to ditch his timeshare-salesman image and is seeking to
