All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
This week Donald Trump declared ‘Liberation Day,’ unveiling a barrage of tariffs that had been trailed as correcting unfair trade practices overseas. In a theatrical Rose Garden ceremony, the US president presented a table, detailing a slew of new “reciprocal” tariffs targeting nations right across the globe. A sharp market reaction might lead to a change
There’s a new man about Whitehall. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has appointed Oli de Botton – ex-adviser to David Miliband and the husband of former No. 10 communications chief Amber de Botton – as his Expert Adviser on Education and Skills. The role of the new skills guru will be to advise ministers on the
HMP Frankland, in Durham, is supposed to be one of the most secure jails in the country. The category A prison holds terrorists and murderers, including Soham child killer Ian Huntley. Frankland should be a place of order, where the state is in absolute control. Yet the jail is said to be so overrun with
Yoon Suk Yeol, elected South Korea’s president in 2022, has been removed from office. The Constitutional Court in Seoul has upheld Yoon’s impeachment over his actions in the ultra-short-lived declaration of martial law last December. After lengthy deliberations the court delivered a decisive eight-zero verdict. A snap election must now be held within 60 days
If you thought progressive politics couldn’t get any worse, think again. It transpires that the Labour-led Westminster city council is advising its staff to undergo, er, ‘privilege’ testing and inclusive recruitment training in a bid to hire more people from non-white ‘global majority’ backgrounds. Time well spent… The rather baffling virtual privilege test helps council
Are we being lied to, or at the very least misled, about what’s going on in Gaza? It increasingly seems so. Israel is carrying out a genocide, cries the activist class. Its pummelling of Gaza is one of the most barbarous onslaughts against civilians in history, they say. New research suggests these feverish claims have
As it turned out, the only thing Liberation Day was actually liberating anyone from was their money. In the wake of President Trump’s imposition of a massive round of tariffs on America’s trading partners the stock market has been in freefall. For the moment Trump is ignoring that. But he won’t be able to forever
It’s official, the bromance between Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron is over. It had always been a rocky relationship but on Thursday it ended in a spectacular fashion. The French president, reacting to Trump’s decision to impose 20 per cent tariffs on all EU products, announced: ‘Investments to come or investments announced in recent weeks
Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, has a reputation for genial flexibility and an ability to evade trouble. During his record-breaking 14 years as prime minister of the Netherlands, he earned the nickname ‘Teflon Mark’. But while Rutte has previously demonstrated a rare ability to mollify Donald Trump, is the Nato chief in danger of
Things could have been very different. Since the distant days of the first Trump presidency, Taiwanese tech companies have been shifting production from China to Taiwan due to US tariffs and tech controls aimed at China. For the US, that strategy has borne some fruit. Most countries tend to trade the most with their close
Javier Milei might be a Thatcherite economically, but when it comes to the Falklands he’s about as Thatcherite as a bunch of striking miners. In a speech this week to mark the 43rd anniversary of the Falklands war, Milei announced that he would not only fight for as long as it takes to gain sovereignty
When Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, who is nobody’s fool, offered Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a state visit to Budapest last year, he knew a storm would follow. Netanyahu has now arrived in Hungary – and the backlash has duly followed. Orbán has vowed not only to ignore the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant against
Unlocked Graduates, a charity that recruited hundreds of high-calibre graduates into the prison service, was one of the few glimmers of hope in our broken justice system. But Unlocked’s future is now in doubt: its graduate programme is over. The current cohort of prison officers – who are making a huge difference to the lives
Over 100 days since his impeachment trial commenced, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol was unanimously voted out by the country’s constitutional court earlier today. This is the man whose presidency will be remembered for his infamous declaration of martial law on 3 December last year. For his detractors, today is a jubilant occasion and
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President Donald Trump has announced sweeping new tariffs, including a 10 per cent duty on all UK exports to the United States, as part of his ‘Reciprocal Tariffs’ plan aimed at addressing trade imbalances and bolstering American manufacturing. This move is expected to impact approximately £60 billion worth of UK exports, with sectors such as
When I was a teenager, mathematics saved my life. Diagnosed with Asperger’s, I had a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time – usually the truth, which rarely wins popularity contests. Only in maths class did I find that the pursuit of truth was not a vice but a superpower. In a
The economy may not be expanding, but Labour is determined Britain’s airports will. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has today approved proposals to expand Luton Airport – with plans for a new terminal given a green light. So keen is the Labour minister to push the project, Alexander has overruled the Planning Inspectorate’s advice that she
If, for some unfathomable reason, you missed Newsnight last night, do make sure you see, somehow, the interview between presenter Victoria Derbyshire and the former deputy assistant to Donald Trump, Sebastian Gorka. Derbyshire has had it coming for a long time. She believes it is sufficient, when interviewing somebody who takes a Trumpish view of
To the monarch of Montecito, who is once again making headlines for all the wrong reasons. It turns out the Charity Commission is probing ‘concerns raised’ at Prince Harry’s African charity, Sentebale – as a battle over bullying rages in the boardroom. Oh dear… The royal renegade’s organisation has come under fire over its governance,
There can be no doubt that Nigel Farage was one of the big political winners of 2024. His decision to lead Reform UK into the general election shaped the campaign and was a significant factor in the scale of the Conservative defeat. Reform won more than four million votes and polls suggest they have gained
China has been hit hard by President Trump’s tariff list, which he unveiled yesterday in the White House rose garden. As part of his ‘Liberation Day’, Trump imposed new 34 per cent tariffs on China. This seems to be in addition to the 20 per cent tariffs levied on the country by the US since
How will the UK respond to Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’? After the US President announced a batch of new tariffs yesterday, including a 10 per cent blanket levy on imports from the UK, ministers are discovering the pros and cons of the new normal. Supporters of Keir Starmer have taken comfort that the White House
The reactions to Donald Trump’s tariffs between London and Brussels could not be more different. Where Keir Starmer was conciliatory, stressing that his government still hoped to negotiate with the US, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was quickly out of the blocks with threats of retaliation, saying that a package of measures was being
As flies are to wanton boys, so Prince Harry is to the British legal system. Amidst perhaps the most serious reputational controversy that the Duke of Sussex has yet faced – the Sentebale drama – Harry will be returning to the Court of Appeal in London next week. There he will attempt to overturn the High Court’s
According to research commissioned by Stonewall, clerics are conducting one LGBTQ+ exorcism for every two religious wedding ceremony they perform. This shocking finding is the logical conclusion of Stonewall’s ‘Culture Wars and Hate’ survey which found that 10 per cent of LGBTQ+ people in the UK have experienced an exorcism which aimed to change their
Donald Trump is, at least, a man of his word. Before he won the US election, Trump said that China had ‘really taken advantage of our country’ and vowed to slap punitive tariffs on imports from the People’s Republic. As we have repeatedly seen, Trump carries through on his threats. ‘Liberation Day’ saw China hit
After Donald Trump’s Liberation Day, the US now imposes far and away the highest tariffs of any developed country in the world. In the process of doing so Trump has completely rejected the cornerstone of the World Trade Organisation: the ‘most favoured nation’ principle whereby tariffs have to be the same on all countries you
As Donald Trump’s tariffs dominate the headlines, in the Middle East, Israel is stepping up its campaign against Syria. Israeli air strikes hit targets across the country, including the T4 airbase in Homs, last night. The latest campaign which has been conducted over the last few months – involving dozens of air strikes and the deployment of troops – is
Virtually the whole world is waking up to the reality, not threat now, of President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, but in few places will the sense of shock and resultant anxiety be greater than Japan, where a whopping 24 per cent has been slapped on exports to the US. The Japanese, who have grown used
All is not well in the Scottish Tory party. Onetime leadership hopeful Jamie Greene MSP has dramatically quit the party today, announcing his exit in a scathing letter to current leader Russell Findlay. Raging that the group has become ‘Trump-esque in both style and substance’, Greene fumed that the Scottish Conservatives were at risk of
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It’s the day after America ‘reclaimed it’s destiny’, or so Donald Trump says. The President announced a raft of ‘reciprocal’ new tariffs from the White House rose garden, including a 10% levy on the UK which – before it comes into effect on 5th April – the government hope to negotiate down. Other countries have
Across the world, markets are plunging as they respond to the global tariffs Donald Trump unleashed from the White House rose garden last night – with the president’s top economist describing the falls as ‘short-term bumps’. The pound passed $1.30 for the first time in six months while stocks in Tokyo fell 4 per cent.