All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
My first thought upon seeing today’s revolt of the farmers was just how gloriously normal it looked. For more than a year London has been besieged by wild-eyed plummy leftists and fuming Gen X’ers screaming blue murder about the Jewish State. Now, for sweet relief, we get men and women in waxed jackets and sensible
Cold drizzle falling on tweed. That was the abiding image of today’s protest in Westminster which filled Whitehall with tens of thousands of indignant farmers. Just two tractors were admitted. One was parked outside Downing Street and the other stood by the women’s war memorial. Groups of farmers clambered onto the metal flanks and took
Thousands of farmers descended on Westminster this morning to protest the Labour government’s new inheritance tax plans. As protesters brandished placards and called for the Chancellor to row back on her proposals, some rather famous faces were seen in the crowds – with former Top Gear presenter and now Clarkson’s Farm host Jeremy Clarkson amongst
Well, well, well. Picking a fight with Elon Musk is hardly the wisest decision Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot have made so far, especially given the new job the Twitter CEO has been awarded by Donald Trump. With Musk set to become co-leader of the president-elect’s Department of Government Efficiency, the UK Prime Minister might
Dear oh dear. Rachel Reeves has ended up in something of a pickle over her employment history, with the Chancellor under fire over whether she has been straight with the public about her economist background. Certainly after that Budget, Mr S is hardly surprised eyebrows are being raised… Pressure has been piling on Reeves for
Thousands of farmers descended on Westminster today to protest the government’s plans to raise inheritance tax. Hundreds of men, women and children in flat caps, tweed jackets and Wellington boots poured into Whitehall at lunchtime for a rally outside Downing Street. A series of speeches by the likes of Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey culminated
Overnight, dozens of influential figures in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement were sentenced to lengthy terms under the fiercest application of the city’s National Security Law so far. That these former legislators, activists, and legal academics have only been sentenced three years after their detention is typical of how the Chinese Communist party operates in Hong
Labour’s approach to tackling the small boats crisis is based around a dichotomy so overly simplistic that it should not fool even an averagely intelligent child. Keir Starmer set it out in an article for the Sun newspaper in July: the people in the boats are innocent victims, the people arranging for the boats to
The shocking police doorstepping of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson last week has rightly sparked grave concern about the parlous state of freedom of speech in Britain. Sir Keir Starmer has now joined the leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch in arguing that police should be concentrating on the physical crime increasingly blighting our towns rather than things that are
The Toto Washlet toilet: at the press of a button, a jet of clean warm water sprays your nether regions; press another button and warm air dries them. The sleek bowl, a masterpiece of Japanese technology, can be fixed at the right height for your use, ensuring easy access. At around £3,000 this stylish, ultramodern
Nigel Farage claims that British Muslims are just as concerned, if not more, by the threat of Islamist extremism. The Reform leader said that ‘if you’re a Muslim family and the news is all about radical Islamists committing heinous acts, you’re going to think “wow, my neighbours may well be prejudiced against me because I’m Muslim’”.
It may well be the biggest and most significant choice the Starmer administration will have to take. If Donald Trump decides to impose huge tariffs on China, potentially sparking a global trade war, the UK will have to decide whether it backs America, or tries to steer a softer path with the European Union. All
Hate crimes, hate speech, hate groups… It is quite possible that we have less of these things today than ever before – they originated before our age, as anybody who’s read Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale can vouch – but we have never obsessed about them quite so much. What is hate in its 21st century, British sense? And
It is a fate which has been creeping up on Britain for years, but that doesn’t make it any the harder to bear when it becomes official. According to the OECD, we now have the lowest life expectancy in Western Europe. At 80.9, the average Brit now keels over more than three years earlier than
While farmers gather in Westminster today to protest Labour’s Budget, it appears that north of the border Scottish Labour also have doubts about aspects of Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement. Party leader Anas Sarwar has now vowed he will bring back the universal winter fuel payment for pensioners in a pushback against a cut brought about
Hong Kong has sentenced dozens of democracy protestors to years in prison, in the largest trial since Beijing’s National Security Law was imposed on the city in 2020. The imprisonment of the 45 former elected legislators and pro-democracy campaigners comes just a day after Keir Starmer met Xi Jinping, telling the Chinese leader that he
One thousand days into Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, three facts seem to be evident. First, Russia is losing. It is using its soldiers like human ammunition, burning through its economic reserves and mortgaging its future to Beijing. Second, Ukraine is losing faster than Russia. Ukraine’s forces are beleaguered along a too-long front and
Paris prosecutors last week recommended that Marine Le Pen be jailed and banned from public office for five years. The court also wants similar sentences for 24 members of the party who, along with Le Pen, are accused of misusing public funds. The prosecutor accuses Le Pen of using money intended for EU parliamentary aides
After three horses died at Cheltenham on Sunday, the reaction was depressingly predictable. The cameras cut away and the horse racing industry pretended to be shocked and upset that more horses had died on its watch. Abuffalosoldier and Bangers And Cash – two of the horses who died at Cheltenham – appear to have suffered heart
Keir Starmer has met President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, telling the Chinese leader that he wants to build ‘consistent, durable, respectful’ relations. China’s official Xinhua news agency said there was ‘vast space for cooperation’. It was the first meeting between a British prime minister and Xi since 2018, and
Last night, US President Joe Biden authorised Ukraine to use American ATACMS – or Army Tactical Missile Systems – against targets in the Russian region of Kursk. This decision came approximately six months after ATACMS were first deployed in Ukraine. Before now, they have been limited to targets in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. The decision from Biden appears
So that’s it then: the Guardian has declared that we are all being scorched, drowned and blown over by climate change. The website Carbon Brief, it says, has found ‘stark evidence of how global heating is already supercharging deadly weather beyond anything ever experienced by humanity’. Never mind that humans were around to witness multiple
Ding ding ding! All is not well in the SNP as the Nats are back to fighting among themselves over the issue of double jobs. Last week Westminster leader Stephen Flynn announced that he will stand in the 2026 Holyrood election – and, if successful, he will also continue on in his existing MP role.
This week, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper plans to announce new police performance targets. Perhaps the government has been stung by the growing perception that Labour’s stance on law and order consists mainly of hurty words overreach and emptying jails. But as the legacy of well-meaning but dumb crime policies introduced by the last Labour
Tens of thousands of farmers will descend on Westminster in their tractors tomorrow to protest at inheritance tax changes that could see them pay death duties when they hand down their farms. The government doesn’t understand the fuss. It says they are just targeting wealthy land buyers trying to dodge tax. Meanwhile the farmers argue
Another day, another Downing Street drama. This time No. 10 is in trouble with the British Sikh community after it transpired its social media accounts failed to acknowledge the religious festival of Gurpurb last week. Now over 300 Sikh groups have addressed a scathing letter to the Prime Minister, blasting Sir Keir Starmer’s blunder as
At approximately 1 a.m. on Saturday, 16 November, Vladimir Shklyarov fell to his death from the fifth floor of his apartment block at Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment on St Petersburg’s Vasilyevsky Island. He was 39. That much is true. How and why he fell will be the subject of ongoing conjecture, perhaps for years to come.
The grandly titled CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, Deborah Turness, described Donald Trump’s re-election as ‘a dramatic night that changed everything’. She made that claim in an internal email to staff, lauding the Corporation’s ‘unmissable’ US election results coverage. Her email though raises an interesting question: if Trump’s victory has changed everything, will
It is just over a fortnight since the Tory leadership result and Kemi Badenoch is now putting the final touches to her first front bench team. With only 121 Tory MPs to choose from, she has worked to avoid a Truss-style scenario by promoting both loyalists and colleagues who backed other candidates. Thus, Mel Stride,