All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
This afternoon Mike Amesbury was sentenced to ten weeks in prison. The ex-Labour MP for Runcorn and Helsby was handed a custodial sentence at Chester Magistrates’ Court for assaulting a man in his constituency last October. Deputy Chief Magistrate Tan Ikram said the immediate custodial sentence was ‘necessary both as a punishment and a deterrent’.
Teaching working-class young men that they benefit from ‘white privilege’ is having a detrimental effect on a generation of boys, leading to feelings of negativity and worthlessness, and driving them into the hands of dangerous influencers such as Andrew Tate. This is the claim made by Sam Fender, the best-selling, 30-year-old musician from North Shields.
Can the passage of time ever assuage parental guilt? After all, brooding over what can’t be changed is a pointless diversion. Unfortunately, guilt is a duplicitous bedfellow – and one which never sleeps. So even though, in my own case, my children are ‘all grown up’ (two married, one living abroad and one at university 100
Another weekend, another grotesque spectacle in Gaza. Hamas released its latest handful of Israeli hostages as part of the fragile ceasefire agreement which is expected to expire next week. As on many Saturdays before, Hamas paraded a trio of Israelis – Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, and Eliya Cohen – onto makeshift platforms emblazoned with
Are you angry about bin collections? Potty about potholes? Incandescent about the behaviour of your local council or councillors? Well whatever you do, don’t post disparaging things about them on the internet. Unless you want a visit from the police, that is. Yes, saying critical things about your elected local representatives is the latest thing that
To the BBC, which has received a rather scathing letter from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch over a controversial documentary on Palestine. The Conservative party leader blasted the BBC 2 film released last week – titled ‘Gaza: How to Survive A Warzone’ – which was narrated by none other than, er, the son of a Hamas
Over beer, pretzels and sausages, guests gathered last night at the German ambassador’s house in Belgravia to watch the federal election results come in. The fact that the mood scarcely changed after the 5 p.m exit poll hinted at the prevailing sense of relief. Across London, similar sentiments were likely shared in Downing Street. The
On Tuesday, the government’s consultation on AI and copyright comes to an end. There doesn’t seem to be much hope that Sir Keir and his tech-dazzled colleagues will pay much attention to it, though: long before it came to an end they made clear that their preferred plan was to change copyright law so that
Sunday’s federal election in Germany was historic for more than one reason. After the collapse of the so-called ‘traffic light’ coalition under chancellor Olaf Scholz, it was only the fourth time a snap election had been held in post-war Germany. And just like in 1983 and 2005, a Christian Democrat will be taking over the
Germany is still a divided country – at least when you look at its electoral map. After this weekend’s federal election, the east of the country is coloured in the light blue of the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), while the west is dominated by the black of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), with scattered
This week, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is heading to Washington to establish himself as a ‘bridge’ between the US and the EU, and to breathe new life into the Anglo-American Special Relationship. There is much to discuss between the historic allies. Starmer has announced that a ‘security guarantee’ from America is the only way
In 1979 the price of gas at the American pump doubled to $39.50 a barrel – $172 in today’s money. The future of industrial civilisation seemed in doubt. But to Jimmy Carter, these oil woes were a distraction from the real issue: the moral failure of the American people. ‘Much deeper’ than the energy crisis,
Alice Weidel, the leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, didn’t mince her words. Speaking immediately after the German federal election on national television in Berlin on what’s known as ‘the leaders round’, she claimed that the mainstream conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) merely won a ‘pyrrhic victory’. Its head, Friedrich Merz, had no real
As was widely predicted, Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has won Germany’s federal elections with around 28 per cent of the vote. For the first time since the formation of the Federal Republic in 1949, a far-right party – the Alternative for Germany (AfD) – has come second in a national election, winning an unprecedented fifth
After two torturous months of campaigning, the wait is over. Friedrich Merz, leader of the conservative CDU party, is on track to win Germany’s federal election. According to the official exit poll, published at 5pm UK time, his party has won 28.9 per cent of the vote. This means they are set to become the
Trump launched a series of extraordinary attacks on President Zelensky this week, describing him as a dictator, and sidelined Ukraine in peace negotiations he began with Putin to end the war with Russia. In anticipation of a crucial meeting with Trump next week, Keir Starmer has insisted that Ukraine must be ‘at the heart of
What were they thinking? When Tony Blair agreed, in 2004, to legislation allowing transsexuals – as they were then called – to change their legal sex, he probably thought Labour was merely ‘being kind’ to a tiny number of people with the medical condition of gender dysphoria. He never expected thousands of young people to start asking
Emmanuel Macron will hold talks with Donald Trump on Monday at which the President of France will attempt to ‘make Europe’s voice heard’. Still seething about being excluded from America’s peace negotiations with Russia, Macron wants to reassert the continent’s authority Stateside. It will be a forlorn exercise. One of the reasons America – not
He’s having a tough time of it at the moment, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Andrew Gwynne. You see, I went to sixth form in his then patch when I was already an active, and surely irritating, young Conservative. When my more left-wing classmates were doing work experience with him (and I
After two long months of campaigning, Germany heads to the polls today for its federal election. Approximately 60 million voters across the country’s 16 states will elect the new government. Will incumbent SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party be punished for his three years in power? Will the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) cruise to its
A contributory factor to the continuing impoverishment of Britain is psychiatric diagnosis – or rather, the superstitious official belief in it. More than two thirds of Incapacity Benefit claims over the space of two years were for supposed psychiatric conditions. Psychiatric diagnosis has produced more invalids than the first world war. It is the foundry
‘Isis is taking huge advantage of the current situation in Syria,’ Ilham Ahmed told me, when we met in the north Syrian city of Hasakeh in mid January. ‘In the recent time, there have been many attacks on checkpoints of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces). They are most active in the al Badiya area. There’s
Guten Tag – or, as they more often say in these less formal times, Hallo – from constituency number 061, otherwise known as Potsdam, a city of parks, palaces, film studios and Prussian-ness. For the British, Potsdam will always be the place where the victorious Allies met to carve out the zones of Germany’s occupation – a
It would encourage digitally savvy entrepreneurs. It would be a hub for artificial intelligence. And it would encourage a wave of new companies, replacing the ageing giants of French industry. When Emmanuel Macron became president, turning the country into ‘le start-up’ nation was central to his mission to modernise the economy. In fairness, he had
Even from the grave, Mohamed Al-Fayed dictated his obituary. When news of his death emerged in September 2023, Al-Fayed’s loyal spokesman Michael Cole pronounced that the former owner of Harrods had been ‘full of great humanity’. ‘Many people’, Cole said, ‘were beneficiaries of his kindness and generosity’. When I was approached by the BBC to
It didn’t take long for preliminary discussions between the US and Russia on Ukraine to morph into something dramatically more ambitious. As negotiators left talks in Riyadh this week, both sides signalled their intent to reach agreement not only Ukraine, but also on economic and geopolitical cooperation. President Donald Trump’s remarks following the talks –
I am not sure about the capacity of AI to take over the world and suppress humanity, but big tech certainly has the ability to spark a trade war. There is a fuss brewing right now over an encryption system known as Advanced Data Protection available on iPhones and other Apple devices. Several weeks ago,
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Simon Hart joins James Heale to talk about his new book Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip. Having stepped down at the 2024 election, Simon has become the first former Chief Whip to publish his diaries. What are his reflections on the Conservatives’ time in office? Simon explains why his decision to resign under
There’s blood spattered on the pavement but locals in New Addington, an estate in Croydon, southeast London, seem curiously unbothered. ‘I’ve had no problems,’ Eli, who lives around the corner from the latest stabbing, tells me. Eli’s house is close to Rowdown Field, where last March a human head and other dismembered body parts were
Keir Starmer is just the latest in a long line of prime ministers who says that immigration has been far too high in the past and needs to be greatly reduced. He berates Tory leader Kemi Badenoch constantly on this point, pledging to get a grip on migration volumes and accusing the Conservatives of having
Indians drink a lot of Scotch whisky. In 2023 the country overtook France to become the largest market for Scotch in terms of volume, according to the Scotch Whisky Association. But could the world’s largest whisky market be about to transfer its allegiance? Donald Trump is certainly hoping so. Last week, on Valentine’s Day no
“See that?” my friend pointed to a pylon on the hill opposite the window. “That’s the dawla.” The dawla (pronounced “dowleh”) is Arabic for state, and my hostess was telling me about an essential feature of life in contemporary Lebanon: the ability to understand when there is electricity and who is providing it. If the
In 2007, the BBC was engulfed in scandal for an embarrassing – if relatively trivial – misrepresentation of Queen Elizabeth II. A promotional clip for a documentary, A Year with the Queen, was edited to suggest the monarch stormed out of a photoshoot in a huff, when in reality, the sequence had been misleadingly spliced together.
Over the last weeks, the words and actions of the Trump administration have caused the biggest rift between the United States and Europe since the end of the Cold War. Relations between the longstanding partners are more strained now than they were in the run-up to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq or in the