All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Olaf Scholz can’t catch a break. The German chancellor started the week on a high after his SPD party won the state elections in Brandenburg by the skin of their teeth. But any illusion that Scholz had won a reprieve from criticism has been brutally crushed. Just one in five Germans think Scholz should run
Ten years ago this week, a sea of yellow umbrellas filled the streets of Hong Kong in what at the time was the largest mass campaign for democracy in the city. In what became known as the ‘Umbrella Movement’, the people of Hong Kong courageously showed the world their desire for freedom – and their
Of all the self-inflicted harm to have felled politicians and undermined governments, was there ever a more curious case than that of self-ID and the SNP? In so bullishly battling the cause of Gender Recognition Reform (GRR), that would have allowed for trans-identifying people to self-declare their new gender, the SNP suffered the largest backbench
While Judaism is proportionately the most persecuted global faith, Christianity is by far the most oppressed numerically. One in seven Christians worldwide – around 300 million people – are under threat, including one in five in Africa. Yet we hear all too little about this rising tide of ‘Christianophobia’. Christians are still widely assumed to be disproportionately
Wearing a long white scarf, military khaki pants and holding a drum and stick, Vladimir Putin smiles as he watches a shaman – a combination of a psychic and spiritual healer – play an acoustic guitar for a traditional ritual. It is 2007 and the Russian president, his close friend Sergei Shoigu, now head of
Is James Bond looking knackered, or is it just me? At 54, I’m at an age where I’ve given up on a lot of things. I lost interest in Question Time when David Dimbleby quit, stopped paying much attention to technology after CDs/DVDs went out, and I’m pretty sure Daniel Craig was my last James
Israel has carried out a daring air strike against Hezbollah’s headquarters. The Islamist terror group’s underground command centre, located below civilian buildings in Dahieh, Beirut, was hit by what Israeli media are describing as ‘tens of tons of explosives’ on Friday night. There are unconfirmed reports that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of
As expected, Harland and Wolff, the legendary Belfast shipyard which built the Titanic, has formally entered administration. This comes as a surprise to no-one: last year, the firm lost £43 million, on top of a £70 million loss in 2022, and it had become reliant on a high-interest loan from US investment managers Riverstone. Harland and Wolff’s
China’s leaders and economic policymakers – who have been optimistic and confident about the economy for years – are clearly spooked. Just two weeks ago, Chinese state media was happily insisting that the country was experiencing ‘stable economic growth’. China requires a major rethink when it comes to the economy, something which may be politically impossible for
Poor old Angela Rayner. It seems she is not too happy about reports that she is being ‘frozen out’ of decision-making in the new government, amid claims that she is the victim of a media ‘briefing war.’ Various reports have appeared suggesting that she has lost control of Labour’s employee rights’ package to the Business
It didn’t take long for the eco-zealots to strike again. Just minutes after Just Stop Oil activists Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed for throwing Heinz tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, a trio of JSO protestors have again targeted the artist’s work at the National Gallery. How very tiresome… The climate protest group
There will be little surprise that Baroness Warsi has resigned the Conservative whip; the greater wonder is that she didn’t do so years ago. In her leaving, she complains ‘how far right my party has moved’, but then she has been making complaints about the Tories for years. Warsi has never been slow to accuse the
When I heard that Marlow Foods, parent company of Quorn, had reported a £63 million loss due to declining demand for plant-based products, it came as no surprise. Quorn is a hideous meat substitute that would work better as cotton wool, or sandpaper. Depending on what form you buy it in, it can be wet
Strange though it might seem now, at the beginning of 2020 Boris Johnson came close to achieving his childhood ambition of being ‘World King’. Johnson had led the Conservative party to its first decent majority since 1987 the previous month, was in the process of ‘getting Brexit done’ with an ‘oven-ready deal’ and was airily
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The political equivalent of the Rumble in the Jungle happened last night when Starmer sat down for a two-hour dinner with Donald Trump, following the Prime Minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly. Details of what Trump and Starmer talked about are scant: the official read-out merely says they discussed the ‘longstanding friendship’ between Britain and America. Is this
When it rains for Sir Keir Starmer, it pours. Labour isn’t yet in the clear over the freebie fiasco that dampened the party’s conference this week and now another uncomfortable revelation has emerged. It transpires that Labour has chosen a new climate envoy with links to a hedge fund that donated millions to the party.
Labour conference has been and gone and still Lord Alli remains in the headlines. The latest claims regarding the multimillionaire peer surround his £18 million penthouse flat in Covent Garden which Keir Starmer used repeatedly during his time as Leader of the Opposition. Two periods in particular are being scrutinised by the press. First, the
The first of two Conservative leadership contests has concluded and today it has been announced that the new leader of the Scottish party is Russell Findlay. The former crime journalist was widely seen as the party establishment favourite after former leader Douglas Ross announced he would be resigning from the post in June. Now Findlay
The 67-year-old Shigeru Ishiba will become Japan’s new prime minister on 1 October after winning a surprisingly exciting play-off vote against his rival Sanae Takaichi. For a moment it looked as if Japanese MPs were set to elect the country’s first female leader (Takaichi was ahead of Ishiba in the first round of voting) but
We all know what happened on 7th October 2023. But those of us who have watched the Israeli government’s compilation of footage from the day, as well as other videos sourced from the darker corners of the internet, know more than most the extent of atrocities carried out by the Palestinian terrorists who invaded through
Reacting to Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Scranton, Pennsylvania, earlier this week, Donald Trump reiterated his long-standing ambition to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to a quick negotiated settlement instead of continuing with open-ended military support to Kyiv. If he wins the election, Trump said, ‘the first thing I’m gonna do is call up Zelensky and call
This week Balazs Orban, the bespectacled political director to the Hungarian Prime Minister (and of no relation to him), has found himself in trouble after a podcast interview he gave on Wednesday. He seemed to imply that Ukraine should not have resisted the Russian onslaught – and that if Hungary had been in a similar
It is tantrums at dawn between Elon Musk and Keir Starmer’s Labour government. The Tesla billionaire and owner of Twitter is hopping mad after being denied an invitation to a government-led tech summit due to take place next month. In response Musk – certainly no one’s idea of a shrinking violet – said on Twitter: ‘I
Well, well, well. When the monarchs of Montecito decided to cut ties with the UK and live stateside, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan seriously ruffled feathers in the royal family. But it now transpires that, before Harry’s big move, the Prince faced a rather curious intervention – from none other than the prime minister
After months of diary-juggling, Keir Starmer finally got his meeting with the man who could be the next US President. The political equivalent of the Rumble in the Jungle happened last night when Starmer sat down for a two-hour dinner with Donald Trump, following the Prime Minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly. Details of
No one can accuse President Joe Biden of failing to do his utmost to prevent a full-scale war from breaking out in the Middle East. He and his indefatigable envoys must have spent more time this year working on the Middle East than any other issue. The intensive diplomatic efforts by Antony Blinken, secretary of state, Jake
As fighting continues between Israel and Hezbollah, planning for a potential evacuation of British nationals from Lebanon has seen troops, ships and aircraft preparing in Cyprus and the wider region. Defence Secretary John Healey has chaired meetings in London to avoid the government being caught on the hop as happened before the evacuation from Kabul in
This week, the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said that her ‘ultimate ambition’ was to close women’s prisons, saying they were simply ‘forcing women into a life of crime’. As a former inmate who spent 14 months behind bars, it’s a welcome change to hear any mention of female prisoners in the political debate, especially given
In a country that has become accustomed to atrocities in the last decade, the brutal murder of a 19-year-old student has outraged France. The body of the young woman, named only as Philippine, was discovered last Saturday in the Bois de Boulogne, a famous park in the west of Paris. She had gone missing on
The public response to Sir Keir Starmer and his ministers accepting gifts from Labour donors and others has been what you might expect: rhymes with ‘snouts in the trough’. However, popular indignation is not universal and there is a cohort who are outraged by the outrage. They believe the real villainy lies not with ministers
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Freddy Gray is joined by Oliver Bateman, historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. They discuss how important Pennsylvania will be during the election, the mail-in ballot system, and the state of the race.
