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If there is one thing that Paul French’s forthcoming book Her Lotus Year should put right about Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, it is that her so-called ‘lotus year’ in China in the 1920s was not the sexual bacchanal that it has been painted as by the prurient and the envious. Instead it was
It’s Rishi Sunak’s final week as Tory leader, but should he be asked to carry on? On Wednesday he charmed the Commons at PMQs before stealing Rachel Reeves’s thunder with a virtuoso Budget speech. And now, in the final poll of his leadership, it transpires that the Conservatives have, at long last, overtaken Labour in
Germany has gone further than most countries in failing to stand up to the relentless march of transgender ideology. Its Self-Determination Act, which comes into effect today, makes it far easier for people to change gender. The law enables Germans to alter their name and gender, or even have the gender marker removed altogether, on
It was the absence of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s judgment that was blamed for the bond market crisis after Liz Truss’s mini-Budget. Truss and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng had rushed to enact their vision for a fast-growing economy without waiting for the wisdom of the government’s official fiscal watchdog. For Truss, the OBR is
For Donald Trump fans, one of the many creepy curiosities of this year’s presidential election is that Liz and Dick Cheney and other disgruntled Bush-era Republicans are firmly supporting the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris. Donald Trump understands this dynamic better than most For Harris supporters, meanwhile, it’s strangely alarming that Robert F. Kennedy Junior, scion
One of the key issues at play in this year’s July election was the matter of immigration. Sir Keir Starmer promised voters that his party would ‘cut immigration’ and yet this week alone more than 1,500 irregular migrants arrived on Britain’s shores. Much like with everything else, Brits are losing faith in Sir Keir’s government
Some £22 billion of the £40 billion in tax rises the Chancellor announced this week will go straight to the NHS – an NHS that was already better funded than at any point in its history. It seems that no matter how many cash injections – huge or enormous – the health service gets, its
It seems that the Budget isn’t going down terribly well in the City. Ministers have been out on the airwaves, desperately insisting that Labour’s borrowing plans are fiscally credible. Yet the markets don’t appear convinced, with the cost of gilt yields spiralling. Given the need to reassure the international financiers, it looks sub-optimal then that
Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party has not had the easiest time in government so far – and last night’s local by-election result will have done nothing to raise spirits. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party snatched a council seat from the Labour lot, taking over a third of the vote in Wolverhampton’s Bilston North ward. Starmer’s
Is there any word more laughably misapplied than ‘tsar’? We have already had an ‘antisemitism tsar’ and now we are going to have a ‘value for money’ tsar. Had you suggested to a Russian peasant that their monarch was value for money I suspect you might have ended up floating on the Neva River alongside Rasputin.
France’s 73-year-old prime minister, Michel Barnier, underwent surgery last weekend for a lesion on his upper neck. According to the government spokeswoman yesterday, the operation ‘went well’ and the PM is back at work after two to three days’ rest. French media have been characteristically tight-lipped about the health of France’s second in command and
After the Office for Budget Responsibility’s assessment of the Budget was published on Wednesday, the cost of government borrowing started to rise. Yesterday, those costs hit their highest levels this year, with the 10-year gilt yield peaking just over 4.5 per cent and the five-year gilt yield exceeding 4.4 per cent, before settling slightly by
Well, well, well. It’s day three of the Budget and it appears that Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement has begun to rather quickly unravel. Appearing on Sky News this morning was Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In a rather awkward interview, Darren Jones faced a grilling from Sky’s Wilfred Frost on just how much people in
If the leaks and briefings are to be believed, Israel is getting ready to end its war in Lebanon. With the US pushing hard, and after a successful military campaign, reports say that Israeli leaders are looking to make a deal. Lebanese Hezbollah joined Hama’s war against Israel on 8 October, 2023; around 100,000 Israeli civilians
Finally, a celeb has stood up to the Israel bashers. It took the famously dour frontman of Radiohead to do it. At a solo gig in Melbourne, Thom Yorke was heckled by an audience member smugly demanding to know why he hasn’t spoken out about Israel’s ‘genocide’ in Gaza. Yorke wasn’t having it. He even
Of all the grotesque modern types who cast a silly-yet-sinister shadow over the dog-days of Western civilisation – the Queers for Palestine, the Jew-baiting anti-racists, the humanity-hating eco-nuts – the Transmaid has a special step of shame very near the top. The Transmaid is a handmaid, like in Margaret Atwood’s novel, with two vital differences.
The UK economy may end up growing a bit faster by the end of this decade than the Office for Budget Responsibility expects – but if it does that will be no thanks to Rachel Reeves’s Budget. The OBR’s projections are unambitious. This is their summary: ‘Having stagnated last year, the economy is expected to grow by
Amid the furore over Lord Alli’s contributions to Lady Starmer’s wardrobe the new environment secretary, Steve Reed, was able to stay under the radar. Most of us weren’t aware that he had been schmoozing his way around British farms during the election campaign wearing brand new, top of the range Le Chameau wellies – also
As of today, in Britain, it will be illegal to ‘intentionally or recklessly influence any person’s decision to access… abortion services’ within approximately 500 feet of the building. If the national law mirrors local prototypes, it may even prohibit silent prayer, or offers of help. Politicians voted to implement these localised bans – known as
‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’ is a computer programming principle which states that the quality of a system’s output is determined by the quality of its input. It’s also a phrase that speaks to US politics this week. After a string of good news cycles for the Republican campaign, the Democrats finally believed they had caught
The more investors dig into Labour’s first Budget, the less they seem to like it. After the Office for Budget Responsibility published its assessment of the Chancellor’s measures yesterday afternoon, some immediate (and expected) volatility set in. But rather than settling down, market jitters seem to have worsened today, as a gilt sell-off saw government
First, it was the Chagos Islands. Then it was David Lammy’s visit. Now many in Westminster are asking: when it comes to China, where does this government draw the line? In recent weeks it has been reported that Labour is both dropping plans to classify Beijing’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims as a ‘genocide’ and is
When Kim Jong-un does not get what he wants, he makes his displeasure known far and wide. Over the past few weeks, one would have thought that Kim would be reasonably content. In return for sending artillery shells, ballistic missiles, and most recently, troops to Russia, North Korea has been receiving food, cash, and most
For most Brits, there was little to celebrate in Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement – but that didn’t stop Treasury staff from toasting the Budget. Just hours after the Chancellor delivered her 80-minute speech to MPs on Wednesday, Treasury aides made the short hop across St James’s Park to Westminster’s Two Chairmen pub. From 4 p.m.
The first full day post-Budget has not been a happy one. While Labour’s spinners are hard at work trying to convince the nation – and themselves – that Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement was a success, real people across the country are reeling from Wednesday’s announcement. Mr S wrote yesterday about how leading figures in the
It wasn’t an aggrieved business leader, facing a sharply increased wage bill thanks to the Budget, that led the 8 a.m. news bulletin on Radio 4 this morning, but the reassuring verdict of the IMF. ‘We support the envisaged reduction in the deficit over the medium term, including by sustainably raising revenue,’ the body declared.
Rachel Reeves has spent the morning out on the media round trying to sell her first Budget to the public. The Chancellor woke to a critical reception from the media – with headlines including ‘Halloween Horror Show’, ‘Nightmare on Downing Street’ and ‘Return of tax and spend’. Meanwhile, she is facing a backlash from the
Casting his mind back to the election, Mr S recalls a heated debate about which party would raise taxes most. In the final televised debate before the national poll, Sir Keir Starmer was quick to accuse then-PM Rishi Sunak of ‘repeating a lie’ – that Labour were going to raise taxes by £2,000 per person.
The SNP’s Dear Leader has not had the smoothest 18 months since her resignation last year – what with the police probe into SNP finances, the exodus of members from her party and the nationalists’ staggering loss of support in the general election. But it’s not all bad news for Nicola Sturgeon. It has now