All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
In the vestry of the church where my father was priest, there was a large wall-mounted plaque commemorating some long-dead worthy of the eighteenth century. I cannot recall his name, but he left a large bequest to the parish for the support of ‘poor persons known to be of good character.’ There are similar inscriptions
Controversy surrounding the live-action version of Snow White, which is released on Friday, suggests there is little likelihood of a happy ever after for Disney studios bosses. The £210 million remake of the beloved 1937 cartoon classic has been branded too woke and labelled ‘2025’s most divisive film’. It could be a recipe for disaster at the
As a former teacher, I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that Bridget Phillipson ranks among the worst Education Secretaries this country has ever seen. Yet when Phillipson described the Tories’ attempt to ban phones from the classroom as a ‘headline-grabbing gimmick’ back in January, I found myself nodding along in agreement. She was right. Unfortunately,
It may be taking him longer than the 24 hours he pledged on the campaign trail, but it appears that US President Donald Trump might be getting somewhere on halting the war between Russia and Ukraine: following a call lasting an hour and a half, he has persuaded Vladimir Putin to agree to a partial
The termination of US government funding for the two venerable radio stations Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL) by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) shows how blindly fanatical the Tesla owner’s axe-wielding has become. Musk claims RFE/RL is run by ‘radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1 billion
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This afternoon we had Liz Kendall’s long-awaited address in the Commons on Labour’s plans for welfare reform. The prospect of £5 billion worth of cuts to welfare has split the party in two, with fears of a rebellion growing over the weekend and into this week. Her announcement was a mixed bag, including: restricting eligibility
It’s a gaffe a day with David Lammy – but now his latest intervention has ruffled more feathers than usual. On Monday, the Foreign Secretary was firm in his view that, after Israel’s recent suspension of food, fuel and medical deliveries to Gaza, ‘this is a breach of international law’. Leaving no room for error,
The welfare state is grotesquely unfair. There are people who receive thousands of pounds from the taxpayer with little government oversight, even when they have no genuine need for the cash. They spend it on things like cars, flat screen TVs and other luxury ephemera. And there is a sense of entitlement among these scroungers,
To underline that there was government agreement on the welfare cuts and reforms she was announcing, Liz Kendall had Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband and a slew of other cabinet and senior ministers sitting behind her in the Commons. The Work and Pensions Secretary announced ‘decisive action’ on the benefits system, which she said
The people’s republic of Holborn and St Pancras is not exactly fertile Tory territory. But it was in a swanky office in Keir Starmer’s north London patch where Kemi Badenoch chose to make her big energy speech this morning. Rather than dwell on her long-awaited policy commissions, the Conservative leader spent the bulk of her
A Vanguard-class submarine used for Britain’s nuclear deterrent has resurfaced after a record-breaking 204 days at sea. Relatives gathered on the Rhu Narrows point yesterday to welcome back their loved ones as the sailors returned to HM Naval Base Clyde, in Scotland. When the submarine departed last year, it was still summer, President Biden was in
To Donald Trump’s America, where outrage spread across the nation’s left-wing papers at the weekend after it emerged that a Brown University professor had been deported from the country. Dr Rasha Alawieh had, the New York Times reported, a valid visa and a court order temporarily blocking her removal – and yet that didn’t stop
The top mandarin at the Home Office gave the game away. At a somnolent session of the Commons home affairs committee, Sir Matthew Rycroft revealed that Labour had dropped a key pre-election pledge, made just 72 hours before polling day. Instead of moving all asylum seekers out of hotels ‘within 12 months’, as the party
‘Amnesty International and Harvard,’ says Alan Dershowitz of the 7 October 2023 massacre, ‘blamed it on Israel even before the first shot was fired in Gaza.’ It was true; the Israel Defence Force (IDF) did not enter Gaza until 27 October, but already there were ‘River to Sea’ anti-Israel demonstrations, anti-Semitic posts on TikTok, the first
Scotland’s troubled nationalised shipyard, Ferguson Marine, has failed in its bid to win a crucial order for seven small electric ferries that will operate on Scotland’s west coast, it was announced yesterday. Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL), the state body in charge of ferries procurement, says it intends to award the contract for the new ‘loch class’
As the world focused its attention on a possible peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, it might have been easy to forget that the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas did not mark an end to the crisis in the Middle East. This morning, that ceasefire looked near collapse with Israel ramping up pressure on
Almost exactly seven years ago, on Monday 19 March 2018, Donald Trump decided he wanted to telephone Vladimir Putin to congratulate the Russian president on his re-election. The call was set up for the following day, though Trump’s then national security advisor H R McMaster ordered his team to give the President helpful note cards.
There are two big speeches being made in London today. Shortly after midday, Liz Kendall will rise in the House of Commons to explain how she intends to reform the welfare system. But before that, Kemi Badenoch will launch her policy commissions to put together a credible Conservative platform in 2029. Cutting benefits or making
That the welfare bill needs bringing under control is pretty undeniable. According to projections by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) an unchecked welfare bill could rise over the next five years from £64 billion to £100 billion. That is not to mention the effect on the economy of increasing numbers of people being shunted onto
After The Spectator’s Spaff probe brought the rather alarming extent of government waste to light, the Labour lot have hastened their crackdown on frivolous spending. The latest target? Credit cards. Thousands of government credit cards will be cancelled in a bid to crack down on wasteful spending, the Cabinet Office has said. Whitehall departments and
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Israel launched a surprise wave of strikes across the Gaza Strip, targeting key Hamas infrastructure and leadership. This escalation comes after Hamas repeatedly refused to release Israeli hostages under conditions proposed by Israel and backed by US mediators. Despite extensive negotiations, including direct involvement from Washington, Hamas chose
The 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report, chaired by Lord Andrew Roberts, has now been published. It provides a meticulously researched, forensic account of the atrocities committed against Israel by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Compiled by the UK-Israel All Party Parliamentary Group, this report is an essential document, recording in stark detail the murder, torture,
Here’s a political conundrum for you. You’re the SNP. You’ve been in power in Scotland since 2007. You’re 13 points ahead in the polls one year out from the next Holyrood election. You’ve been stumbling these past few years but you’ve finally found your feet again. Your leader is less divisive than his predecessors and
Pity poor James O’Brien. The long-suffering remainer has always had a raw, fiery quality unusual in the British phone-in host. Where most of his male colleagues tend to be pear shaped more than bear shaped – and where female radio presenters often resemble head girls sitting bolt upright in the front row of the class
Boris Johnson is trying to wash his hands of the unprecedented wave of migration that has seen more than one million people move to the UK in each of the last three years. He was confronted about this ‘Boriswave’ on the Triggernometry podcast yesterday and told the hosts that rather than being the result of his decisions,
It is a hundred years in October since Margaret Thatcher’s birth – so what Conservative leader would miss the chance to lay claim to the Iron Lady’s legacy? Kemi Badenoch was up this afternoon as the keynote speaker at the Centre for Policy Studies’ conference at the Guildhall in London. The theme of this year’s
Liz Kendall and her ministerial colleagues were forced to offer an hour’s worth of holding statements about the government’s welfare reforms this afternoon when they appeared at Work and Pensions Questions in the Commons. Those reforms are supposed to be coming in a green paper this week, probably tomorrow, but the Work and Pensions Secretary
Anyone who has the misfortune of stepping foot into a hospital recently will know how bad things are with the NHS, where the only good thing about the long waits is that they stave off the subsequent terrible treatment. Still, it is helpful sometimes to see how other countries view our health service – which has
‘Céad míle fáilte’, the Irish love to say. It means ‘a hundred thousand welcomes’. It’s emblazoned in the arrivals hall at Dublin airport. You’ll see it written in the Celtic font on the walls of Ireland’s cosy pubs. It has led to Ireland being christened ‘the land of a thousand welcomes’, where all visitors, no
The Holyrood exodus continues as more SNP MSPs throw in the towel ahead of the 2026 election. While some of the party’s Westminster politicians gear up to contest the next Scottish parliament election, a number of famous faces are stepping down – including one Michael Matheson, who announced on Sunday that he would not be
Emmanuel Macron hosted Mark Carney at the Elysee on Monday as both France and Canada work out how best to deal with Donald Trump. Carney, who replaced Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister last week, is in Europe to garner support for Canada amid growing tensions with the USA. In a joint press conference, Carney spoke
To the distress of many, Donald Trump’s senior advisor Kari Lake announced the discontinuation of federal funding for several iconic news outlets administered by the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), including Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty (RFE-RL) and Voice of America. These multi-language broadcasters are not simply remnants of the Cold War, nor are they
A curious decision by the Royal College of GPs (RCGP). The UK governing council of the group – which represents GPs across Great Britain and Northern Ireland – opted on Friday to change its long-standing policy on assisted dying. It has now shifted to a position of neither supporting nor opposing assisted dying, prompting Kim
At the 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games, Noah Hanson won a silver medal for Team England in the 110m hurdles. He was only 0.04 seconds behind the Gold Medal winner and he has gone on to represent Team GB at international events. Noah attended the Bobby Moore Academy on the Olympic Park, a school with a