All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Ping! An email arrives in Steerpike’s inbox. It seems that the Tony Blair Institute – the eponymous creature of the perma-tanned politician – has gone on a bit of a recruitment drive. Not content with having, in their words, ‘100 staff embedded in governments around the world’, Blair’s babes have now bagged themself a general
Perhaps Justin Welby expected gratitude from Ukraine, after the Church of England’s Synod debated the war this week. He certainly didn’t expect a double rebuke from the country, a sacred and secular censure. In letters to Welby that have not been published but have been shown to me, two official Ukrainian bodies have protested at
Emmanuel Macron is the first president of the Fifth Republic to have never served in the military, and it shows. His bellicose declaration on Monday that the West might deploy ground troops to Ukraine has been roundly rejected by France’s allies. No chance, was the retort of Germany, Britain, Poland and others. Russia also warned
28 min listen
In this special episode of Americano, The Spectator’s editor Fraser Nelson explores Trump’s candidacy with political commentator Deroy Murdock, and The Spectator’s economics editor Kate Andrews. They debate the influence of his rhetoric on American politics. How important is language? Will his achievements as President be enough to secure his re-election? Does personality Trump policy?
Earlier this month, ‘none of these candidates’ turned out to be a political spoiler for former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley in the Nevada Republican primary. Even though her main rival, former president Donald Trump, opted not to participate in the state GOP’s caucus and Haley was essentially running unopposed in the primary, ‘none of these
A dangerous truth is emerging from Ukraine. Kyiv is slowly starting to lose the war against Russia because it is running short of ammunition, in large part because promises made by the EU and the USA are not being honoured. Concurrently, Russia has moved to a wartime economic footing, with 40 per cent of government spending
Kemi Badenoch emerged from this morning’s Commons evidence session strengthened by the testimony of one of her top officials. But this afternoon a very different story emerged as Henry Staunton – the man she forced out as Post Office chairman – got his say before the Business Select Committee. He said he had been the
‘I’ve been sacked for doing my job. I think I’ve been sacked for doing what the law asks of me and I’ve breached, I’ve fallen down over a clause in my employment contract, which I think is a crying shame.’ That was just one of the bombs that former independent chief inspector of borders and
12 min listen
Until recently the government’s independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Neal has been in front of the Home Affairs select committee today to hit out at his erstwhile employers. Cindy Yu talks to Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls on the episode about Neal’s abrupt sacking and just how ‘independent’ an independent inspector can
Joe Biden appears to be pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. ‘My hope is that by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire,’ the US president said yesterday. Hamas has said the comments are ‘premature’ and Israeli sources have reportedly said prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was surprised by Biden’s remarks. Pressure for a ceasefire would benefit
The row over compensation for wrongly convicted postmasters returned to parliament again today. Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, is currently embroiled in a war of words with Henry Staunton, the man whom she sacked as chairman of the Post Office. He claims that he was told to delay compensation to victims of the Horizon scandal;
Does Jeremy Hunt have the cash to spend on tax cuts in his spring Budget next week? That’s the billion pound question that the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) focused on during its pre-Budget briefing this morning, hosted by Director Paul Johnson and Deputy Director Carl Emmerson. As Ross Clark notes on Coffee House, the latest
French President Emmanuel Macron does enjoy a good grandstanding. Having once been keen to present himself as a possible bridge-builder with Moscow, he is now suggesting that western troops might go fight in Ukraine – secure in the knowledge that his bluff is unlikely to be called. At a press conference at the end of
In a heavily-fortified Amsterdam courthouse known as The Bunker, Ridouan Taghi, the chieftain of the so-called ‘Mocro-Maffia’ (Moroccan mafia), and 16 of his henchmen learned their fate today. The gang were all found guilty of a series of murders that shocked the Netherlands. Taghi’s case is symptomatic of a wider illness within Dutch society. In
Time was when a chancellor had to resign for leaking the Budget – Hugh Dalton famously lost his job after telling a reporter a few details of what he was about to deliver. Dalton assumed it was past the newspaper’s deadline, but he was wrong. Nowadays, it seems to have become customary for chancellors to
If some great challenge or difficulty is looming in the near future, it is human nature to want to change the subject, to busy ourselves with displacement activity to avoid the confrontation. This is perhaps even more true of groups than individuals. Everybody might be aware on some level that a crisis is brewing, but
Emmanuel Macron has said that the West may have to send ground troops to Ukraine to support their war against Russia. The president of France made his comments on Monday as he hosted a conference at the Elysée palace about how best to support Ukraine. In attendance were more than 20 European heads of state
The math is clear for Nikki Haley. Even though she outperformed polling expectations in her home state of South Carolina, getting 40 per cent of the vote to Trump’s 60 per cent, her path to the Republican nomination is only going to get harder now. Thanks to significant Republican rule changes that increased the number of winner-take-all
It’s day five of the Lee Anderson debacle and the row shows no signs of abating. Rishi Sunak is having to defend from both sides his decision to withdraw the whip from the red wall MP – who represents the marginal seat of Ashfield – after Anderson used a GB News appearance to say that ‘Islamists
The Lee Anderson saga shows no sign of going away anytime soon. Five days after the Ashfield MP had the whip removed for claiming ‘Islamists’ had ‘got control’ of the Mayor of London, Tory ministers are still tying themselves in knots over how best to elegantly distance themselves from their now-suspended colleague. Prime Minister Rishi
It’s the question all Whitehall is asking. When will Simon Case appear before the Covid Inquiry? The Cabinet Secretary was due to give evidence prior to Christmas but was then signed off on sick leave in late October. Heather Hallett, the inquiry chair, allowed Case to skip his scheduled questioning after reviewing his medical records
A new report, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, has recommended that the six-week school summer holiday should be reduced to four weeks, and the two weeks redistributed so that schools have a two-week half-term in October and February. Lee Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said that spreading out the holidays more equally
When the Emirati government moved to bid for the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, via an investment vehicle called RedBird IMI, ministers were blindsided. Since the 2008 crash, autocracies have been testing how much infrastructure they are allowed to buy in newly debt-addled democracies (as this OECD report details) but Britain had not really joined other
The Church of England’s Synod is debating the war in Ukraine today. There will be a vote on a motion that sounds uncontentious: Synod affirms the peace-making efforts of various churches, calls for the highest possible protection of religious freedom, and calls for UK political parties to work for a peaceful international order. But sometimes
Ukraine can still win its war against Russia – and it can win it in 2024. All it needs is a speedy supply of artillery rounds, more air defences, long-range missiles, and fourth-generation fighter jets. This list goes on, but the longer the West waits, the higher the cost of this war. The tragedy is
Given that the BBC places great store in having a ‘Verify’ unit to root out fake news emanating from other outlets, one might expect the corporation to be merciless on itself when it comes to sticking to the facts. Yet the roughly two million viewers who tuned into BBC1’s flagship lunchtime news yesterday were at
It’s the threat the Tories really fear: a high-profile defection at the beginning of an election year. Richard Tice’s Reform party might be polling at around 10 per cent nationally but until now they’ve struggled to make an impact in Westminster. That could all change if Lee Anderson, the red wall Rottweiller, chooses to defect
The miners’ strike has struck again. It’s the fortieth anniversary of the protracted dispute of 1984-85, which means that you have to be about my age (55) to have had anything approaching an adult understanding of it at the time. The same old footage, the same old talking points, the same old grievances, excuses and
After four straight election defeats, Labour are desperately keen to prove that the party has changed. Gone – supposedly – are the bad old days of tax and spend. Fiscal restraint is now the order of the day. The £28 billion in green spending has been unceremoniously axed; a commitment to restore the bankers’ bonus
Will Lindsay Hoyle really last as Speaker? Today he managed to enrage the SNP once again by refusing the party’s application for an emergency debate. The plan had been to use this SO24 debate, as it is known, to refresh the argument that the SNP couldn’t put to a vote last week about a ceasefire
31 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to James Kanagasooriam who is the chief research officer at Focal Data about the state of the polls. They discuss why vaccines have become a polarising topic for this election; why bookmakers might be underestimating Joe Biden and the importance of the cost of living.
Churches are emptier than ever since Covid. Fewer clergy have more and more parishes to look after; the buildings themselves are falling down, with little money available to repair them. In the face of these existential problems, what high-profile subject was discussed over the weekend by the General Synod of the Church of England? Encouraging more worshippers,
The Competition and Markets Authority report on the housing sector should be a boost to the Yimby policy machine. It expressed grave concerns about the housing market operating like a cartel, and said that much of this was enabled by the current planning system. The CMA was tasked with looking at the housing market a
Here’s a good wheeze: prod every last inch of your own country, open the taps and become the world’s largest producer of fossil fuels. Then, when other countries start to try to develop their own resources, tell them they mustn’t, for the good of the planet. In other words, make them all dependent on you.