All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Well, that was quick. Less than 24 hours after Simon Clarke called for Rishi Sunak to resign and tweeted ‘I have no further comment to make’ he has, er, issued a further comment. The former Levelling Up Secretary broke cover tonight after taking a battering from colleagues over his call for the Prime Minister to
What motivated the Scottish government to take a more cautious approach to lockdown? Deviations from the UK government’s approach meant that those living north of the border often had to live with harsher restrictions compared to those in England, decisions that were widely assumed to be made on the basis of scientific advice. But now
Sir Simon Clarke’s call to replace Rishi Sunak leans heavily on Tory MPs being in denial about the scale of defeat that could be heading their way. He quotes Alan Clark on the ‘defence mechanism of the psyche’ that allowed Conservatives to disbelieve the landslide thumping forecast ahead of the 1997 election, even though ‘every single device
Rishi Sunak sidestepped another Tory rebellion this afternoon with the announcement of an extra £500 million in funding for councils in England. A group of more than 40 Conservative MPs had joined colleagues from other parties to warn of a crisis in local authority funding that was threatening even deeper cuts to services and council
Sir Keir’s spin doctors have been enjoying clips of Tony Blair’s performances as opposition leader. In the mid-1990s, Blair took aim at John Major with this, ‘I lead my party, he follows his.’ At today’s PMQs, Sir Keir tried the same judo-throw on Rishi Sunak. ‘I’ve changed my party. He’s bullied by his,’ he said.
It was ten days ago that Mr S brought news of the latest controversy to embroil our ancient seats of learning, after a lecturer at a leading London university allegedly suggested Douglas Murray should be ‘suppressed’. Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, was subsequently forced to order a review into the Home Office’s use of external
It will prove to be a terrible and tragic irony if it turns out that Kyiv shot down a Russian transport aircraft today that was transporting Ukrainian prisoners of war ready to be exchanged. Around 11 a.m. local time this morning an Il-76 transport aircraft crashed in a fireball near the Russian village of Yablonova in
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Tory MP Simon Clarke called for Rishi Sunak to resign last night. In a piece in the Telegraph, he wrote that the Prime Minister was ‘uninspiring’ and ‘does not get what Britain needs.’ Will other Conservative MPs also demand Sunak resign, or will they unify around their leader? Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and James
‘Another week with no ideas. Absolutely no ideas for this country and absolutely no plans.’ Either Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer could have hurled that insult across the chamber at Prime Minister’s Questions this week – or indeed any week. Once again, both leaders were arguing over who didn’t have a plan, with a few
A feisty session of PMQs today. As speculation swirls around the future of the Tory leadership, Sir Keir Starmer sought to go for the jugular by channelling Tony Blair in the dying days of the Major government. ‘I’ve changed my party, he’s bullied by his’, he told the House to cheers. But Starmer’s efforts to
Should we be bothered that Hinckley C nuclear power station has run even further over budget (the latest estimate is £35 billion, nearly twice that quoted when the project was given the go-ahead in 2016) and that its completion date has been put back yet further, to 2031? After all, the whole point of offering
Say what you like about Prince Edward, but he has never usually been one for stepping into the limelight – in contrast to his siblings and nephews. Yet, during the course of his two-day official visit to South Africa, the Duke of Edinburgh made some remarks that attracted international media interest. Speaking at the British
Some of Britain’s police chiefs are in a total pickle when it comes to race, not least as a result of them rushing to embrace critical race theory and anti-racist ideology in the wake of George Floyd’s death in the United States in 2020. Whether actually captured, or simply pretending to be, they have committed
Simon Clarke’s detonation last night didn’t come as a huge surprise. The Tory whips had already pre-briefed a group of MPs that the Daily Telegraph piece calling for Sunak to go was incoming, and asked them to get out and fight Clarke’s comments. For all the whips’ efforts, there are other Conservative MPs who are
It was ‘the knife of the long knight’, joked one social media wag about the bid by the unfeasibly tall Sir Simon Clarke to oust Rishi Sunak from 10 Downing Street. So lanky was he as a youth that Clarke was nicknamed ‘stilts’ in his schooldays. Conventional wisdom at Westminster will tell you this morning
What is a woman? It’s a question Sir Keir Starmer has sometimes struggled with in the past. So it was perhaps no surprise then that the Labour leader chose not to pontificate on the subject when he addressed the women’s lobby drinks. Instead, Starmer opted to focus on warm words for his hosts and look
One of life’s simple pleasures is meeting up with friends at the local pub, catching up (or venting about the stress of a tough week) over good food and a couple of drinks. But unfortunately it’s becoming more and more difficult to do just that. Much-loved community assets, like the local pub, find themselves closing
Gabriel Attal has only been in his job for two weeks but the youngest prime minister in the history of the Fifth Republic is already facing a series of crises. The most pressing issue for the 34-year-old premier is the farmers’ protest, which began last Friday when a blockade was erected on the A64 motorway west
Donald Trump has, like a boa constrictor, squeezed the life out of the Republican primary cycle. Last night, he swallowed New Hampshire and possibly Nikki Haley too. Haley did better than many of the late polls suggested. But that’s not saying much. She won 44 per cent of the vote, finishing 12 points behind Trump. She now has the
The SNP government has rarely demonstrated great respect for legal precedent or the rights of the individual. When Humza Yousaf was justice secretary back in 2020, he forced through the most illiberal curbs on freedom of speech in British history with the Hate Crime (Scotland) Act. This criminalised ‘stirring up hatred’, even in the privacy
It’s a fun night on Tory WhatsApp tonight. Sir Simon Clarke – a cabinet minister under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – has tonight issued a call in the Daily Telegraph for Rishi Sunak to resign. But over on the Tory WhatsApp group of MPs, there is little sign that the parliamentarians are bolting just
Here we go. Ever since 11 Tory MPs voted against the Safety of Rwanda Bill last week, talk has resurfaced that the party has a death wish. The problem is that different MPs define that as different things. While a mass of Conservative MPs say the rebellion over Sunak’s plan to stop the boats amounts
Predictably, the US/UK military coalition that attacked Houthi forces twelve days ago has been in action again. ‘Predictably’ because the initial strike was always unlikely to dismantle the Houthis now extensive capacity to attack shipping in the Red Sea. But, more importantly, because it is currently in their interests to keep up the belligerence, as
Oh dear. It seems the blessed Nicola has slipped up again. Away from the high sea shenanigans of the fuity Houthi rebels, up in Edinburgh the extent of Sturgeon’s secret state is well and truly being exposed. Today the Scottish Covid Inquiry published text messages from the former First Minister to her onetime advisor, the
Sometimes a politician says something that makes you wonder if they’re living on a different planet. This week it was Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf. He said there is a dearth of political concern for the poor people of Gaza. It feels like ‘Palestinian blood is very cheap’, he said. It seems to me that
I’m old enough to remember when ‘it’s a free country’ was a phrase people used in conversation. It feels like it was the kind of thing they said regularly, either when someone asked permission to do something or when commenting on some particular eccentricity. Can I sit there? It’s a free country. You want to
What happens if the latest round of strikes against the Houthis don’t deter them? That was the big question as Rishi Sunak made his statement to the Commons on yesterday’s attacks. The Prime Minister stuck to his two key lines from last week, that the strikes were targeted, and that the Houthis’ attacks are no
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The UK launched a new set of strikes on eight Houthi targets last night. Typoon jets dropped £30,000 Paveway bombs on an underground storage site and surveillance and missile capabilities controlled by the Yemeni rebel group. But are the strikes working? The Houthis have continued to attack ships in the Red Sea, and a row
Spain has approved a pointless amendment to its constitution, replacing the word ‘handicapped’ with the phrase ‘persons with a disability’. Not only did Socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez, who never says sorry for genuine oversights, apologise for the delay in making this happen, but he also announced that he regards himself as having thereby paid a ‘moral
Is the BBC biased? Some Tories, including transport minister Huw Merriman, think so. But while there is plenty of evidence to suggest Merriman is correct, he might want to use a different example to the one he used when quizzed on the subject of BBC bias this morning. Sky News’ Kay Burley asked Merriman for
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Freddy Gray is joined in New Hampshire by Ben Domenech, editor at large of Spectator World. On the podcast they discuss the pro-Trump establishment of the Republican party; how the Republican cohort have changed since the Obama election and what issues Trump can identify that appeal to voters.
It’s only Tuesday, and already Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had one of the worst weeks since the war against Hamas started last October. Israelis are losing patience with him and his band of self-serving extremist ministers. Netanyahu, whose approval rates were low before the war and have only got lower since it started,
This morning, ministers woke up to the news of a second joint airstrike against the Houthis in Yemen – and some in Westminster have been left reeling that the attacks came as a surprise. Some eight targets were struck, according to the Pentagon, in a UK and US effort to deter continued interference with shipping
The religious and political symbolism was unmistakable, as the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi led the consecration of a controversial new Hindu temple in Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh state, built on the ruins of a 16th century mosque. The Babri Masjid was torn down by Hindu nationalist mobs in 1992, sparking riots across the country that