All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
As an international lawyer, splitting my time between London and Brussels, I dare say I might be considered one of Theresa May’s ‘citizens of nowhere’. Nonetheless, as the protests about the Israeli response to the atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October have become more strident and legally problematic, I have also had cause to reflect on my
Mums begging for help and being ignored, mums in labour turned away from hospital and sent home sometimes for days and days, midwives and obstetricians who are supposed to care instead shrugging and rolling their eyes, the most basic failures in care – observations not done, monitoring ignored, an air of lackadaisical ignorance and complacency. Babies fade
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Freddy Gray speaks to Robert Bryce who is an author and expert on energy, power and politics. On the podcast, Robert talks about the economic implications of Europe’s net zero targets; why we should push for nuclear energy; and shares the human stories behind electrification.
14 min listen
This week the prime minister hosted his landmark AI summit at Bletchley Park which wrapped up with an interview with Elon Musk, who warned that AI will one day render all jobs obsolete. The who’s who of AI were in attendance over the two days as well the likes of Kamala Harris and Ursula von
The Scottish government has launched another white paper on independence, this time on the subject of migration. It is the sixth paper in the ‘Building a New Scotland’ series setting out the SNP-Green administration’s vision for a post-UK Scotland. The substance of the document isn’t as important as the fact of its existence. The Supreme
A new row is dominating Holyrood’s corridors of power. What is it this time? War, famine, the never-ending ferries crisis? No, far more important: desk allocation in the Scottish parliament. Yes, it seems that the prospect of, er, being next door to Ash Regan has thrown the Scottish Greens into something of a tizzy. Following
Nothing works anymore. If there is a mantra for modern Britain, including Scotland, this is it. If Westminster’s shame is the farce around HS2, Scotland’s is the two unlaunched ferries on the Clyde, spiralling inexorably in cost with a launch date disappearing into the future. They are emblems for so much else: after 16 years
Wealthy foreigners are flocking to New Zealand, but not all Kiwis are happy about their arrival: not least locals who are fed up with their neighbour, Noel Edmonds, of Deal or No Deal and Mr Blobby fame. Edmonds moved last year with his wife to a small village called Ngātīmoti, in the Tasman region of New
‘We are the victims… therefore nobody should blame us for the things we do.’ Who do you think said this? Some blue-haired campus activist who’s convinced they’re suffering from structural oppression? A trans campaigner, perhaps, who thinks being misgendered is an act of violence? Maybe some other social justice type who feels victimised by everything
It’s a pity that Dominic Cummings’s rude WhatsApp messages dominated the headlines following his appearance at the Covid inquiry this week. Boris Johnson’s estranged consigliere had plenty to say about the problems with Whitehall – much of which risks getting ignored because of the focus on leaked messages. One of his targets was the cabinet,
Two of the world’s great unelected power-brokers met last night at Bletchley Park. Elon Musk and Rishi Sunak held a joint interview after the international conference about AI. Their topic was regulation. ‘What should a government like ours be doing?’ said the PM. What an odd start. Why is the Prime Minister asking a foreign
So, the AI summit – what was that all about? The great Bletchley Park jamboree concluded last night with an hour-long chat between Rishi Sunak and Elon Musk. As tech bros and world leaders depart today, Sunak’s team can reflect on a job well done. Prior to the summit, there was much sneering about whether
It was hard to enjoy Rishi Sunak’s sit down with Elon Musk on stage at Lancaster House last night. It was hard to hate it, too. We saw two men, two different types of nerd, talking about how artificial intelligence can be good or bad, and how science fiction is a useful guide to this coming
Sometimes it’s tricky to be a friend of Dominic Cummings, especially if you’re also friends with Helen MacNamara. I worked with them both in government during the Covid pandemic and couldn’t have more admiration for either of them. I can remember with absolute clarity Dominic explaining in March 2020 how the NHS would crumble without
It’s the book that all Westminster is talking about. At long last, Nadine Dorries’ account of the plot to bring down Boris Johnson has started its serialisation in the Daily Mail. The former Culture Secretary has never been shy of making headlines and day one is a belter. Dorries claims that a ‘shadowy Tory No.10 fixer’
The debate over the necessity of Ukraine’s presidential elections is creating chaos in a nation at war. The ceasefire among Ukrainian politicians is crumbling as some of them start to chase votes. Oleksiy Arestovych, a scandal-hit former adviser to the head of the presidential office, has called Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator and announced he will
When the bombs fell, I was at home. My family has been staying at the Jabalia refugee camp, in northern Gaza, since 12 October. On Tuesday, Israel targeted the camp. The explosions were about 70 metres away from my house. One bomb landed; there was a two-second pause; and then more bombs hit. I couldn’t
Pranked by a Kremlin-friendly comedy duo, Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, spoke for many when she confessed her ‘fatigue’ with the war in Ukraine. But there is some bad news for all the Europeans ‘tired’ of the conflict. Europe’s real job will only begin when the current war of attrition eventually congeals along more or less
What was the point of Rishi Sunak’s landmark AI summit at Bletchley Park? The Prime Minister has just given a press conference at the end of it in which he tried to underline his achievements. These included bringing together more than 100 of the leading AI nations and leading companies handling the technology and reaching
Another day and another Labour U-turn. The current crisis in Gaza has split the Starmer Army as they walk the thin line between supporting Israel and not alienating their core vote. The current total of Labour MPs who are calling for ceasefire – in breach of party policy – now stands at 65, a third
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The Bank of England has once again taken the decision to hold interest rates at their 15-year high. There is growing market consensus that this second pause is a sign that interest rates have peaked, or nearly reached their peak. Will the Bank be able to tread the thin line between tackling inflation but also
Matt Hancock argued that he – rather than medical professionals – should be the one to decide who lived or died in the event of a shortage of medical supplies and the NHS being overwhelmed during Covid. This revelation comes from evidence given by Simon Stevens, who until 2021 was chief executive of NHS England,
The Bank of England has held interest rates at their 15-year high for a second time. Markets were expecting another pause, but there was no guarantee: once again the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was split on the decision, voting 6 – 3 to hold rates at 5.25 per cent. The minority on the committee were
At least Kamala Harris managed to avoid the dreaded phrase that we should ‘harness AI’s ‘potential’. But that was just about the only blessing in the Vice President’s impressively rubbish speech yesterday at the US embassy in London. Artificial intelligence, it is generally agreed, is the most important issue facing humanity, yet all we had
Some 140,000 children missed more than half of the school days they should have attended this spring. Research by the Children’s Commissioner, published today, finds that only 5 per cent of these ‘severely absent’ kids go on to achieve five GCSEs. For year ten and 11 pupils who are persistently absent – meaning they miss one
It is hard to know what to make of the sheer mindless stupidity of some people who claim to support the cause of Palestinians in the Israel-Gaza conflict. Boxes of live rodents have now been released at a number of McDonald’s restaurants, apparently as part of pro-Palestinian protests. One incident took place on Monday in
What does Iran have to teach the world about human rights? The United Nations appears to think we have plenty to learn from a pariah state which backs Hamas, arrests and beats women for failing to wear a hijab, executes protesters and hangs gay people. In Geneva, the Social Forum of the UN Human Rights
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Today the Covid inquiry heard from Helen McNamara, former deputy cabinet secretary (who infamously supplied a karaoke machine for one of the government’s lockdown parties). Her evidence suggested that the government’s pandemic response had a women problem – from not properly understanding lockdown’s impact on domestic abuse to not considering that PPE is designed for
You have to hand it to the Scottish government: the deletion of WhatsApp messages is good preemptive news management, whether accidental, by default or deliberate. Once journalists get their hands on them, those curt, day-to-day messages can be just a tad embarrassing — as this week’s expletive-laden evidence to the UK Covid Inquiry confirms. The Scottish
Not all is rotten in the state of Scotland. For at least former member of Nicola Sturgeon’s ancien régime appears to have actually believed her talk of ‘openness’ and ‘transparency’. Step forward Kate Forbes, the former Finance Secretary now banished to the backbenches. Amid the ongoing palaver about the Scottish government’s missing WhatsApps, the one-time SNP leadership
The Covid Inquiry has been taking evidence from Helen MacNamara, Deputy Cabinet Secretary from 2020 to 2021. During Dominic Cummings’s cross-examination yesterday it was revealed that he had wanted to ‘handcuff her [MacNamara] and escort’ her out of No. 10. Yet much of her evidence this morning corroborates his account (or rather criticism) of Whitehall
Try to think of leading names in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Kamala Harris is probably not the first that springs to mind. The woman can barely talk. But she is Vice President of the United States of America and as such she’s in London, about to give a speech ahead of Rishi Sunak’s big
Yesterday saw the latest performance of one of the longest-running dramas in town. In many ways, the Covid inquiry felt very much like a slightly unnecessary reboot (Matrix Resurrections style) of Cummings’s appearance at the Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee back in May 2021. We didn’t learn a lot yesterday that we didn’t know then, for all that