All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Visibly desperate Conservatives are counting on their opposition to the left’s cultural revolution to save them, if not from defeat, then at least from annihilation. The party’s deputy chair Lee Anderson forecasts that a ‘mix of culture wars and trans debate’ would be ‘at the heart’ of the party’s coming election campaign. You only need to listen
Last year, a French broadcaster asked if Belgium was in danger of becoming a narco state. The question was posed in light of the news of the cocaine flooding into the country and the growing influence of Belgium’s drug cartels. Others believe that Belgium most closely resembles an Islamic state. The former Belgian senator
Oh dear. It seems that the wokest police force in all the West has done it again. In the past fortnight, pro-Palestine marches in London have attracted some unseemly elements to their cause. One such example was offered today at an event for Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir in central London. After one speaker asked the
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This week there have been some interesting developments in the public Covid-19 inquiry where scientists and mathematical modellers have been giving testimony on how prepared the government was to tackle the pandemic and how they used expert advise. Within the sessions, WhatsApp messages revealed that Dame Angela McLean – who at the time was chief
America’s ATACMS long-range missiles were a potential ‘game changer’ to the war in Ukraine to some, a potential source of escalation to others. Now, with no real sense that either has proved true following Zelensky’s confirmation this week they were used for the first time, what does that tell us? The MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile
The BBC has launched what it is calling an ‘urgent investigation’ into six journalists and a freelancer working for its Arabic-language service over accusations they had shown anti-Israel bias in their coverage and expressed support on social media for Hamas. They were said to have called the attacks that killed more than 1,400 Israelis ‘a
For a man so keen to thrust himself onto the international stage, Emmanuel Macron has been surprisingly quiet over the last fortnight. At the beginning of 2022, the President of France shuttled across Europe in an attempt to avert conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Though his diplomatic efforts were criticised in some Anglophone quarters, Macron earned
The function of the police, one might have thought, was to protect the weak against the overbearing and the bullying. Unfortunately, a by-product of the Gaza crisis has been to suggest that, at least on the streets of London, a bit of carefully targeted thuggery against your political opponents can pay useful dividends. For some
It was the weather wot did it, wot stopped us spending in the shops. Yet again, the favourite old excuse has been trotted out by retailers trying to explain where their sales have vanished. Retail sales volumes in September, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports this morning, plunged by 0.9 per cent in September,
Timing is a funny thing. The Chancellor received some good news about the public finances this morning, just when everyone is focused on fairly catastrophic election results for the Tories. A few hours after it was announced that strong Conservative majorities were overturned in the Mid-Bedfordshire and Tamworth by-elections (Katy Balls analyses the results here), we
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This week Freddy speaks to Dennis Ross, former Middle East coordinator under President Clinton and current Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. They discuss Biden’s visit to Israel this week, how his policy towards the Middle East borrows from Trump and Obama, and how we can discern between the public posturing and
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Labour has overturned the Tamworth and and Mid Bedfordshire by-election results, overturning the biggest majority in by-election history. Is there anymore road for Rishi Sunak? Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and James Heale.
Why have the Tories lost both Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth, seats they could normally rely on the laws of physics to be able to hold? According to Greg Hands, the party chair, the results are down to ‘legacy issues’ in the seats. They were vacated by Nadine Dorries leaving in disgust in a protracted fashion
Amid all the discussion in Tory circles about whether the next election will have more in common with the narrow victory of 1992 or the landslide defeat of 1997, nobody has ever made the case for 1993. But after the Conservatives’ shattering loss of two of their nominally ‘safest’ seats to Labour in by-elections in
What an epically horrible night for the Conservative part, one of the worst in the party’s long and storied history. Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire, before yesterday the 57th and 98th safest Tory seats in the country respectively, fell to the Labour party. As if that weren’t enough, these by-elections also revealed that Rishi Sunak is in
Oh dear. It seems that not all have taken the by-elections results well. Tories everywhere are waking up to two of the worst defeats in the party’s history but others involved in the campaign have preferred not to stick around. Among them was Andrew Cooper, the defeated Conservative candidate in Tamworth. Moments after losing a
In the days after Hamas’s attack on Israel last week, everyone wondered how much Iran knew beforehand. But a focus on the specifics of the 7 October operation misses the point. The attacks just wouldn’t have been possible without Iranian support. It doesn’t matter much if they directed them. A Hamas leader said Soleimani had
Keir Starmer has reason to celebrate this morning after his party triumphed overnight in both the Mid-Bedfordshire and Tamworth by-elections. Both on paper are safe Tory seats that aren’t even on Labour’s target list. Despite this, Starmer’s party managed to overturn a Tory majority of 19,634 in Chris Pincher’s old seat, which was last Labour
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Today Rishi Sunak joined Benjamin Netanyahu for a joint press conference in which he pledged support to Israel. Netanyahu thanked him for his, ‘strong statement of support’ and grounded Israel’s fight in the context of Britain’s own history. ‘You fought the Nazis 80 years ago,’ he said, ‘Hamas are the new Nazis’. Also on the
It’s often been said that the late Queen Elizabeth II rarely if ever put a foot wrong during her 70-year reign. Trained from a young age to betray no sign of partiality, or even of individuality, she lived long enough to become the matriarchal figure at the centre of everyone’s favorite soap opera. In a
Ping! An email lands in Steerpike’s inbox. It’s a press release about Labour’s new homes pledge, touted with much fanfare in Liverpool last week. ‘Labour will jump start planning’ it declares, ‘to build 1.5 million homes and save the dream of homeownership.’ The ‘transformational package of reforms’ includes the ‘next generation of “new towns”, new
A year ago Liz Truss’ brief government collapsed when markets lost confidence in Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget. A large part of the problem, it was explained at the time, was that the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) – founded by George Osborne specifically to provide some independent backing for Budget measures – had not been invited to
Rishi Sunak is in Israel today for talks with the country’s leaders amid the ongoing conflict. The Prime Minister has just concluded a televised appearance with Benjamin Netanyahu, in which the Israeli Premier paid tribute to Sunak. He thanked him for his ‘strong statement of support’ and grounded Israel’s fight in the context of Britain’s
The Foreign Office is often called the grandest of all Whitehall’s ministries – so it’s just a shame then that so few mandarins appear to enjoy it. New figures unearthed by Mr S show that less than half its staff were working in King Charles Street at the beginning of this month, despite much talk
Is it ageist to suggest that an obviously frail 80-year-old might not be well suited to the task of resolving global conflicts? Even a man in his prime would struggle to fly from Washington to Israel, do a frantic day of talks, greet the suffering, make a speech and jet off again hours later to go
The gears were grinding hard at PMQs. Sir Keir Starmer shifted his party decisively away from its Corbynista past and pledged full support for Israel after the recent atrocities. He said he was ‘still mourning the terrorist attacks’. And having met relatives of British hostages held by Hamas, he was unequivocal. ‘Release them immediately.’ Sunak hid
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September’s inflation data was released today, and showed that it was at the same level as August. Is inflation getting stuck a problem? Cindy Yu talks to Kate Andrews and Katy Balls. Also on the podcast: Labour’s Israel headaches and a look ahead to tomorrow’s by-elections. Produced by Cindy Yu.
After the SNP won its first Holyrood election in 2007, foolish council leaders across Scotland rushed to sign up to what then finance secretary John Swinney described as a ‘historic concordat’. In return for Swinney pulling back from his threat to centralise education, Scotland’s 32 local authorities agreed to uphold the nationalists’ promise to freeze
More people are being jailed than the justice system can manage. There are only 557 places left across 120 prisons in England and Wales, while prisoner numbers are increasing by 100 to 200 every week. Justice Secretary Alex Chalk had some tough-sounding rhetoric on Monday to deal with the problem: lock up dangerous offenders and
Joe Biden prides himself on his decades of foreign-policy experience, his ability to talk tough yet be kind, and his talent for bringing opposing sides together. Touching down in Israel today, he gave Bibi Netanyahu a big hug – quite the gesture – and promptly told him he believed that ‘the other team’ – i.e.
Most of the questions to Rishi Sunak today at Prime Minister’s Questions can be usefully summarised by the point put to him late on by SNP MP Stewart McDonald. McDonald said: ‘Of course the sadism of Hamas can only be condemned and there’s no question of Israel’s right to defence and security. But international law