All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
High-risk offenders could reportedly be released early from secure government-approved hostels. Shortly before before the election in July, the Ministry of Justice reduced the typical period people spend in an ‘Approved Premises’ from 12 weeks to eight. But what are Approved Premises, and does this matter? ‘Approved Premises’ – or ‘APs’ – are a little-known
At Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, Rishi Sunak took a technical turn. Why is Rachel Reeves considering changing the fiscal rules, he asked the Prime Minister, when just last year she said doing so would be ‘tantamount to fiddling the figures.’ No clear answer followed. The wisdom during the general election was that borrowing more
Keir Starmer’s reset isn’t going very well. He turned up at Prime Minister’s Questions today clearly hoping to talk about the vision he had for the country, but ended up doing something he always complained about others doing when he was in opposition: dodging the question. A planted question from a Labour backbencher allowed Starmer
The semi-regular speeches given by the heads of Britain’s intelligence services are always described as a ‘rare intervention’, and yesterday it was the turn of Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, to issue one of these periodic warnings about the safety of the nation. McCallum noted that although his favourite subjects (terrorism, Russia, Iran and China) have featured in
It’s the first Prime Minister’s Questions since conference season and Labour’s recent woes have given the leader of the opposition a rather lot of material. An energetic Rishi Sunak was fast to mock Sir Keir Starmer over tensions in his top team – in a dig at Starmer’s swapping out of chief of staff Sue
Well, well well. The Labour lot are under the spotlight once again. It transpires, after the Sun newspaper’s splash this morning, that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper personally intervened to ensure that Taylor Swift received a police convoy to her Wembley shows. Priorities, priorities… Cooper has come under fire after reporting revealed that London’s Metropolitan police
It’s crunch day in the Tory leadership contest. This afternoon, Tory MPs will vote in the final knock-out round of the contest. It means one of James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick will be eliminated and the final two will be voted on by the Conservative membership, with a result announced in early November.
Ken McCallum, head of the Security Service (MI5), has warned of the serious threat to Britain posed by the Russian and Iranian intelligence agencies. McCallum said in a speech yesterday that the Russian GRU was on a mission to generate ‘sustained mayhem on British and European streets’, deploying ‘arson, sabotage and more dangerous actions conducted
The economy shrinks quarter by quarter; whole streets of houses in northern towns are abandoned, schools start closing for want of pupils – but there is no shortage of jobs for those who want to work, and traffic on the M25 seems a bit easier. That is a vision of Britain without migration. The headline
Today’s the day that the nation finds out who the final two Conservative leadership candidates will be – after a vote by MPs this afternoon. On Tuesday, former security minister Tom Tugendhat was knocked out after receiving the backing of just 20 MPs, coming fourth place to Kemi Badenoch on 30 votes, Robert Jenrick on
A few years ago, a conspiracy theory was born, based on the idea that the population of Britain was far larger than the government claimed. This was known to be true because receipts from Tesco, the country’s largest supermarket, gave an indication of how many people were buying everyday necessities, and these sales were too
Digital modernity has reached the world of political campaigning. Reform’s new video is the first party political broadcast to use AI imagery and it opens as a movie trailer for a film entitled ‘Labour’s Britain.’ Swelling orchestral music and a growling voiceover introduce us to an X-rated horror show. The opening image depicts Gordon Brown
Last night former prime minister Boris Johnson hosted his official book launch for new memoir ‘Unleashed’. The ex-Tory leader welcomed former colleagues and allies to the London launch on Tuesday evening, which was complete with a book signing ahead of the tome’s publication date this week. Never one to resist a dig at his political
So here’s a thing. Last week a prominent defence lawyer broke ranks and declared that the police investigation into alleged misuse of SNP party funds – Operation Branchform – had been going on too long and should be wound up pronto. Scottish criminal defence lawyer Thomas Leonard Ross KC told Sky News the probe ‘cannot go
It is difficult to complain about the sentiments expressed by Bridget Phillipson, the Secretary of State for Education, in her article entitled ‘We will give teachers the resources to root out anti-Semitism for good’, published in the Telegraph on the anniversary of the Hamas pogrom in southern Israel. Universities have turned a blind eye to some atrocious
As we inch ever closer to Halloween, the inevitable lists of the scariest films ever made have already begun to crop up. Whenever these lists are compiled by people who actually know what they’re talking about, there’s invariably an honourable mention of a small budget, in-house BBC production which aired on BBC 2 and was
In the wake of the UK’s departure from the European Union, French president Emmanuel Macron made a big effort to woo London’s bankers and hedge fund managers across the Channel. Macron wanted to use Brexit as an opportunity to turn Paris into the key hub for European finance. Trust me, he told Britain’s bankers: I’m
Questioning the sincerity of a fellow Christian’s faith is a big no-no. It would be wrong, then, to doubt the sincerity of Russell Brand’s Christianity, just as it would be wrong to pour scorn on the boy who broke out of Sunday school into the main church during the sermon, shouting of his joyful discovery
A brief update from Agence France Presse underscores the shift in power in the Middle East. The report, citing a German source, tells us that Joe Biden ‘plans to meet the leaders of Germany, France and Britain in Berlin on Saturday to discuss the Middle East and Ukraine conflicts’. On Saturday. It doesn’t exactly scream
To Holyrood, where Scotland’s politicians have overwhelmingly voted to oppose the Labour government’s winter fuel payment cuts. 99 MSPs voted in favour of the motion tabled by SNP First Minister John Swinney, which called on the UK government to ‘reverse the introduction of means testing for the winter fuel payment’ – and in a sign
As Israelis marked a sombre day commemorating the 7 October massacre, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) expanded their operation in Lebanon. Their aim is to weaken the Iranian-backed terror organisation Hezbollah, which has been attacking Israel from Lebanon for the past year. While the Israeli air force bombs specific targets deep inside Lebanon, including the
Today’s third round of MP voting in the Tory leadership race has given James Cleverly an almost perfect result. Not only did he have a massive uplift of 18 MPs to 39, but with the 20 votes of the eliminated Tom Tugendhat now in play, it looks like he can afford to ‘choose’ the opponent
It’s official: the Tories believe in JC. Following last week’s party conference in Birmingham, James Cleverly has this afternoon topped the penultimate ballot of Tory MPs. The Shadow Home Secretary stormed into the lead with 39 MPs, overtaking both Robert Jenrick on 31 and Kemi Badenoch on 30 to officially confirm his status as the
‘The Premier League has the champions it deserves’, read the message from an old pal in May, after Manchester City’s footballers had won the title for the fourth year running. Like many of England’s leading clubs, City are the playthings of foreign billionaires We were both born within two miles of Maine Road, where ‘the
Well, well, well. Channel 4 has announced that it has booked none other than Donald Trump-nemesis Stormy Daniels as a guest on its US election night show. The adult film actor at the centre of Trump’s hush-money scandal will commentate on the events of the evening live from Washington – after spending much of the
Water companies have sweated the assets they were handed upon privatisation in the late 1980s. They have failed to invest properly, and have regarded fines for sewage spills as a business cost, to be balanced against the price of investment, rather than as a deterrent. They have, as Ofwat chief executive David Black told the Today
All has not been well in the Scottish government for some time – and the latest revelation that former first minister Humza Yousaf was slamming civil servant press officers in WhatsApp chats is hardly likely to repair relations. It transpires that hapless Humza and one-time national clinical director Jason Leitch turned on their own officials
Since the death of Alexei Navalny in an Arctic penal colony in February, Russia’s opposition movement has found itself in disarray. Instead of Navalny’s death uniting those exiled Kremlin critics campaigning for a democratic future for Russia, the past eight months have seen the opposition movement fracture into bickering factions, unable to collaborate on anything
If you need proof that the SNP’s modus operandi in government is to make it up on the hoof, consider the party’s plan for a National Care Service (NCS). Announced by former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, the NCS was to be a radical – even visionary – solution to growing pressure on both the National Health