All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
It might be best described as the war for Keir Starmer’s ear in Downing Street, a battle to the bitter end between two of the Prime Minister’s most senior advisers. There was, in reality, only going to be one winner, and so it has come to pass. Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief adviser and architect
Nørrebro, Copenhagen’s hip, multicultural inner-city area, was crowned the world’s coolest neighbourhood by Time Out in 2021. Former residents include Denmark’s greatest living film star Mads Mikkelsen. If you’ve viewed Nordic noir TV dramas depicting the nexus of hip urbanism and the tribulations of mass migration, you’ll have seen plenty of Nørrebro (sometimes called ‘Nørrebronx’ in tribute
It is one year since the Jews suffered the worst act of anti-Semitic violence since the Nazi era, and what is the British left doing? Raging against the Jewish state. Hitting the streets in their thousands to fume against the nation that was the victim of that carnival of racist killing. They’re protesting not against
Now that Sir Keir Starmer has unilaterally decided to give up British ownership of the Chagos Islands, the last vestige of our imperial inheritance in the Indian Ocean, it seems an appropriate moment to look back at the long-forgotten history of this remote possession. Mauritius will be the happy recipient of the Chagos Archipelago, which
A year has passed since the terrible events of 7 October 2023, but for Jews the pain of that day – when 1,200 were killed and 250 hostages snatched across Israel’s border into Gaza – remains vivid. Every call and every text on that dreadful Saturday morning brought awful news. Many of those murdered were
‘Could you write a piece,’ my colleague wondered aloud, ‘saying come back Jeremy Corbyn: all is forgiven?’ Ha ha ha, said I. No. We most certainly are not there yet. And it is hard to conceive of any sequence of events, up to and including an asteroid strike on SW1 or a Day of the
Another one bites the dust. Now Sue Gray has resigned from her top job as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, taking on an ‘advisory’ position while Labour campaign guru Morgan McSweeney moves into her role. The move follows weeks of bad briefings about Gray – from claims the Starmer staffer had ‘subverted’ Cabinet over
Back to Scotland, where the police probe into the SNP’s funds and finances continues to rumble on. Now it transpires that prosecutors are looking into findings that suggests a non-existent company was paid for refurbishment work carried out at SNP HQ. More than £100,000 was coughed up for work on a ‘media suite’ in the
Israel won’t rule out strikes against Iranian nuclear capabilities Iran launched missiles against Israel this week, and the world is waiting anxiously to see how Israel will respond. On the BBC this morning, Laura Kuenssberg asked Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely if Israel would rule out a strike against Iran’s nuclear capabilities, which President Biden opposes.
Keir Starmer has not yet reached the 100 day mark but already he has lost his Chief of Staff. This afternoon, Downing Street has confirmed that Sue Gray is leaving her No. 10 role. Instead, she will be taking on an ‘advisory’ role as the Prime Minister’s envoy for nations and regions. In a statement
Politicians’ popularity only tends to go in one direction: down. John Major entered office in 1990 with a net satisfaction rating of +15 and left it having lost 42 points. Tony Blair moved into Downing Street in 1997 with an approval rating of +60 points. When he handed over to Gordon Brown in 2007, he’d
You will be forgiven for not having heard of, let alone given much thought to, a raw material called gallium. So, to explain: it’s a by-product of the bauxite-to-aluminium smelting process, it’s used in semiconductors and it is vital for the latest missile defence and radar technologies. Israel’s Iron Dome and the US Patriot Missile
It’s just four days to go until the next round of voting for Tory leader. So, with the various candidates pulling out all the stops from now until Wednesday, Kemi Badenoch has today decided to unveil her latest star supporter. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has thrown his support behind the shadow housing secretary, just days
Independent schools are an asset to the education system and they have been singled out by Labour for a tax rise which has as much to do with pressing the right buttons for the party faithful as it does with raising revenue. But really, those schools could do with better PR. Whoever thought it a
Many were killed. Others hid in the fields, forests and basements, sometimes for days, before surrendering to the Ukrainian forces. Frightened, ill-equipped and with very little – if any – training, hundreds of Russian conscripts (prizyvniki) have been captured in the two months since Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region began. Yet another of the
A myth seems to be developing about the 1990s. In a recent programme on Disney Plus called In Vogue: The 90s, a series of talking heads rhapsodise about the decade. ‘God, the 90s just changed everything,’ oozes Hamish Bowles, a fashion journalist. ‘It was a great time to be alive, it really felt like a
Witnessing the recent imperial progress of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, it occurred to me how impossible it is to imagine her ever shedding her current incarnation as world-bestriding, bronze-thighed musical potentate. But of course, she will. The time will come when the hits will dry up and new sorts of eras will beckon: the ‘disappointing
It’s a well-known psychological phenomenon: that time seems to slow down if you experience lots of new and unusual events. For example, if you are travelling across Asia, a week can seem like a month, and a month like a year, as you encounter so many different landscapes, peoples, climates, languages, cities, and that deep-fried
Germany and Turkey have had a fair share of differences and tensions over the years. But their latest row – over kebabs – is in danger of turning nasty. Last April, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier decided to bring along a 60-kilogram döner kebab on his state visit to Turkey. It did not go down well.
The British government is preparing to lodge a formal complaint with Spain over Gibraltar. Spanish military aircraft have twice flown over the Rock in the past ten days: once on 27 September, reportedly while a commercial British Airways flight was taxiing on the local airport’s runway, and then again on 30 September. These flyovers (thought
When is the best time to hit the front of a Tory leadership contest? In the final chain of the final furlong after coming up unseen on the rails, obviously. As charismatic front-runners from Michael Heseltine to Michael Portillo have found out, Conservative leadership battles are brutal for the established heir apparent. There is something about
Michel Barnier was interviewed on prime time television on Thursday night and not once in his 45 minutes of conversation did he mention the name Emmanuel Macron. There was an indirect reference to the president of the Republic, when Barnier described himself as the ‘anti-Jupiter’ Prime Minister. ‘Jupiter’ was one of the nicknames bestowed on
For eight years, Melania Trump has done a brilliant job of keeping us all guessing. Is she, as gossips have long suggested, secretively estranged from her errant husband? Does she hate politics? Or is she, behind closed doors, the real force that drives the Trump family’s remorseless ambition? Nobody seems to know and that has
Will Labour actually gain some revenue for slapping VAT on school fees, or is it heading for fiscal embarrassment as so many private school pupils are decanted into the state sector that the taxpayer will suffer a net loss? The question has been batted around for months as everyone ponders a great unknowable: how many
One of the most popular sitcoms of the 1980s, Cheers, is set to return to our television screens. The show is set for a revamp, except now it will be uprooted from Boston and transposed to a pub in Britain. This is obviously a terrible idea, for a few logistical reasons – and for one
I met Daniel in a high-security prison, where I worked as a prison officer. He was just 21. We’d talked about him a lot before he arrived on the wing – we passed the security briefing on him back and forth, scrutinising his vacant mug shot and the endless red bullet points beneath it: Climber wouldn’t
Back to the Tory leadership contest which is gathering pace post-conference season. In a matter of days, MPs will cast their votes to leave just two contenders in the race, before the membership gets its say. But there is consternation about the final two among the Holyrood group – which only appointed a new leader
Germany has voted to oppose a proposal by the European Commission to introduce additional tariffs on electric cars imported from China. This was no surprise: in the days leading up to today’s meeting, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and other government officials in Berlin had made clear that they had instructed the country’s representative not to
Robin Garbutt is serving life in prison for murdering his wife, but is he innocent? His supporters say so. They insist that evidence from the Horizon IT system and the Post Office which helped convict him of the killing of Diana in 2010 was flawed. Garbutt, they claim, is another victim of the Post Office