All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Journalists at LeMan are in fear for their lives after the Turkish satirical magazine published cartoons appearing to depict the Prophet Muhammad. The publication’s editor-in-chief Tuncay Akgun denied that the picture showed Muhammad, but his pleas have fallen on deaf ears. A mob gathered outside the magazine’s office in Istanbul on Monday. In the days
Social media can still be a force for good, as I found out last weekend when we woke up with an unexpected visitor in our garden: a beautiful white, crested chicken. In the old days, reuniting lost animals with their owners could be a tricky task, involving phone calls to the RSPCA and local authorities,
A Myanmar military jet continued to fly sorties just over our hidden frontline hospital. Every time it screamed low over the tree line, the entire clinic would crouch down and pray that this wouldn’t be the strike that hit us. These hospitals are prime targets; the military has no qualms about bombing groups of wounded
In this week’s cover story, I revealed details of a memo written by Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff, written in May last year, before the general election, which predicted exactly how Labour would struggle in power, because of its historical tendency to want to ‘change the world’, rather than focusing on re-election
Vladimir Putin launched one of the largest air assaults of the war overnight, just hours after admitting to Donald Trump that Russia would not abandon its war aims in Ukraine. Some 550 missiles and drones were fired over more than 11 hours, most targeting Kyiv. Residents who endured another sleepless night were advised to keep
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In this episode of Americano, Freddy Gray speaks with New York Times writer and debut author Michael Grynbaum about his new book Empire of the Elite, a sweeping history of Condé Nast – the media empire that once dictated American taste, fashion, and celebrity. From Anna Wintour’s carefully staged exit to the vanished world of
If at first you don’t succeed; deny, deflect, attack. This is apparently the mantra of Sadiq Khan and his Transport for London (TfL) Commissioner, Andy Lord. This week both men hit out at volunteers like me and my friends at the Looking for Growth (LfG) movement, who in recent weeks have taken it upon ourselves
It’s been a tumultuous first year for Sir Keir Starmer, and with backbenchers and opposition politicians alike becoming far more vocal, where better to take the temperature of Westminster then at The Spectator’s annual summer party? The party, always in early July, is typically a scene of political drama: it comes just days after Labour’s latest U-turn
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Some sore heads on Coffee House Shots this morning, after last night’s Spectator summer party. But while we were having fun, a drama was brewing in the Labour party after it was finally confirmed that Jeremy Corbyn is starting a new left-wing party… or is he? The news was broken last night by another MP:
Mr Steerpike is a fan of Accidental Partridge moments, and this one was back of the net. Lefty actor Steve Coogan popped up on BBC Breakfast this morning to talk up his appearance at this weekend’s Co-op congress in Rochdale. Amid swipes at the government and big business, the comedian was becoming visibly exasperated by presenters Charlie
Ukraine has survived more than three years of Vladimir Putin’s war because of massive western arms supplies, an appreciation and exploitation of Russian military weaknesses, audacious special forces missions and an extraordinarily successful development of home-grown drones. All these ingredients have helped Kyiv hold off the Russian forces, saved Volodymyr Zelensky from having to capitulate
After months of discussion, it has finally been confirmed that Jeremy Corbyn is starting a new left-wing party. The news was broken last night by another MP: Zarah Sultana, a longtime admirer of Corbyn. Elected as a Labour MP in 2019, she lost the whip last July for voting to lift the two-child-benefit cap. This
On 1 August 2022, bleary-eyed England women football players danced around central London with the word ‘Home’ emblazoned across their t-shirts. They were celebrating being crowned European champions, becoming the first senior English team to win a major tournament since 1966. They had brought football home. Now the game is back: on Wednesday, Euro 2025
There could be no more deliciously appropriate start to the new party supposedly co-led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, than the news that the ex-Labour leader is said to be ‘furious and bewildered’ that it was launched without him even knowing that he is a member of the party, let alone that he is
Support for Nigel Farage’s Reform party is surging in the UK, and it appears the group is making waves across the pond too. As reported by the Telegraph, US Vice-President JD Vance is getting interested in Farage’s outfit, even quizzing UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson about the rise of Reform. It’s one sign
Labour has reacted with scorn to the news that Zarah Sultana has resigned from the party to create a new movement with Jeremy Corbyn. It’s reported that the MP for Coventry South, who has sat as an independent since July 2024, is still discussing the details of the new party with Corbyn – who is
The Home Office opened Britain’s doors to record numbers of migrants without properly assessing the risks or consequences, according to a damning new report from parliament’s Public Accounts Committee. The report, released overnight, finds that the department ‘made changes to the Skilled Worker Visa route without a full assessment of the risks or potential impacts,
When Suella Braverman wrote in April 2023 that ‘the perpetrators [of group-based child sexual exploitation] are groups of men, almost all British-Pakistani,’ the then-Home Secretary was roundly condemned. ‘Hacked Off’, a lobby group which seeks to tighten regulation of the press, said her article in the Mail on Sunday was part of a ‘toxic libel’. Guardian columnist Owen Jones went
Tenzin Gyatso, otherwise known as His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, will celebrate his 90th birthday on Sunday. Despite once predicting he would live to 110, the Dalai Lama has perhaps prudently decided that the time is right to discuss his succession. He will host a conference of Lamas and
The Chancellor Rachel Reeves was in far better form when she appeared again in public alongside the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer yesterday. The tears have been wiped away and she has a smile, even if a slightly forced one, back on her face. The reason is not hard to work out. She has started
Yesterday, Wes Streeting and Keir Starmer announced a ten-year plan to save the NHS. ‘There are moments in our national story when our choices define who are,’ Streeting explained. ‘Unless the NHS changes, the argument that it is unsustainable will grow more compelling. It really is change or bust. We choose change.’ One wonders whether
In his book Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids, economist Bryan Caplan notes that, due to modern conveniences and our better quality of life, parenting should be easier than ever. Plus, in theory, as society grows richer, people should have more children. Instead, we have fewer, and parenting seems harder than ever. Why is this? Caplan
Almost 16 years after they last performed live, Oasis kick off their reunion tour tonight and for every ‘mad for it’ fan, there’s someone else who thinks they’re a musical atrocity. The critics say they rip off other artists. There’s not much to debate about this. The intro of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’
If we want to understand why thousands of women a year in England and Wales have an abortion – 251,377 in 2022, so probably way more now – we could do worse than consider the musings of the singer Lily Allen on the subject. In a podcast chat with her friend Miquita, this took a
Birth rates are tumbling across the world. This isn’t just a tragedy for the growing number of women who have fewer children than they want; below-replacement fertility rates mean that each generation will be smaller than the one before. This could lead to a permanent spiral of decline where the old always outnumber the young.
Given we have known for a good while that Labour thinks the way to save the health service is to move care out of hospitals and into the community, you might have expected today’s NHS ten-year plan to explain how the government is going to do that. The preventive agenda is not a new idea that needs
Diogo Jota’s death at the age of 28 is unbearably tragic and has prompted an outpouring of grief in the football world and beyond. The Liverpool forward lost his life in the early hours of this morning when his Lamborghini careered off a road in Spain and caught fire. Jota had married his childhood sweetheart,
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Today Wes Streeting – with the help of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves – announced his 10 year plan for curing the NHS. It’s all about creating a ‘Neighbourhood Health Service’, but what does actually mean in practice? Much of the plan was leaked in advance: first, focusing on preventing disease before it becomes too
When the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer gave his full backing to his Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the brief panic in the markets following her tearful performance in the House of Commons subsided. Gilt yields stopped rising, the pound clawed back some lost ground, and the markets recovered their nerve. It was easy to spin that
Labour’s decision to launch its 10-year health plan at the Sir Ludwig Guttmann centre in Stratford this morning made sense as a bid to exemplify the unit’s multi-service approach. On health grounds, however, there seemed a real chance the presser might push up NHS waiting lists as spectators fought to remain conscious in the suffocating
The headlines wrote themselves. ‘Go woke, go broke!’ said the Daily Mail, and ‘Sales Plummet’, said the Sun. Only a few months after its controversial rebrand, with the launch of a bright pink ‘Barbie-mobile’, we learned today that Jaguar’s sales are down by 97.5 per cent across Europe. In reality, the story is a little
After a day of drama in Westminster, an intriguing party was hosted in the City. The Prosperity Institute, formerly Legatum, is not one of the more venerable think tanks, like the Fabians or the IEA. But the attendant crowd – a mix of centre-right wonks, spinners, thinkers and politicians – was a testament to the
The scenes of a tearful Rachel Reeves are all anyone is likely to remember from yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions. The Chancellor wept openly, her expression distraught; it was difficult to watch. The death of Princess Diana and the extraordinary outpourings of public grief that followed marked the end of stiff-upper-lip Britain. Vestiges remain, however, and