All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
This morning marks a milestone – but it’s nothing to celebrate. Public sector net debt as a percentage of the economy has exceeded 100 per cent: a level not seen since the early 1960s. And there are no signs of course correction. The latest update from the Office for National Statistics shows, once again, that
Sir Keir Starmer will be hoping his first Labour conference as Prime Minister this weekend goes better than the last week has done. The PM’s top team is getting rather worried about a host of negative briefings about the government, with leaks including Starmer’s freebie problem and Sue Gray salary reports generating rather suboptimal press
The allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed are dreadful: the former Harrods owner has been accused of raping five women and sexually abusing at least 15 others when they worked at his department store. A BBC investigation, which detailed the allegations, claimed that this abuse took place from the late 1980s to the 2000s. The name
I am sure that the business secretary Jonathan Reynolds picked up many useful skills in his previous job in local government, but does he really know more about how to run a business than the people who run one of the world’s most successful companies? Apparently, yes. Asked on LBC where his comments about encouraging
The former boss of Sainsbury’s, Justin King, warned on the Today programme this morning that Rachel Reeves has damaged the economy through her constant warnings of tax rises to come in October’s budget, causing anxious shoppers to draw in their horns until the big day. But if shoppers really are holding off purchases for fear that
France can’t go on like this. The country, and its overseas territories, are in chaos. On Wednesday night two men in New Caledonia were shot dead by security forces after a confrontation on the Pacific Island. The insurgency began in May and shows no sign of abating with the rebels determined to gain their independence from
The European Court of Human Rights has thrown out a challenge by former cabinet minister Owen Paterson. The ex-Tory MP, accused of breaking lobby rules, took the government to court in a bid to have a 2021 parliamentary investigation into his conduct declared unfair. That Paterson went to the Strasbourg Court in the first place
If you want a surefire indication that a politician has ended up on the wrong side of public opinion, it’s when they start saying: ‘The public don’t really care about this stuff. They want us to focus on the issues that matter to them instead’. So far, this has been the response from the government
Few will mourn the demise of TGI Fridays, whose parent company collapsed into administration this week. The restaurant chain’s 87 branches in the UK have been put up for sale. Only a fool would think they could turn around TGIs’ fortunes. The truth is that the British obsession with American food, and specifically American diners,
This hasn’t been the easiest week for Hezbollah. It started with the terror organisation’s pagers mysteriously exploding, killing 37 people people (according to official reports) and injuring some 3,000 people, mostly members of the group. This has stunned Hezbollah – and the world. A day later, their walkie-talkies starting blowing up too. The attacks, which have been attributed to
The fleet of border control cutters responsible for patrolling our waters (and at times for dealing with irregular migrants on them) is showing its age and needs renewing. Unfortunately we now know that the exercise will cost £300 million rather than the original estimate of roughly £50 million, and will be delayed until at least 2030. Why
It’s a gaffe a day with David Lammy. Now the Foreign Secretary has come under fire after he hailed Azerbaijan for being able to ‘liberate’ territory – in an ongoing conflict widely viewed as an ethnic cleansing operation – in a recent Substack post. Lammy took to his blog to express his unsolicited musings about
Diane Abbott is on the warpath, and her target is Sir Keir Starmer. Earlier this week, the Labour MP hit out at the Prime Minister during an interview with BBC Newsnight, in which she slammed the Labour leader for his behaviour towards her during the Frank Hester racism row, describing how he treated her as,
Good heavens. Does no one teach journalistic etiquette these days? This afternoon James O’Brien caused a stir on social media after he delivered a rather bizarre handover on air about, er, one of his station’s own guests. Not long before O’Brien jumped behind the mic, Nigel Farage had joined LBC’s Nick Ferrari for a phone-in
Is it possible to change your class? Not just superficially – in moving up and down the hierarchy of social standing – but change it inwardly so that you transform your very sense of self? Conservative leadership contender Kemi Badenoch seems to think so. Speaking on Chopper’s Political Podcast this week, the shadow housing secretary
The Prime Minister has been generating scores of headlines lately – for all the wrong reasons. It has transpired this week that Sir Keir has accepted over £107,000 worth of gifts since 2019 – the most of any parliamentarian in the same period. Labour has insisted today that voters don’t care about all this carry
The Bank of England has held interest rates at 5 per cent. This was the expected outcome of the Monetary Policy Committee’s latest meeting, which saw members vote 8-1 to maintain the base rate. Was it a mistake not to cut rates? The latest economic data appears to have persuaded the MPC to lean into their
Oxford Street’s spiralling tawdriness is a miserable advert for London. The ‘candy’ stores and tourist tat ‘luggage’ emporiums, the gang fights and phone snatchers are an embarrassment: tourists who are told that London is the greatest city on earth must struggle to reconcile that promise with the reality of the city’s main shopping street. Oxford
While Labour’s dirty laundry over ‘frockgate‘ is being aired in public, it would be easy to forget there are still Tory leadership contests rumbling on in the background. The Scottish race will conclude at the end of the month, but the UK Conservative party leader will only be announced in November – a decision that
Dear oh dear. Things are only getting worse for Sir Keir, as it now transpires that the Prime Minister accepted £40,000 in hospitality gifts, a £4 million donation from a Cayman Islands-registered hedge fund, and regular use of an £18 million penthouse owned by top donor Lord Alli. Alright for some, eh? It’s been a
As hundreds of prisoners are released early on to the streets of Britain, it’s vital that the authorities keep track of these criminals. Worryingly, this doesn’t seem to be happening: several recently released prisoners who have been out of jail for two to six weeks told me they have still not been tagged. It’s anyone’s
‘The wise bustle and laugh as they walk, but fools bustle and are important,’ wrote F.L. Lucas a century ago. ‘And this, probably is all the difference between them.’ The government and the British Medical Association, who yesterday announced that henceforth junior doctors will be called ‘resident doctors’, are bustling and self-important fools. I was
Seven hundred and twenty-six plaster face casts of transsexual, non-binary or gender non-conforming people were unveiled yesterday in London’s Trafalgar Square. Mil Veces un Instante (A thousand times an Instant) by Mexican artist, Teresa Margolles, sits proudly upon the Fourth Plinth around Nelson’s Column. The casts are arranged in the form of a Tzompantli, or
Diane Abbott believes that Giorgia Meloni is a ‘literal fascist’. That must come as a surprise to the 12.3 million voters who elected her prime minister of Italy two years ago. Not to mention King Charles, who hosted Meloni at Blenheim Palace in July. The Right Honourable Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington described
As we mark 10 years on from Scotland’s independence referendum, the entire political ecosystem in Scotland is engaged in attempts to define, or redefine, the narrative of that time. Those on my side of the independence argument remember a campaign of energy, optimism and positivity that is simply unmatched. It’s also the case that, for many on the
We are a day short of Sir Keir Starmer marking 11 weeks as prime minister. His first 76 days have not been easy ones, and it is striking how often they have been dogged by relatively minor stories which have nonetheless contrived to make the new occupant of Downing Street look out of touch, high-handed
Another day, another story about Sue Gray. Today the BBC reports the details of Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff’s salary. Gray is paid the handsome sum of £170,000 a year – £3,000 more than her boss, the prime minister. She therefore earns more than any cabinet minister or Tory predecessor in the role. In
If you really want to annoy a Scottish nationalist, tell them the 2014 Scottish independence referendum had a lot in common with Brexit. Well, what was the battle cry in both cases? It was ‘take back control’. For all its internationalist rhetoric, the Yes campaign was – is – a campaign to erect borders against a
To Westminster, where more trouble is afoot. It now transpires the Prime Minister is paid less than, er, his own chief of staff. Sue Gray has once again made headlines after the Beeb revealed the former top civil servant has been given a salary of a whopping £170,000 – which is £3,000 more than the