All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
As with so many of the aphorisms and witticisms attributed to Winston Churchill, it is impossible to verify whether the greatest Briton actually ever said that ‘Americans can always be trusted to the right thing, once all the other possibilities have been exhausted’. But that expression immediately came to my mind when reading J. D. Vance’s UnHerd interview – and over
It’s quite something when the Chinese Ministry of Defence is more transparent than its British equivalent. Despite the Prime Minister on assuming office promising ‘transparency in everything we do’, a flying visit to Beijing last Wednesday by the UK chief of defence staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, only emerged via a Times scoop a day later. Official silence from an
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As Donald Trump’s policies on tariffs keep shifting, leaving countries scrambling to react, there has been some good news for Keir Starmer and the Labour government. Speaking to UnHerd, the US vice-president J.D. Vance spoke up the UK’s chances of securing a trade deal. While this would be a win for Starmer, questions remain over the
Just what is it with the Department for Transport and phones? Back in November, Louise Haigh was forced to quit as Secretary of State after allegations about missing mobiles came to light. Then, last week, the Rail Minister Peter Hendy was revealed to have texted while, er, driving a Routemaster bus at rush hour. And
In truth, there was little that was new in Nigel Farage’s speech today. For more than a decade, he has positioned himself as commander of the ‘people’s army’, fearlessly ‘parking our tanks on Labour’s lawn.’ First, it was Ukip, then it was the Brexit party. Now, his chosen vehicle to crush the establishment is Reform.
Most writers – like the vast majority of actors, artists and other luminaries of our culture – belong to the political left, but the death aged 89 of the great Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa reminds us that this is not always the case. Most unusually for a Latin American author, Vargas Llosa, who won
There was great excitement at the end of last year when it was reported that Reform UK was considering launching its own youth wing. For generations, pimple-faced politicos have offered a rich seam of stories for the press. Whether it is drunken Tory boys at Port and Policy night or NUS apparatchiks decrying Israel, the
The threat by the Chinese company Jingye to close down Britain’s last two blast furnaces, in spite of the offer of help from the government, is yet more reminder of the perils of doing business with a potentially hostile state. Whatever the motives for Chinese companies to get involved in the running of critical UK
Being vice president of the United States is a strange role. John Nance Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s understudy for his first two terms, dismissed the office as ‘not worth a bucket of warm piss’, but it was the first incumbent, John Adams, who put his finger on its one transcendent quality. ‘I am vice president. In
Reports of rats in Birmingham that are ‘bigger than cats’ are now making international headlines. The New York Times, NBC News and CNN have all weighed in on the city’s rodent problem, as the strike action by bin workers rolls on. Rat panic seems to be setting in. An MP said the rodents are ‘dancing
Donald Trump loves Britain and loves the King; therefore we can expect a trade deal. That is the gist of J.D. Vance’s interview with UnHerd. Whether that means anything in practice is another matter. Evidently, the President’s love and affection was not enough to spare us from a 10 per cent tariff on exports to
The Labour government has a British Steel-sized problem that doesn’t look to be going away anytime soon. Sir Keir Starmer’s army took control of the production plant on Saturday after parliament was recalled in a rare move. Legislation was pushed through both houses to prevent the closure of the UK’s only virgin steel producer after
If there has been one constant in Hashem Abedi’s miserable life it has been the determined failure of the British state to protect its citizens from men like him. Abedi is accused of inflicting ‘life-threatening injuries’ on three prison officers in an attack at HMP Frankland on Saturday. Injuries are said to include ‘burns, scalds and stab
There’s two weeks left before Canada’s federal election, and we’re dying over here. Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney seems more and more likely to walk away with the top job, while Poilievre is busy bowing and scraping before the sacred cows of the left. This week, Poilievre decided, for some reason, to pledge
A recession now looks even more certain for the United States than it does for the UK. Output has flattened. The chaotic implementation of Donald Trump’s tariff regime has left businesses bewildered. And consumers will soon be facing huge price rises. Of course, the States might well emerge in better shape at the end of
These are jittery times in Zhongzheng, Taiwan’s Westminster. The island’s most important supporter, the United States, is now led by a man who resents, rather than is grateful for, the island’s enormous high-tech exports to the US. A few commentators wonder out loud whether Taiwan has become too economically dependent on America. There’s another large
Next year, the people of Wales will elect their seventh national parliament. For the first time in a quarter of a century of devolved governance, its implications will be felt way beyond Offa’s Dyke. Westminster should be taking notice of the potentially seismic political developments at play, which look set to smash the established political
Much of the commentary on the local elections has focused thus far on the Tories’ southern discontent. But today, Nigel Farage will turn his guns on the north of England, as he seeks to position his party as the real challenger to Labour across swathes of the so-called Red Wall. Key voters in these northern
Much to the concern of the Bank of England, British workers are continuing to bank inflation-busting pay rises. Figures just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that over the three months to February, the average worker received a pay increase of 5.6 per cent. Remove inflation and that works out as a 2.8 per
Irregular border crossings into the European Union dropped by 31 per cent in the first quarter of 2025 to 33,600. The figures, released by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, appear to show that the EU is getting a grip on illegal immigration. The gangs in charge of the people-smuggling trade are becoming
The NHS has survived many Conservative governments which, according to their opponents, were out to privatise it. But can it survive a growing disenchantment on the part of young professionals who are turned off by the idea of having to queue for healthcare? According to the Independent Healthcare Provider Network (IHPN) – admittedly not an
Over the weekend, the US and Iran held opening talks in Oman on Teheran’s nuclear programme. With the first round concluded, the Iranian regime’s position on the negotiations is becoming clearer. The Islamic regime, which prides itself on its strategic patience, intends to buy time, while avoiding any major and irreversible concessions. Whether Donald Trump’s administration will
The slow death of ITV makes for painful viewing. In its glory days of the 1980s and 1990s, the channel had a salty naughtiness, a thrilling random quality. Its kids’ shows were raucous or even scary, its crime dramas were raunchy, its quizzes and games were sparkly and crass and its highbrow offerings were spicy.
Even for our broken prison service it’s been a terrible few days. On Saturday the jihadi terrorist Hashem Abedi used boiling oil and ‘homemade weapons’ in an assault at HMP Frankland which hospitalised three prison officers, the Prison Officers’ Association has said. Given the severity of the injuries, with one man suffering a severed artery
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Panic has subsided over the British Steel crisis as Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, while visiting the site in Scunthorpe, confirmed that the raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running have been secured. While questions remain over the long-term future of the site, the Government are quite confident in their handling of the crisis
Ray Bradbury, the great science fiction author, had this to say about space exploration: ‘Space travel is life-enhancing, and anything that’s life-enhancing is worth doing. It makes you want to live forever.’ I’d hazard a guess that Bradbury might want to think again if he’d lived to witness what must surely go down in history –
The much-vaunted German Leopard 2 tank – 18 of which were sent to Ukraine in 2023 after prolonged national debates and foot-dragging by the outgoing Olaf Scholz government – is reportedly proving a flop on the battlefield. According to a confidential assessment by Germany’s own defence ministry, and published by the Daily Telegraph, the Leopards
It is a tough life these days being a member of the Welsh Conservatives. The party lost every Westminster seat in July and now have barely a hundred councillors across the country. In December, the fractious parliamentary party voted by nine votes to seven to retain leader Andrew RT Davies; he quit regardless, prompting his
From today, ‘Stop Brexit Man’ is free. This character, whose real name is Steve Bray, the long-standing bane of broadcasters, politicians and pedestrians on account of his persistent and clamorous pro-EU protests, has been cleared of flouting a police ban after playing anti-Conservative and anti-Brexit songs outside Parliament. Bray was apprehended after blaring loud music
The cost of living crisis continues to afflict Brits across the country – but it would appear that Scottish government ministers aren’t having such a bad time of it. In fact SNP ministers will see their pay packets boosted by a whopping £20,000 after First Minister John Swinney’s government ended a voluntary pay freeze on
There’s a lot to digest in the new Crime and Justice Commission report, which came out today. Its proposals include, for example, a legal ban on access to social media for under-16s and a universal digital ID card system. But the most eye-catching idea in the Times-sponsored report is that for those outside the most serious
Three years ago, the Horniman Museum agreed to return 72 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. The museum’s chair hailed the decision as ‘moral and appropriate’. Curators were promised that they were handing those artefacts over to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, a government agency tasked with preserving the country’s heritage. But where are the
‘Join the Army and see the world’ used to be the War Office’s boast. In those inter-war years it meant Egypt, Malta, Jamaica and Hong Kong, but for a lucky few recipients of the King’s shilling their next deployment will be to organise rubbish collections in Birmingham. The government has announced that a ‘small number
I’m not usually one to hold back from damning the woke and progressive forces which lie within my alma mater, the University of Cambridge. An initiative by the geography department to decolonise the study of icebergs in the Canadian north was the final straw. But there is one conservative cause that I won’t be putting