All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Back in 2023, when Joe Biden was President of the United States, there was something of a drugs scandal in the White House, when the Secret Service found a gram of cocaine in the West Wing. An investigation was launched, but while Secret Service officials trawled through their security systems and indexed ‘several hundred’ people
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Freddy is joined by The Spectator World’s deputy US editor, Kate Andrews, and The Telegraph columnist, Tim Stanley, to talk about Keir Starmer’s much-anticipated meeting with Donald Trump in Washington. Across the board, it has been read as a success – at least domestically, that is. The victories include movement on the Ukraine backstop, some positive discussions around
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Unbelievably, Keir Starmer arrives back from Washington today after a successful meeting with Donald Trump. In fact, it’s hard to see how it could have gone much better. Top of the list of victories: it looks like some headway was made in avoiding tariffs on the UK and, on Ukraine, the pair discussed the prime
On Thursday, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) called on his organisation to lay down their arms and dissolve themselves. If they comply, this would put an end to a decades-long conflict with the Turkish state that has claimed the lives of over 40,000 people. The statement was delivered in a crowded
By most accounts, Keir Starmer seems to have done a good job keeping Donald Trump on side when the two men met at the White House yesterday. Starmer offered his counterpart a second state visit to the UK, with a handwritten invitation from the King, while the Donald suggested that Britain may well escape the
Those whose mouths have been left hanging open by Donald Trump’s pivot towards Russia in the past fortnight, and the ruthlessness with which the Ukrainians (and Europe) have been thrust off the stage, haven’t been paying attention. The love-in between the two leaders has been going on now for a decade. It started properly in
It was to a packed-out auditorium that Nigel Farage announced his party’s mayoral candidate for Hull and East Yorkshire on Thursday night. Reform pulled out all the stops for its reveal of former Olympic boxer and gold medallist Luke Campbell, from sparkler firework lights to a mocked-up boxing ring. ‘The set up is immense,’ one
The BBC’s admission of serious editorial failures in its documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone is not just a scandal – it is a moment of reckoning. This is, without doubt, one of the most humiliating debacles in the corporation’s modern history, and it vindicates those who have long highlighted the BBC’s institutional biases when reporting on
Keir Starmer did almost everything right. He headed for lunch with the President, leaving the British Embassy’s Jaguars and Land Rovers in the garage. Instead, he relied on a made-in-America (probably) Chevy Suburban, presumably part of the Secret Service’s fleet of bullet-proof gas guzzlers. That might take Trump’s mind off the fact that the UK
It’s not just in Britain that defence spending is top of the agenda. In Germany, too, the debate has turned to how the government can resurrect the country’s hollowed-out armed forces. Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU and the man pipped to become the next chancellor, is driving the discussion. But unlike the grudgingly positive
In a wide-ranging conversation at the White House yesterday evening, Donald Trump was in the mood to talk about everything under the Sun.
The John Smyth affair in the Church of England has already claimed the scalp of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and may yet engulf Stephen Cottrell in York. Earlier this week, it became clear that its reverberations will go much further. The Church has applied to arraign ten other clergy, including an ex-Bishop of Durham, under the
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which threatens the huge gains made in education over the last 15 years, is moving swiftly through Parliament. If it passes, the impact on our children, especially our most vulnerable, will be seismic. Yet this Bill is slipping by largely unnoticed. Labour’s huge majority gives it untrammelled power. But it
When Keir Starmer greeted President Trump on his visit to Washington, he held a piece of paper in his hand that would have been rather welcome for The Donald. It was nothing less than a formal invitation from King Charles for the second-term president to conduct a second state visit to Britain, and it would
Keir Starmer could not have dreamed of a better press conference with Donald Trump. Much of its success was not down to luck, either: the Prime Minister has meticulously prepared for these talks both in terms of substance and (very important) superficialities such as flattering the President. But instead of appearing to be a sycophant
Donald Trump was in a jocular mood as he met with Keir Starmer, barely allowing the Prime Minister to get in a word in edgeways during their joint appearance in the Oval Office. ‘Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that,’ he mused after a reporter queried whether he continued to regard Volodymyr
The Beeb is better at becoming the news than making it these days. The last fortnight has seen the corporation come under fire after a rather controversial Gaza documentary – whose child narrator was, er, the son of a Hamas minister – was first released and then pulled from streaming services. Now Steerpike has had
As Prime Minister Keir Starmer is making headlines stateside after his big talk with Donald Trump, Nigel Farage is busy making news of his own. The Reform UK leader has tonight announced that Olympic boxer Luke Campbell will be the party’s candidate to become the first elected mayor for Hull and East Yorkshire. ‘He’s a
The Trump charm offensive has begun. Keir Starmer has met with Donald Trump in the Oval Office as his first White House visit gets underway. What was initially billed as a short welcome before officially talks turned into a 30-minute question and answer session with the travelling press pack. It made for a wide-ranging discussion
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Robert Bryce, an energy expert and author of The Question of Power, discusses the state of global energy, electric vehicles, and government policies both in the UK and America. Freddy and Robert look at how government subsidies and mandates have driven automakers toward unprofitable EV production, what is energy humanism, and how foreign interference has
Donald Trump’s AI-generated vision of Gaza – complete with golden statues of himself, bearded belly dancers, and a triumphant song declaring, ‘Trump Gaza, number one!’ – landed like a slap across the face of polite Western discourse. The reactions were swift and predictable. Outraged commentators called it tasteless, delusional, the fever dream of a man obsessed
It’s allocation day for junior doctor jobs. Soon-to-be medical graduates across the UK find out what deanery they will work in upon finishing university. While it should be an exciting time for Britain’s future medics, recent changes to the system have sparked outrage as students hoping to work close to friends and family find out
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Keir Starmer is in D.C. for what will probably be one of the most important bilateral meetings of his premiership. The goal is to charm Trump and secure some guarantees for Ukraine’s security after a negotiated peace in the war. Can he succeed? Cindy Yu talks to James Heale and Peter Quentin, Rusi Associate Fellow
Keir Starmer seemed on unusually good form as he arrived in Washington last night. He cracked quite a good joke about the United Kingdom’s new ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a charismatic statesman lurking behind the Prime Minister’s dreary exterior. We shall see. At any rate, assuming no bizarre media blow
To the curious case of Mike Amesbury. The former Labour politician for Runcorn and Helsby was on Monday handed a 10-week prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to punching a man in the street. But after appealing the sentence at Chester Crown Court today, Amesbury will now avoid prison. During the ex-Labour man’s appeal hearing
Keir Stamer has landed in Washington, where he joins the succession of European leaders lining up to convince the President of the United States that he’s got it wrong on Ukraine. But will the Prime Minister be convincing? Starmer and Donald Trump will meet today at the White House, arriving just after 1pm EST (5pm
The number of young people not doing anything with their lives has hit its highest level in 11 years. Figures released this morning by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training – so-called NEETs – show that the number has reached just under one million in
Every time the Palestinians rebuff a peace proposal, commentators reach for an observation by the Israeli diplomat Abba Eban: ‘The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.’ It’s pithy, and depressingly accurate, but I’ve always been more struck by another Eban aphorism: ‘Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other
The real winners of Germany’s election are sitting in Moscow. Despite Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) technically claiming victory with a meagre 28 per cent showing, the truly remarkable surge belongs to the openly pro-Russian forces that now dominate the political landscape. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the far-left party Die Linke (successor
With Reform surging in the polls, no one in No. 10 wants a by-election anytime soon. But thanks to ‘Iron’ Mike Amesbury, such a contest now looms in Runcorn and Helsby. The ex-Labour MP was sentenced on Monday to ten weeks in prison, triggering a recall petition. Already Nigel Farage’s ‘People’s army’ is up in
It’s a day ending in a ‘y’ which can only mean one thing – noted geopolitics expert Gary Lineker inflicting his opinions on the Middle East on the rest of us. Gary’s latest dip into the Arab-Israeli conflict comes after the BBC was forced to pull its documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, from iPlayer