Labour MPs ought to have been jubilant when they gathered for their weekly all-party parliamentary meeting on Monday. Most were still riding high after their party won a landslide majority. Yet there was a frisson of unease as some of the new flock took the opportunity to raise a grievance: the two-child benefit cap. ‘It’s
I detected a degree of surprise among those people who were uncommonly cheered by Sir Keir Starmer’s election victory that England failed to beat Spain in the final of the European Championship. That wasn’t in the script. For those Labour supporters in the press and floating in the shallow trough of luvviedom, an England victory
There’s no shortage of people who have spent recent years comparing Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler. Among other places, the comparison has been made on magazine covers from America to Germany. Neither is it uncommon for people to say that Trump is planning to usher in an authoritarian state and is a Nazi, neo-Nazi or
Believe it or not, I planned to write the gist of this column before Saturday night. However, a caveat. Unlike the newly christened Republican VP pick, J.D. Vance, I don’t directly blame hyperventilating Democratic rhetoric for last weekend’s attempt on Trump’s life. Responsibility rests with the would-be assassin. Nevertheless, the party’s off-the-charts argumentation has rankled
Last week at the Buxton International Festival I joined a big audience for an onstage interview with Anna Reid. She’s a writer who specialises in Eastern European history, was once the Economist magazine’s correspondent in Ukraine, and made her name with a brilliant book, Borderland, which was both a portrait, a history and an appreciation
There is a small section of the Labour party which I greatly admire – those on the party’s right, often from working-class backgrounds, who unrelentingly fight the party’s left without being crypto-Tories. They are more effective than the Conservative right, being more disciplined and less voluble. For decades, they have taken on the Bennite/Corbynite/Islamist/woke tendency
Market reactions to the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania represent, according to taste, rational bets on the significantly increased likelihood of a second Trump presidency or stark confirmation of the madness that has overtaken America and threatens the civilised world. Shares in Trump Media & Technology – the parent of his social media platform Truth Social
