Stephen Daisley

Scotland could pioneer a scheme to cut drug deaths by allowing users to consume narcotics under supervision and with medical assistance on hand. The establishment of overdose prevention centres (OPCs) is proposed in a consultation launched yesterday by Labour MSP Paul Sweeney, who believes his Bill will ‘implement changes that will save lives’. Sweeney, a

Scott Morrison’s Liberals were absolutely thrashed in the Australian elections this weekend. The party’s vote collapsed, and there were big-name defeats, with the man touted as Morrison’s successor – Josh Frydenberg – ousted in Kooyong, a suburb which had been in the party’s hands for 121 years. Whatever went wrong for the Morrison government, Saturday’s

Robert Peston, the fiercely well-connected political editor of ITV News and a contributor to Coffee House, reports ‘a sense of injustice and considerable upset’ in Downing Street that ‘the 126 Partygate fines have been levied disproportionately on women and junior officials’. Robert quotes a source who complains that ‘the majority’ of those fined are ‘very

Tory MP Lee Anderson has been having quite a week. It began with his declaration in the Commons that there was no ‘massive use for food banks in this country’ and that the problem was ‘generation after generation who cannot cook properly’ and who ‘cannot budget’. This earned him a few front pages and a

Who says the Tories don’t understand the cost-of-living crisis? So far obliviousness to the desperate circumstances of low-income (and not so low-income) families has been in evidence on the posho wing of the Conservative party. There was Rishi Sunak who said it would be ‘silly’ to provide more help with energy bills right now and

Billionaire edgelord Elon Musk has just given progressives another reason to dread his ongoing attempt to buy Twitter. The founder of Tesla and SpaceX has confirmed that, should he succeed in acquiring the social media site, he would rescind the ban on Donald Trump’s account. Musk told the FT’s Future of the Car conference he

Sir Keir Starmer has spent the past 24 hours in the witness protection programme. After the Mail on Sunday published an itinerary of the now infamous visit to Durham, complete with a gathering for beer and curry, the Labour leader’s version of events appears to be in doubt. This afternoon he was a no-show at

When we talk about ‘under-served communities’, we typically think in terms of an absent or neglectful state. Yet one of the most under-served groups of all is one for whom the state is never absent: prisoners. Justice secretary Dominic Raab is in the headlines after he sent prison and probation staff a style guide instructing

Devolution has failed in Scotland. Nothing that follows will be of use to you if you remain in denial of this fact.  Facing up to a quarter-century of needless, self-inflicted constitutional harm is the admission price to any credible conversation about how to go about fixing the problem. Devolution, sold with the assurance that ‘the

Is the Prime Minister’s plan to divert some asylum seekers to Rwanda racist? Is it inhumane? Is it a dead cat to distract from his fixed-penalty notice for breaching Covid rules? These are the questions fixating the political-media-activist class today and while they are not necessarily unimportant, they neglect a question that might be of

If Boris Johnson has a superpower, it is the ability to make others pay the price for his wrongdoing. Today the whipping boy is Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, though it must be said Ross walked clear-eyed into the path of the scourge. That’s another of the Prime Minister’s skills: he can convince people that

Boris Johnson’s visit to Kyiv is notable not only for its unannounced nature but for the additional package of support for Ukraine it has heralded. The Prime Minister pledged 120 armoured vehicles, new anti-ship missile technology, and a further £385 million in World Bank lending. The government will also permit tariff-free imports of Ukrainian goods

Why is there so much anger over the sale of Channel 4? Tonnes of slebs are very cross and have signed a petition. But there’s no guarantee it will actually happen now that some Tory backbenchers have expressed their misgivings. If I were a Tory and cared at all about this issue — which, to be

Today marks 40 years since Operation Rosario, when Leopoldo Galtieri’s commandos landed on the Falkland Islands and began an invasion that prompted the Falklands War. The Guardian has commemorated the occasion with an unapologetic op-ed by the Argentinian government swearing itself to reasserting control over the islands. Foreign minister Santiago Cafiero, author of the op-ed, declares that ‘the recovery