All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
For the first time since its first race in 1903, the Tour de France didn’t finish in Paris this year. The world’s best cyclists, Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, were banished to the south coast after a gruelling three-week race, received by a small crowd as they struggled into the Place Masséna in Nice. Their
All the world’s a stage and the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Paris today is the greatest stage so far for the comedian president. Emmanuel Macron has declared a political truce amidst the political nervous breakdown of France, so that his show may go on. The spectacle starts at 6.30pm (7.30pm local time in Paris). It will culminate in Macron
Reform has managed to get 5 MPs elected, take 14 per cent of the vote share and outdo any other UK political party on campaign video views on Twitter – but it’s not all looking rosy for Nigel Farage right now. Before Farage decided he was going to stand in the election, Reform UK selected
The UK climate is getting ever more extreme. We know this because the BBC keeps telling us so, most recently in today’s reporting of the annual Met Office/Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) State of the Climate Report for 2023. ‘Climate change is dramatically increasing the frequency of extreme high temperatures in the UK,’ writes climate editor
A video of an armed police officer kicking and stamping on a man’s head has plunged Greater Manchester Police (GMP), the country’s second largest force, into crisis. The incident at Manchester Airport on Tuesday night has led to widespread condemnation. Protestors have gathered outside Rochdale police station, with some in the crowd chanting: ‘GMP shame
The Tory leadership battle is now underway with the traditional first act: to identify a frontrunner and start blowing poison darts. Kemi Badenoch is the frontrunner and famously combative. She’s in her early 40s. So it must stand to reason that she’d have let off steam in a chatroom somewhere, surely? This is where it
These days when it rains for the Tories, it pours. Now it transpires that more voters under the age of 30 backed Nigel Farage’s Reform UK than the Conservatives this election – with experts convinced that recent years of economic instability is pushing younger voters away from the two largest parties. How curious… Over 35,000
It doesn’t buy anything anymore. It is not enough to put into a charity box, and it just takes up space in your pocket or a purse. On one level, it will save us all a lot of trouble when one penny and two penny coins finally become extinct. The Treasury has told the Royal
A few weeks after Keir Starmer’s landslide, it may not seem like Britain is a conservative country. The left has won an enormous victory and started to push forward on its agenda. Policies are being announced: today Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, says the government will start building offshore wind turbines. But, as Labour settles
Robert Jenrick will soon submit his nomination papers to the 1922 chairman for the Tory leadership contest. When he does so, this will make him the first candidate to reach the required number of nominations – ten in total, including a proposer and seconded. Speaking this morning, Jenrick’s campaign manager Danny Kruger made clear that
Nominations are now open for candidates to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader. To qualify for the first round of voting in September, each candidate will require a proposer, seconder and eight further nominations. This means that a maximum of 11 candidates are possible. Two candidates – James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat – have formally
As Conservative MPs start to declare their candidacy for the Tory leadership race, north of the border conversations are heating up about who the next Scottish group leader will be. As Mr S wrote on Monday, so far the first official contender is justice spokesperson Russell Findlay – who announced his bid by penning a
We shouldn’t be surprised by Tom Tugendhat saying he is willing to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and then his subsequent failure to back up that claim in a wishy-washy radio interview. There is, after all, a long tradition in the Conservative party of ambitious centrist politicians pretending to believe in right-wing
Tom Tugendhat last night became the second Tory candidate to declare in the Conservative leadership contest. Just like his former Home Office colleague James Cleverly, he chose to make his pitch in an op-ed for the Telegraph, declaring that he would be prepared to leave the European Court on Human Rights. It came just a few hours
The new cabinet cannot be accused of laziness. John Healey, secretary of state for defence, has just been on a 48-hour tour of France, Germany, Poland and Estonia, all of them important military allies in different ways, trumpeting the new government’s ‘Nato-first’ defence policy. The highlight of Healey’s breakneck trip was his meeting with the
Joe Biden delivered a eulogy for his presidency and his political career from the Oval Office Wednesday evening. It was a sad, sluggish ending to a life in politics, decades in the Senate, two terms as vice president, and finally a single term as president. President Biden needed to accomplish three things in the speech: explain
Nearly ten months after Israel’s worst day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made history far away in Washington DC when he became the first world leader to address Congress four times. Even Winston Churchill only managed three. The last time Netanyahu spoke to Congress was in March 2015, as the Obama administration was finalising the Joint
What on earth has happened to Jordan Peterson’s interviewing style? His latest video, which features Elon Musk, lasts for two hours. It makes for painful viewing. As during many of his recent podcasts, Peterson interrupts his guest’s train of thought with his own, often long-winded, asides. Peterson’s flashy outfit only added to the feeling that it
Another day under a Labour government and – you guessed it – another U-turn. Now ministers are in the spotlight after it emerged that David Lammy used the government’s private plane to jet off to India today for international trade talks. The same private jet, Mr S would remind readers, that Sir Keir’s lefty lot
Are we going to war? The first PMQs since the election was like a military briefing between the Tory chief and the new prime minister. Rishi Sunak, now opposition leader, began with a few standard noises about Ukraine’s need for more weapons. He urged Sir Keir Starmer to ask the Germans to send ‘long-range missiles’
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is demonstrating in no uncertain terms that world war three is possible. Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, who is also his country’s former top commander, has suggested that other countries can prepare by learning from what is happening in Ukraine. They certainly can. Better yet, by swiftly preparing their societies
Figures out today show a country with levels of surveyed crime still at historic lows (just a quarter of the 1995 peak) but with two big exceptions. Personal theft rose by 40 per cent compared with the year before, and shoplifting is at its highest level since records began in 2003. What’s going on? ‘These
The Prince Albert Memorial is the latest target of activists seeking to denigrate our past. The Memorial has stood in London’s Kensington Gardens for over 150 years as a moving tribute to Queen Victoria’s love for her husband. But now it has been branded ‘offensive’. Apparently, the sculptures at its base draw on ‘racial stereotypes’.
James Cleverly, the first official Tory leadership contender, has today ruled out a merger with Reform if he becomes Tory leader in November. After announcing his candidacy in an op-ed for the Daily Telegraph, the shadow home secretary was quick to get across the airwaves today. Cleverly secured a prime slot on the Beeb’s Today
Another week, another Prime Minister’s Questions featuring Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak arguing across the Commons. Except, of course, the men had swapped sides, with Starmer taking his first session as prime minister, and they were – possibly for the first time ever – quite nice to each other. All the old grudge match lines
With just three days to go until the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, the equestrian world went into meltdown last night. The first sign of any upset was a statement issued by Team GB equestrian star Charlotte Dujardin: ‘A video has emerged from four years ago which shows me making an
The Chinese Communist party is rarely shy about highlighting America’s chaotic politics. State media and the CCP’s growing army of bots enthusiastically prowl around western social media, inserting themselves in the most difficult of debates, seeking to sow distrust. So why the relative caution about Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race? In the run-up
She’s back! It was less than three weeks ago that Liz Truss lost her seat after suffering the biggest ever swing from Tory to Labour in a general election. But in true Truss style, she’s picked herself up and soldiered on, visiting the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin last week and doing the rounds with
Keir Starmer has laid down a marker by suspending seven Labour MPs from the whip. The question is: What sort of marker? Will it benefit the Prime Minister in the long run? It is not normal to suspend the whip from an MP for rebelling on a non-confidence matter. The two-child benefit cap is also