World
Are the Tories about to fall into Farage’s trap – again?
Nigel Farage’s tail is up. The Reform party election campaign has gone better than he dared hope and its poll…
The awesome Alan Pell Crawford
The great nineteenth-century novelist Harold Frederic (The Damnation of Theron Ware) had a character complain “I cannot read or listen to…
The tantric sex retreat that wasn’t
When my girlfriend suggested we go away to a tantric retreat for the weekend in the English countryside, I couldn’t…
Farage’s ‘contract’ is all about hurting the Tories
Nigel Farage has launched his party’s manifesto, which he’s termed ‘Our contract with you’. The Reform leader dropped the word…
Reform’s radical manifesto would do wonders for democracy
In this election, neither Labour nor the Tories are particularly interested in serious constitutional reform. By contrast, there’s one smaller…
Remainers are going to be disappointed in Labour
Labour’s election manifesto has been criticised by many commentators for being too vague; like a ‘choose your own adventure’ book which would allow the…
Can Rishi Sunak reduce the Tories’ losses?
Every morning in Conservative Campaign Headquarters, Tory aides kickstart the day by blasting out Elvis Presley’s ‘a little less conversation’…
Why the Tories’ tax black hole attack on Labour will backfire
The Conservatives love trying to reduce their estimates for the cost of a Labour government down to a neat per-household…
iPad scandal MSP accepts £12,000 ‘golden goodbye’
Dear oh dear. Back to Scotland and the chaos of the SNP. Former health secretary Michael Matheson was suspended for…
England are displaying all their usual flaws under Gareth Southgate
Afterwards, Gary’s team of expert pundits crawled into their Hey Jude comfort blankets. Isn’t he great! Maybe the greatest! Well,…
France could pay a heavy price for Macron’s Liz Truss-attack on Le Pen
As Emmanuel Macron heads into a fraught election, France’s president is repeatedly warning voters of the calamitous consequences of electing…
The Tory party’s sums don’t add up
There is, to put it mildly, a lack of candour in this election campaign when it comes to tax rises…
Labour should learn from Jacinda Ardern’s calamitous oil and gas ban
In the UK, the Labour party has pledged to halt any new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea,…
The terrible consequences of the Hay Festival grandstanding
Just three weeks ago, I wrote about Hay Festival sacking their main sponsor Baillie Gifford after pressure from the campaign group…
Why the French left hate Macron as much as Le Pen
Over a quarter of a million people marched through France on Saturday and I was among their ranks as an…
It’s hard to feel confident after England’s underwhelming win over Serbia
Football hooliganism made an ugly return to the Euros just hours before England‘s opening Group C match against Serbia. There…
Poland 1–2 Netherlands
Poland’s manager, Michael Probierz, wore a shapeless tweed-ish suit with bulging waistcoat and, when the Dutch scored their winner, had…
Is France’s left-wing coalition more dangerous than Le Pen?
French and international media cannot break their fixation with the ‘extreme right’. They continue to target the Rassemblement National (RN)…
Sunday shows round-up: Streeting says Tories are ‘arsonists’
Wes Streeting: ‘Do not give the matches back to the arsonist’ On Sky News this morning, Shadow Health Secretary Wes…
Will Keir Starmer really hire 6,500 more teachers?
Perhaps Keir Starmer’s only solid election pledge is to use the money from VAT on private school fees to ‘hire…
Inside the world’s first museum of homelessness
I’m sitting in a small, cramped room with 20 other people staring at a stick. Not just any stick, mind:…
AI will change everything – so why is the election ignoring it?
Imagine if you somehow knew a war was coming in the next few years. Imagine if you knew this war would…
‘For the first time ever I might not vote’: East Renfrewshire’s voters are switching off
The SNP has dominated Scotland since 2015. In an election held just months after the independence referendum, the country turned…
Rachel Reeves ‘£4,800’ mortgage claim is a house of cards
Labour’s Rachel Reeves has scored some political points this week by claiming that the Conservatives have made £71 billion of…
How the liberal-left can fight woke ideology
There is a leftist case against woke ideology. It’s rare to hear it because it flies against many preconceptions and…
