World
Could a Trump conviction really change the presidential election?
The first time I heard the name ‘Michael Cohen’ was in 2015, from a Republican political operative who told me:…
Half of Scots want Hate Crime Act repealed
Back to Scotland, where hapless Humza Yousaf is still managing to cause the SNP problems even after his resignation. It’s…
Brits won’t stop getting pay rises
Are interest rates still heading ‘downwards’ as the Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said last week? Homeowners across the…
The EU has ruined plastic water bottles
Hurrah, the problem of plastic waste has been sorted – as of this summer all plastic water bottles sold in…
Farewell Nadhim Zahawi, you won’t be missed
Nadhim Zahawi’s latest resignation letter was one of the all-time classics of the genre: unctuous, preening and pretentious even by…
Is Andrei Belousov Russia’s Albert Speer?
President Vladimir Putin’s appointment of the civilian economist Andrei Belousov as Russia’s defence minister in the third year of the…
The NHS’s maternity care has always been a mess
The latest report on maternity care in the UK hasn’t told us anything new. The headline finding of the parliamentary…
Eating my way around Helsinki
Often asked about my favorite places to go, and moreover, favorite places to eat, I find myself talking about Helsinki.…
Catalonia has gone cold on independence
Is Catalonia’s independence movement dead in the water? Elections held in the region on Sunday reveal that support for separatist…
The horror of NHS maternity wards has been exposed
Will any woman who has given birth on the NHS be surprised by a damning report into maternity services? I wasn’t. I…
JK Rowling is no bully
I see JK Rowling is being cruel again. Her nasty streak is off its leash. She’s bullying random people and…
Elon Musk has won a victory for free speech in Australia
In the unedifying clash of heads between billionaire Twitter/X owner, Elon Musk, and Australia’s e-safety commissioner Julie Inman Grant, there…
Catalans appear to be growing tired of independence
Spain’s Socialist party (PSOE) won crucial elections in Catalonia over the weekend, beating a pro-independence bloc whose support has been…
Obesity isn’t behind the sicknote crisis
The European Congress on Obesity is an annual treat for health journalists, because it guarantees a week of ready-made stories…
What Sunak’s big speech reveals about his election strategy
Rishi Sunak has this morning given a speech aimed at framing the choice at the next election: security with the…
David Cameron’s top six blunders in six months
How time flies. Half a year has passed since former prime minister David Cameron made a shock return to frontline…
Police to interview Angela Rayner over second home
Another day, another development in the curious case of Angela Rayner’s tax affairs. It now transpires that the deputy Labour…
Sunak’s dire warning will fall on deaf ears
Even on the most optimistic reading, Rishi Sunak is drinking in the last-chance saloon. Today the Prime Minister is delivering…
The Harvard man who became Xi Jinping’s favourite academic
Xi Jinping is a busy man. He holds down three jobs. As General Secretary of the Chinese Communist party (CCP),…
The Elphicke affair has made Starmer look incompetent and unprincipled
The defection of Natalie Elphicke to Labour was, no doubt about it, a political coup de theatre. What wasn’t immediately clear, but is becoming clearer now the curtain…
What the Shoigu reshuffle means for Putin’s war machine
There was an expectation that the appointment of Vladimir Putin’s new government would see some change in the Russian security…
JK Rowling is playing with fire
The transgender debate has a habit of bringing out the worst in people. It’s no wonder, really. It’s an issue…
Working in Brussels, I saw the dark side of the EU
To this day, many Remainers see the vote to leave the EU as an entirely self-inflicted wound. But is that…
Sergei Shoigu out as Russia’s defence minister
It’s reshuffle time in Moscow and it seems that Sergei Shoigu, who has served as Vladimir Putin’s defence minister for…
The dignity of Eden Golan
Two questions dominated last night’s Eurovision Song Contest final in Malmo, Sweden. First, whether 20-year-old Eden Golan, Israel’s entrant, would…
