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When Keir Starmer stood on the Labour conference stage in 2018 and defied Jeremy Corbyn to call for a second Brexit referendum with remain as an option, it put him in pole position to become the next Labour leader. Starmer must now feel a sense of deja vu watching Wes Streeting, the most out-and-out pretender…
Warning. This column contains good news, when it is an (un)truth widely acknowledged that only grim stories attract public attention. News must be something someone somewhere doesn’t want printed, says the old maxim. Well, battalions of interests want to suppress good news: the overwhelmingly Tory or Reform UK press and antisocial media sites don’t want…
When Donald Trump’s second state visit was announced, and when the finer details for the Windsor banquet on 17 September 2025 became known, there was no way Led By Donkeys was going to let that pass unprotested. It was just so craven, rolling out the red carpet for Trump. Their next art-activist event unfolded like…
The formula for stable government, according to Britain’s constitution, is a big parliamentary majority and divided opposition. Sir Keir Starmer’s predicament proves that those conditions are not sufficient. The prime minister’s inability to convince voters that he has an agenda for national renewal, and the demoralising effect that has had on the Labour party, make…
Stalling growth, sticky inflation and fragile bond markets, the UK’s economic record in 2025 has hardly been one to inspire cheer. But in the spirit of the festive season, here are a few reasons to hope for a happier new year. The first is that, barring external forces, 2026 should not involve a repeat of…
The UK pushed hard to secure the release of Jimmy Lai, the newspaper publisher and British citizen who was a leading light in Hong Kong’s brutally suppressed pro-democracy movement. So, too, did press freedom and human rights campaigners. But the Beijing-appointed high court judges in the former colony convicted him anyway, finding Lai guilty last…
Nigel Farage is storing up trouble by welcoming yet another tranche of Conservative defectors to Reform UK’s ranks. I should know. When I was chief whip, nothing united a party quite as much as a defection. Old enemies call a truce from their daily hostilities to turn all the available ire on the traitor in…
When the billionaire chief executive of AI chipmaker Nvidia threw a party in central London for Donald Trump’s state visit in September, the power imbalance between Silicon Valley and British politicians was vividly exposed. Jensen Huang hastened to the stage after meetings at Chequers and rallied his hundreds of guests to cheer on the power…
Russia has been attempting to meddle with western democracy for years, but successive governments led by Boris Johnson and others have insisted that the UK’s electoral system can withstand its influence. That argument was recently blown apart by the conviction of former Reform politician Nathan Gill, jailed for 10 years for accepting bribes to advance…
