All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Just as Britain’s economy looked to be ‘turning a corner’, it may be about to slam into a wall. The warning signs were obvious last week. On Monday, I’m told, the ship insurer Lloyd’s of London saw its ‘war desk’ hit its annual sales target within the first two hours of trading. As you read
In the years when the Greens cared more about hedgehogs than Hamas, those opposed to military action made the Lib Dems their political home. The height of this came under the leadership of Charles Kennedy when he bravely led his party in opposition to the disastrous Iraq war. Ed Davey – the current Lib Dem
The war in Iran has entered its second week. Despite constant American and Israeli bombardment and heavy losses on the Iranian side, with much of the leadership killed, the regime in Tehran is shaken but still stands. It looks less and less likely that the Islamic Republic can be brought down by bombs alone. On
When the Alternative for Germany (AfD) condemned America’s strikes against the Iranian regime last week, the reaction in Washington must have been one of genuine confusion. For months, perhaps years, the party had presented itself as the natural German ally of the Trump movement. AfD politicians travelled to Washington; Alice Weidel was warmly received and
Yesterday afternoon, Rangers and Celtic played out a dismal 0-0 draw (‘eye-bleeding’, was journalist Tom English’s verdict) in the Scottish Cup quarter-final before the game was settled/put out of its misery on penalties. The game itself will soon be forgotten, what won’t be is the trouble that followed. Celtic’s ‘triumph’ provoked a pitch invasion by sinister,
19 min listen
Tim Shipman is joined by Isabel Hardman to discuss the domestic fallout from the conflict in Iran – from oil prices surging past $100 a barrel to renewed pressure on Britain’s cost-of-living crisis. They examine how the rising price of energy could derail Labour’s economic plans, why Rachel Reeves may face difficult choices on fuel
Under normal circumstances, King Charles’s message to the Commonwealth would be a carefully crafted and anodyne series of platitudes, designed for little more than to fulfil its brief and to keep the other Commonwealth leaders happy. However, this year, the King is faced with two pressing issues. The first is international, in the shape of
The US and Israel rapidly established air superiority over Iran in the first days of the war now under way in the Middle East. Regimes, however, cannot be destroyed from the air. President Trump clearly has no intention of committing a large ground force to Iran. If Washington and Jerusalem are serious in their stated
It is a difficult time to be a Labour MP. With the Greens on the left and Reform on the right, many are contemplating an electoral pasting in their patches come May. Now, a fresh challenge presents itself, at a time when open questions are being asked about Keir Starmer’s leadership. In the coming days,
Amid growing uncertainty caused by the US-Israel offensive against Iran and surging gas prices, Germany had its first major election of the year yesterday, with the new state parliament of Baden-Württemberg elected. Forecasts indicate that the Greens, who have been governing the state for the past 15 years, will remain in control of the premier
I have a nice memory of walking into the then Chancellor’s private office at 1 a.m. and everyone just being there, hammering away on their computers, as if that was just totally normal. And nice memories of watching the senior people in the Treasury slice through some very intractable-seeming problems. But during my time in
How many times has Ed Miliband told us that his renewable energy policies were helping to free us from ‘fossil fuel dictators’? Wind and solar energy, he assures us, are saving us money and making us more energy-secure. Then we wake up to find that actually, Britain has only two days’ worth of gas left in storage.
In February, Timothée Chalamet said to his fellow actor Matthew McConaughey, as part of a CNN and Variety town hall: ‘I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera or things that are, hey, let’s keep this thing alive even though it’s like no one cares about this thing anymore.’ The studio audience laughed
Derrida et al were right. The written English language (langue) can be vague and elliptical and the intended meaning not always assured. The syntax suggests to me that this will be someone who oversees anti-Muslim hostility Back in about 1980, when I was working as a reporter for the South Wales Echo, the paper’s cartoonist, Gren,
The announcement of Mojtaba Khamenei as the next supreme leader of Iran represents not only continuity in the Islamic Republic’s bloodstained rule but also an even darker turn for the Iranian establishment. Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has long been associated with radical currents in Tehran. His supreme leadership,
As the war continues, the Iranian regime has pressed ahead with appointing its new Supreme Leader. Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ali Khamenei, was formally elevated in Tehran even as Israeli and American strikes continue to dismantle the regime’s military leadership, its fighting forces and its air defences – a striking dynastic turn for a
Today marks the 250th anniversary of the publication of The Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith’s seminal text in the history of economics. Smith gave his name to the institute that I co-founded, so you might expect me to advocate for reading his most famous text. But you shouldn’t. It’s very long, written in elegant but
The social media video with which the White House has promoted its attack on Iran is, even by the standards we’ve come to expect from the Trump administration, grotesque on a level that still manages to be flabbergasting. Prefaced in the usual block capitals “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY”, with a flag and flame emoji of
Picture Gerry Adams in a dimly lit courtroom, one hand raised in statesmanlike denial, the other twitching like Dr. Strangelove’s infamous Nazi salute, struggling to contain the contradictions of his many roles. Peacemaker? Politician? Bearded bard? Or something darker, as my late father always insisted: the architect of republican violence, a figurehead for the IRA and Sinn
What with the prospect of further resets with the European Union, and with British culture seemingly in a constant battle with those who would degrade and debase it, it’s easy to understand why some people are oversensitive to perceived threats to this country’s independence and integrity. Alas, sometimes this touchiness descends into out-and-out paranoia. Eurovision
Politicians are keen to fix what is seen as a mounting political problem with student loans. An increasing number of graduates are pointing out that the Plan 2 loan scheme in particular imposes some painful and unreasonable marginal burdens on their earnings. After all, paying another nine percentage points of student loan charges on top
In the last few days, Keir Starmer has agreed to let the US military use UK bases to conduct specific defensive actions against Iran, and the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales has been prepped to set sail from Portsmouth. Nevertheless, President Trump was scathing about Starmer, declaring, ‘This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing
In the Premier League this season, the number of open-play goals, shots and passes are all the lowest in years. There have been just six wins by four goals or more, compared with 33 two years ago. Arsenal are on course to win the league with 84 points, nine fewer the average of the champions
Donald Trump on Thursday allowed India to import more Russian oil. India recently did a deal with the US that reduced tariffs in exchange for it buying less crude from Moscow. That deal now seems to be on pause. The move might be seen as a version of the Trump tariff acronym ‘Taco’ (Trump Always
The war with Iran entered its second week on Saturday with intense fighting across multiple fronts, as Israeli forces struck deep inside Iran while Tehran retaliated with missiles and drones across the region. Political rhetoric in Washington and Jerusalem meanwhile suggested the conflict could widen further still. The day began with reports of renewed Israeli
If there’s one thing that the ongoing Iran-US conflict is teaching North Korea, it is that nuclear weapons are an invaluable asset in the hermit kingdom’s toolbox. Nearly twenty years ago, Pyongyang conducted its first and far-from-successful nuclear test. Its capabilities have increased substantially since that moment and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, that
There are many reasons why Reza Pahlavi should not be a future leader of Iran. He left as a teenager in 1978 to fly jets in Texas, and has not been back since. He lived a very sheltered life back then and he knows little of how Iranians live now. There is no suggestion he
The Kurdish region along the Iran-Iraq border is an imposing landscape of sublime beauty this time of year. The snow-capped Zagros Mountains tower above high valleys lush with cherry and almond blossom, budding walnut and pistachio trees. Spring lambs graze alpine meadows speckled with iris and fritillaries, thyme and sage. Rivers – gorged with the
Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion, the joint US-Israeli campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran, have begun to reduce Iran’s long-range strike tempo. Tehran’s missile and drone salvos have declined by roughly 70 to 85 per cent since the first day of strikes, largely thanks to an aggressive hunt for Iranian missile launchers and
Is a concrete Brutalist complex as worthy of commemoration and preservation as a medieval cathedral or neoclassical stately home? The decision to grant London’s Southbank Centre Grade II listed status last month is an issue on which tweedy conservationists and iconoclastic modernists trade places for the day. Tories reach for the dynamite. Lefties plead that tradition
It wasn’t until a painting arrived in her post, a gift from the Italian artist Francesco Clemente, that Kiran Desai’s latest novel – The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny – came into being, eventually finding its way onto last year’s Booker Prize shortlist. Desai was worried about losing her subject matter when she left India The haunting
Freed from the burden of choosing a prospective government, by-elections are an opportunity for voters to tell the political class how they really feel. It is therefore no great surprise that the people of Gorton and Denton, until now a solid Labour heartland, have called on the uber-left Greens to give the status quo a
When RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus was targeted in an attempted drone attack on Monday, it didn’t just leave the British government open to accusations that it was slow to respond to events in the Middle East. It also led to criticism from those who would like to see the British overseas territory returned to the Republic
