Politics

David Cameron is overseas on a foreign office trip to the US, but it transpired yesterday evening that Washington DC wasn’t to be his only destination. Last night, the Foreign Secretary made a quick pit stop at Mar-a-Lago to speak to former president Donald Trump. Lord Cameron is making the case for continued support for Ukraine – and wants to ensure the US will, if Trump becomes President, continue to provide aid to the country. Republicans have spent months trying to block a proposed $60 billion military aid payment to Ukraine, and Trump has been pretty clear in previous statements that he opposes the support package. Not only that, the Washington

The Telegraph reported at the weekend that the Conservative party appears to be attempting, in its selection process for parliamentary candidates, to weed out anybody who might just possibly be a conservative. This strategy – with all its ineptitude and wilful blindness – is a perfect capsule of the parliamentary party and its upper echelons. A party can leap over disappointment and rage; contempt is a much higher hurdle to clear It’s hard to find the right word to describe what the Tories have done since their incredible election win in 2019. ‘Disappointment’ is polite, but too mild. ‘Rage’ is too hyperbolic. I think ‘contempt’ hits the mark best. And this

What happens when government policy meets an entirely unfit system? Today’s report on HMP Peterborough by HM Inspector of Prisons reveals a jail unable to handle the government’s early release scheme. Last October, in an effort to stop our prisons running out of room, Alex Chalk announced the End of Custody Supervised Licence scheme, under which prisoners would be released 18 days early. Last month, with the prisons almost full again, he amended the policy so that prisoners can now be released 60 days early.  Every recalled prisoner costs money to return to prison Today HM Inspector has revealed what this means in practice. HMP Peterborough is a large, Category

When you’re in a hole, who gonna call? David Lammy! Yes, the Shadow Foreign Secretary was out on the airwaves this morning, chivalrously, if quixotically, riding to the rescue of his under-fire deputy leader. Angela Rayner is facing claims she may have wrongly avoided capital gains tax and broken electoral law, with the Mail on Sunday today publishing photos of her describing as ‘home’ a different property from the one she told the authorities was her principal residence. Whoops! So out went brave Lammy, the Talleyrand of Tottenham, to dodge and dissemble as best he can. He first appeared on the BBC, telling Laura Kuenssberg that Rayner ‘has a blended

Today a solemn ceremony takes place in Rwanda’s capital. President Paul Kagame, flanked by international dignitaries – including our own development secretary Andrew Mitchell – will light a flame of remembrance at Kigali’s genocide memorial, where the bones of more than 250,000 people are interred. ‘Kwibuka’ (‘Remember’ in Kinyarwanda) – this act of commemoration – happens every April. But this time it’s special. It has now been 30 years since the genocide, and is thus an opportunity to assess the tenure of one of Africa’s most controversial leaders. Cue a flood of pre-prepared broadcasts, articles and declarations from journalists, politicians and institutions. The problem is not what the memorial shows,

Bulgaria has rarely been the master of its own fate. Throughout history, neighbouring powers have often succeeded in imposing their will upon it. Nevertheless, Bulgaria has endured. There are few who can attest this with greater authority than Simeon II, who reigned as Bulgaria’s last Tsar from 1943 to 1946 and returned, after five decades of communist-imposed exile, to be elected Prime Minister between 2001 and 2005. In a meeting at Vrana Palace in Sofia, the 86-year-old former monarch told me that Bulgaria has missed a chance to mediate between the West and Russia.  Simeon inherited the throne from his father, the modest, self-effacing Tsar Boris III, who died under