If you cock an ear, that gnashing of teeth you can hear is coming from inside Scottish Labour’s HQ. The party, which had seemed on course to win the next Holyrood election, suddenly finds itself in a much more precarious position. Recent polls suggest the SNP is once again ahead in the race, which is almost unthinkable after 17 years of government and two years of almost relentless bad press and scandal. John Swinney was supposed to be a caretaker First Minister, a reverse Moses guiding his wounded party away from the promised land, out of office and across to the opposition benches. There now seems to be every chance the Nats could win an astonishing fifth straight term. What is happening? ...

In Iceland, the builder of a new house may sometimes bring in a folklorist to check that the planned building will not offend the Huldufólk (hidden folk), or elves. In south-east Asia, “spirit houses” are attached to new buildings to provide dwellings for the unseen entities that may previously have inhabited the land. In Britain, housebuilding is subject to set of arcane, quasi-religious rituals, which even have their own bible: the National Planning Policy Framework.Today (12 December), Angela Rayner announced a rewriting of this strange codex. But to understand its power, we must watch arguably this country’s finest TV programme: Grand Designs. In a recent episode a young couple decided to build their first home in Lincolnshire. They’re successful people ...

Labour, contrary to some reports, never feared Kemi Badenoch. No 10 aides did not dismiss the possibility that she could surprise as Conservative leader but saw nothing to trouble them. In the event, Badenoch has fallen below even these low expectations. Yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions was an apt demonstration. As opposition leader, Badenoch is spoiled for choice. The government has removed winter fuel payments from almost all pensioners (to the unhappiness of Labour MPs). It has announced a rise in employers’ National Insurance, alienating the businesses it worked hard to woo in opposition. And it has vowed to increase inheritance tax on farmland, prompting a revolt in the rural seats Labour won. Badenoch could have led on any of these – but ...

When the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead outside a hotel in New York, the suspect Luigi Mangione would not have foreseen that his own Goodreads list would attract more interest than the blurry CCTV footage of the actual assassination. America has already had two attempts this year by self-mythologising gunmen to enter the pantheon of Lee Harvey Oswald and Ted Kaczynski when two men took aim at Donald Trump. But neither were as good looking or as well read as Mangione. So far these assets have made him popular. Last night (10 December), Mangione’s glib 262-word manifesto leaked online, alongside a video of him being restrained as he shouted, “This is completely unjust,” and “an insult to the intelligence ...

All successful governments need a people. The voters who help define their project and will stand by them even in the toughest times. Think of the aspirational class drawn to Thatcherism by the Right to Buy and share sales, or those whose lives were transformed by New Labour’s tax credits and Sure Start. Who are Keir Starmer’s people? Five months into this Labour government, the answer is not as clear as it should be. Instead, this is an administration that is proving adept at making enemies and less good at making friends (59 per cent of voters now disapprove of the government’s record so far). It started with pensioners. Rachel Reeves’ unexpected means-testing of the winter fuel allowance (a benefit, remember, introduced ...

In 2021, 21-year-old musician Dylan Rocha collapsed in his bathroom. Unaware that the heroin he received in the post was tainted with a potent synthetic opioid, he became unresponsive and was soon pronounced dead. Rocha’s tragic death is believed to be one of the first in Britain linked to a nitazene – substances that can be up to 500 times stronger than heroin. Rocha’s case is not an isolated incident. Three years later, it stands as part of an alarming pattern of overdose deaths involving nitazenes across the country. They have been detected in every region of England, as well as in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. On the streets, users play a dangerous game of Russian roulette, often unaware that ...

Uncomfortable though it is to acknowledge, now is a very good time for Reform UK. One recent poll put the party ahead of Labour and it is only marginally behind the Conservatives. There have been a few notable Tory defections in former MP Andrea Jenkyns and ConservativeHome founder Tim Montgomerie, and, inevitably, talk of more to come. And immigration is in the news following the announcement that net migration for the previous two years reached 1.6 million people. Perhaps, above all, events in the US have given Nigel Farage and his party a boost. Farage’s friendship with president-elect Donald Trump gives the Reform leader the ability to speak with authority on US policy and the opportunity to create mischief. His links ...

Moscow may have granted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad asylum on “humanitarian grounds”. But he will never truly be safe again. When leaders like Assad have their backs against the wall, they have an impossible decision to make. Do they try to shoot their way out of the problem, or do they decide to flee? Usually, they choose the former. In large part, that’s because finding the right place to hide away is all but impossible. Assad’s regime has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians. Many millions were forced to flee. As evidenced by the rapid advance of the rebels that toppled this bloodthirsty tyrant, much of the population hates him, and that hatred didn’t disappear the moment he slipped out the ...