The race to become the Conservative candidate for next year’s London mayoral election has changed abruptly after one contender, Daniel Korski, was accused of groping a female TV producer while he worked in No 10. Korski categorically denies the allegations. The accusation against Korski has cast doubt over the Conservative Party’s selection process for its candidates. Korski, who was David Cameron’s deputy head of policy from 2013-16, has said he told Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) about the allegation (which was first made in 2017) but he still progressed on to the shortlist. That was perhaps partly because there was no formal complaint and therefore no formal investigation for CCHQ to consider. But now the accuser, the TV screenwriter and producer Daisy Goodwin, ...

Poor Lindsay Croisdale-Appleby. In the Brexit age, the role of British ambassador to the EU must be almost as tough as the one Ed Miliband held when he was Gordon Brown’s envoy to Tony Blair. Miliband was known in No 10 as “the emissary from Planet F**k”. Croisdale-Appleby will have to be at his diplomatic best today (28 June) with the thankless task of “babysitting” Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf during his meeting with Maroš Šefčovič, the vice-president of the European Commission. Due to an edict from the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, Holyrood ministers are banned from discussing the constitution or foreign policy with overseas leaders. I hold no candle for the SNP in its obsession with dismantling the country, but Cleverly’s ...

“I’m not very good about talking about emotions and how I feel,” declared Matt Hancock, the disgraced lockdown-breaking health secretary turned sheep-vagina-eating jungle contestant turned polo-necked podcasting tech bro. We were about 15 minutes into his three-hour evidence session before the Covid-19 Inquiry (and this is only Module 1) and Hancock had decided to get in early with his acting skills, first displayed so flamboyantly when he tried to cry on TV as the first Covid vaccines were delivered, by offering an “honest and heartfelt” apology for every death that had occurred. This, lest we needed reminding, was not I'm a Celebrity. There was no trace of Hancock's typically Tiggerish persona, gone were the impassioned monologues about how he only broke ...

It’s not surprising that the NHS is not a “world-beating” healthcare system. Dissatisfaction with the service has doubled in the last two years, while only 29 per cent say they are satisfied with how the NHS is run, according to the 2022 British Social Attitudes survey. The pandemic both heightened people’s affection for the public service and exposed its limitations. That’s the context in which the NHS will celebrate its 75th anniversary next week. The government seems to know this milestone could be politically consequential. It has pre-empted the inevitable scrutiny and goodwill towards striking workers that the anniversary will bring by promising a workforce plan “later this week”. But at the moment that strategy has not prevented bad headlines. Yesterday ...

Economic woes continue to define Rishi Sunak’s time in office. Last week, three announcements underlined the problems facing the government: the Bank of England raised interest rates, the Office for National Statistics announced national debt was greater than GDP, and we learned that core inflation – which takes out the prices for more volatile commodities such as fuel – is on the rise. Voters are not sanguine. Four in ten think their personal finances over the next year will get worse. On the media round yesterday (25 June), the Prime Minister let his frustration with the situation show. He struggled to appear empathetic when pressed by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg to admit that higher interest rates will be painful for many. ...

Older people (those over the age of 65) currently make up 31 per cent of the electorate. By 2080, that will rise to 45 per cent. Younger voters (18-24-year-olds), meanwhile, will by then constitute just 6 per cent of all voters. This would normally mean that by 2040 there would be a touch under two million extra Conservative voters on 2019, and just one million extra for Labour, as voters tend to age into conservatism. Net benefit to the Tories. But is it right to assume more older voters means more Conservative voters? Maybe. Or maybe not. First, I direct you to work by John Burn-Murdoch in the Financial Times and Andrew Marr in the New Statesman, who record that millennials are ...

It is almost impossible to have an online presence without being categorised as an "aesthetic" or “-core”. The suffix -core, popularised in fashion by the trend forecasting group K-Hole, crept into our daily lives through hashtags as a way to find like-minded individuals on social media. One can no longer like crocheting without being #GrandmaCore, or wear hot pink without drifting into #BarbieCore territory. Certain aesthetics become more popular than others, and consumerism is quick to catch up: fast fashion, homeware and various other trinkets are designed for the overwhelming interest in specific lifestyles. One of the most popular aesthetics to come out of TikTok is #CottageCore. Videos with the hashtag have amassed 14.3 billion views, making it one of the ...

One of the most important words in central banking is "transparency". Everything important that a bank does, from the arguments it makes to the outcomes it achieves, should be visible to the public. In the UK we have a fair degree of transparency. And it clearly shows that Bank of England has failed in its role. The central charge against the Bank is simple. It has one main task: to make sure that UK inflation is on target, remaining at 2 per cent. It has not done that. Today, inflation remains more than four times where it should be. Only a few months ago it was sitting above 10 per cent – the first time it breached that limit in forty ...