How appropriate that, of the many issues that Liz Truss’s government has misguidedly championed, it is fracking that caused her premiership to finally implode. Shale gas drilling in the UK would not just be a threat to local health and safety; it would imperil the climate while doing next to nothing to improve our struggling economy. In fact no policy could better sum up the self-harm inflicted when free-market principles are placed above all else. Fracking would neither secure energy supply nor lower bills because of unfavourable geology. Even some industry insiders admit it. The International Energy Agency has warned that no new reserves of oil or gas must be exploited if climate change is to be stemmed. And environmental groups, including an impressive grassroots ...

Liz Truss fell because she was elected on a lie. Not the kind of lie Boris Johnson routinely told – the blatant tactical fib – but the strategic lie, believed by millions of people and encoded in the textbooks: that the small state is the only route to growth and that redistribution is both economically and morally wrong. She clawed her way to the front of the Conservative leadership contest by repeating this doctrine without nuance. And 81,000 party members drawn from the white, suburban, selfish middle classes backed her because the lie is their gospel. Truss assembled a cabinet of randoms – mediocrities elevated by accident through the Tory careers system. Their only common feature was petty vindictiveness and belief in ...

“I’m a fighter, not a quitter,” Liz Truss declared during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. That was yesterday. Today she has resigned after just 44 days in No 10, the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. The “human hand grenade” has exploded faster than anyone thought possible. And so the Conservative Party will begin the process of picking its third leader, and Britain’s third prime minister, of the year – and the fifth in six years. It looks likely to prove a right old bunfight. The incompetent, narcissistic, dishonest Boris Johnson once again? Heaven forbid. Rishi Sunak? Penny Mordaunt? Suella Braverman? Kemi Badenoch? Ben Wallace? Any money on Jacob Rees-Mogg? The latter was only yesterday insisting that “this is a government ...

“As a petty and vindictive individual,” explained Peep Show’s Mark Corrigan of his decision to invite a love rival to his party, “I have to take extra care not to appear petty or vindictive.” Which just goes to show that even solid, Tory-to-the-bone, averagely unhappy men like Mark can’t escape the sort of dangerously overt self-reflection encouraged by the liberal elite.  No such lily-livered introspection for the former home secretary Suella Braverman, who left high office completely of her own volition yesterday with a tour de force of passive-aggressive insinuation, blame deflection, and hull-splintering broadsides against a listing Prime Minister and government that she has, “with the greatest regret”, decided to no longer serve. Her resignation letter, evoking all the clenched-jaw serenity of ...

The great doom was foreseen from the moment the first trailers hit, the first images were released and the casting first announced. “This will be a disaster.” “This will end the studio.” “Fans have had enough”. Which show? Basically all of them. Critics on Twitter and YouTube said it about Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, they said it about Disney+’s She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, and they said it about Obi-Wan Kenobi. And these are just the most recent three. It was said they had been infected by woke agendas, had no respect for their respective source material and that fans would eventually realise. The emperor would be revealed in all his naked glory (thankfully, in the case ...

Elnaz Rekabi is a champion for freedom-seeking Iranians, not only because of the medals she’s won in domestic and international climbing competitions, but because of her brave act of defiance. On 16 October, the 33-year-old athlete competed in the Asian Climbing Championships in Seoul without wearing a headscarf. Her exposed hair wordlessly shook the pillars of a government back home that has subjugated female bodies to establish its power. Aware that her decision to forgo a headscarf could endanger her future, she seemingly chose to support the loud and clear “NO” that protesters across Iran have been saying to the oppressive Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) since 16 September. On that now historic date, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman called Jina ...

When Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled his plan for social care last year, which is due to come into effect in 2023, there was no shortage of criticism. The best thing in it was a more generous means test, which would enable around 50,000 more people to access state-funded care each year. The cap of £86,000 on the amount anyone has to pay for care across a lifetime was a step forward but disappointingly low – with a last-minute change introduced by the then chancellor Rishi Sunak making it far less fair for those with lower levels of housing or other wealth. The Johnson government’s plans looked like they would do little to address the other significant problems in the ...

Last week, in an interview with Mariella Frostrup at Cheltenham Literature Festival, Graham Norton ventured that “cancel culture” is just another word for accountability. He referenced recent complaints made by John Cleese, who feels he is persecuted for his un-“woke” views. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, eh John? When pressed on whether his idea of accountability included the abuse suffered by JK Rowling following her statements on trans women, Norton suggested that it might be more illuminating to talk to trans children and their parents, rather than merely amplifying the opinions of a celebrity or author – even a very good one.  I have long believed that what right-wing media call “cancel culture” is nothing more than the tendency of reactionaries to cry wolf ...