24 h. ago BORIS JOHNSON: Adolescence is tosh. What's doing REAL damage to teenagers is Starmer's spiteful Pol Pot hatred of anything aspirational or that requires effort

It is not often that Starmer comes up with something so crass that I push aside the breakfast table, hurl the paper at the far wall and run around the room pant-hooting with incontinent rage.

Politics

5 d. ago Adolescence: what teen boys really think of girls, influencers and porn – podcast

From misogynist content creators such as Andrew Tate to the ubiquity of pornography, boys face a barrage of toxic influences. We talk to sixth-formers about the pressures and joys they experienceThe release of the hit Netflix drama Adolescence this month has unleashed a wave of panic around teenage boys. Keir Starmer said the UK “may have a problem with boys and young men”, while parents began worried conversations about their children’s online lives. But how true to life is it?Michael Conroy, who has been going into schools to train teachers and professionals about boys’ personal development for years, says he has seen a shift in what he hears about. “Just 10 years ago, we didn’t have young men speaking in very sexualised ways to female teachers, quite a few in the same school.” He sees the ubiquity of pornography as a huge factor, with boys as young as 11 using it obsessively. “I’m getting invited to work with primary schools now.” The knock-on effect, he says, is an unrealistic a...

Politics

7 d. ago Voices: Michael Gove explains why he abandoned Boris Johnson twice

The former cabinet minister’s insights into the Conservatives’ struggles highlight the party’s deepening crisis and the challenges facing its future, writes John Rentoul

Politics

8 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS from Westminster: At last, she speaks! So that's what gnomic Whitehall operative Sue Gray sounds like

QUENTIN LETTS: Lady Gray of Tottenham (Lab) is better known as Sue Gray, the gnomic Whitehall operative who torpedoed Boris Johnson with her report on his lockdown birthday cake.

Events

9 d. ago Jim Allister: Varadkar ‘partitioned’ UK by pushing border in Brexit talks

The TUV leader was speaking during a debate in the Commons.

Politics

1 week ago Love and Loss: The Pandemic Five Years On is an emotionally shattering re

For those of us lucky enough not to have lost anyone dear, the 12 months between March 2020 and March 2021 now have the quality of a peculiar dream. If we think of the period at all, it’s often in the context of alternating boredom and strangeness; breadmaking and homeschooling; bingeing Tiger King and wondering if 4pm is too early for a glass of wine. Can it possibly have been five years already since Boris Johnson stood at his podium, told us he’d been shaking hands with Covid patients, and, shortly afterwards, announced the first lockdown?

Events

1 week ago What is Dominic Cummings doing now, as he breaks silence following dinner with Nigel Farage?

The former adviser speaks out for the first time since having secret dinner with Reform Party leader Nigel Farage

Politics

1 week ago Starmer warns Brits can't 'shrug our shoulders' at young men falling under thrall of 'toxic' influencers... but rules out a minister for men

Keir Starmer, the father of a teenage boy, said like many parents he was 'worried' and pointed to a growing recognition of a 'problem' that needed addressing

Events

1 week ago Day by day, how Covid spread like wildfire: DEEP DIVE retraces earliest days of the pandemic, with then

Five years ago today, families huddled around their TVs with bated breath awaiting Boris Johnson to address the nation. What followed was a spine-tingling speech that changed life as we knew it.

Events

1 week ago How the pandemic brought Queen Elizabeth one unexpected blessing as the UK marks five years since lockdown

Five years ago today, a grim-faced Prime Minister Boris Johnson sat behind a desk at 10 Downing Street to address the nation and make a dramatic lockdown announcement.

Politics

2 w. ago BORIS JOHNSON: I now believe Covid WAS caused by a lab leak. The Chinese owe us proper answers and our Government should start demanding them

You what? I said to my team in Number Ten, as they explained the origins of Covid. What did you say they were doing?

Politics

2 w. ago Sir Keir Starmer reveals he is watching Adolescence at home with his teenage children

The thriller starring Stephen Graham, who is also a co-writer, has gripped the nation gaining an eye-watering 24.3million views since its release last week.

Society

2 w. ago Jeremy Hunt hits out at ‘hyperbolic’ Brexit claims of backers like Boris Johnson

Ex-chancellor criticises ‘hyperbolic’ projections as report which claims economic impact of leaving the European Union less than previously thought

Politics

2 w. ago Now Boris Johnson turns on Donald Trump: ‘Putin is laughing at us’

Mr Johnson’s comments were in marked contrast to his stance days before, when he said, “I trust and believe Trump will hit Putin with every shot in his locker”.

Politics

2 w. ago Ditch 'impossible' Net Zero target before it bankrupts us: Kemi Badenoch prepares to opens major divide with Labour in speech TODAY

The Conservative leader will use a speech this morning to reject plans introduced by then PM Theresa May in 2019 and backed by other Tory leaders including Boris Johnson.

Events

2 w. ago It is mission critical that Labour repairs the contract between citizen and state | Andrew Rawnsley

Proving that government can be a force for good is essential if Sir Keir Starmer is to see off the populist rightListening to Sir Keir Starmer’s recent lament that the “flabby” state is failing Britain was to experience deja vu all over again. More than a quarter of a century has passed since another Labour prime minister, one Tony Blair, vented his frustration with the public sector by complaining that trying to reform government had left him with “scars on my back”. In similar vein, David Cameron’s lot used to excuse their struggles to get stuff done by blaming resistance from the amorphous administrative “Blob”. Dominic Cummings told Boris Johnson that the solution was to pack Number 10 with “weirdos”, “misfits” and “wild cards” – a self-description if ever there was one – while purging the senior civil service. He was still working his way through his “shit list” of mandarins when he got the boot himself. You will not recall the Johnson administration as an able and stable outfi...

Events

2 w. ago Labour minister 'rubbished' spy chief's secret dossier on Wuhan lab leak theory during pandemic despite Boris demanding probe... to 'avoid offending China'

A former spy chief submitted a secret dossier to No 10 early in the pandemic reporting that the virus had originated with a leak from a Wuhan facility

Politics

3 w. ago BORIS JOHNSON: I trust and believe Trump WILL hit Putin with every shot in his locker

No, folks, Vladimir Putin is not interested in peace. He doesn't want to stop the slaughter in Ukraine - or at least, he doesn't want to stop until he has won. He wants to keep bombing and killing.

Politics

3 w. ago Dining across the divide: ‘He said you need strong leaders. Then he referenced Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage’

The retired engineer and NHS worker chewed over social housing and strong leaders. Could they find common ground on Covid?Bob, 67, Newton Abbot, DevonOccupation Retired businessman, used to run a small tool-making company Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Still uncertain about Trump? Let Boris Johnson guide you on this ‘very compassionate man’ | Catherine Bennett

Some of the president’s Tory fans seem to find the grim reality of the president’s actions invigorating rather than terrifyingShort of emigration, what is the best option for Britain’s dazzled Trump followers now their hero confirms he is not Europe’s ally but Vladimir Putin’s? That’s assuming what we can’t in the case of Nigel Farage MP: that they do not share the US president’s well-documented weakness for a genocidal invader. Even his more respectable British acolytes have until recently finessed, quite successfully, their love of Trump with his long history of Putin-pleasing. No one more so than Boris Johnson, former prime minister, self-styled saviour of Ukraine and still Trump’s most dependable British idiot.To Johnson’s way of thinking, detailed in numerous Daily Mail columns, it is Trump-doubters who are always the ridiculous, panicking, hysterical, whingeing headless chickens. When Trump looked likely to win the US election, Johnson likened the reaction of the “western libe...

Politics