40 h. ago The Christian right has set the US on the road to Gilead. Without a fight, other nations may follow | Deborah Frances

Organisations that pumped money into overturning Roe v Wade are making inroads in Europe. Women’s rights are truly at riskWith Donald Trump as president, there is now a heavy strain of Christian nationalism driving the US political agenda. From draconian abortion policies to ending birthright citizenship, some of Trump’s first executive orders sound startlingly like something out of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian novel turned TV show set in Gilead, a fundamentalist, fascist version of the US where women have no rights. But it is urgent we understand that what is happening in the US could happen here. This road to Atwood’s Gilead is charting a course straight through the UK and Europe, and we may well be sleepwalking on to it.In November 2024 I debated with the American conservative lawyer Erin Hawley at the Oxford Union. The motion was “This house regrets the overturning of Roe v Wade”, the US supreme court’s landmark decision that once protected the right to h...

Politics

68 h. ago QUENTIN LETTS: After Trump's tariffs, this was no time to dust down the gramophone and play Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Germans

We took a wallop from the USS Donald Trump; but as MPs emerged from shelters and the Speaker's secretary dispensed tin mugs of sugared tea, there was a consolation: the EU copped it worse.

Politics

4 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Reeves pranced in, her orbit tinkling with laughter. But on camera, she started sounding like a duck

With the economy smoking like a wonky Moskvitch, how was Rachel Reeves faring?Was she feeling under the cosh from Donald Trump's tariffs and the pratfall of her Budget?

Politics

4 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS: How those lawyerly, cocksure sentences rolled forth... was Lord Hermer's first word as a toddler 'heretofore'?

With the economy smoking like a wonky Moskvitch, how was Rachel Reeves faring?Was she feeling under the cosh from Donald Trump's tariffs and the pratfall of her Budget?

Politics

4 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Once Robert Jenrick locks on to you, it's like seeing a Sidewinder missile chaser a Tiger Moth

QUENTIN LETTS: Shabana Mahmood's Tory shadow, Robert Jenrick, has had her in all sorts of difficulties over the Sentencing Council's 'two-tier justice' gambit.

Events

5 d. ago QUENTIN LETTS: With all these summits, Sir Keir is becoming Westminster's answer to Sherpa Tenzing

QUENTIN LETTS: Summits were once rare events at which the leaders of the USSR and USA frostily shook hands.

Politics

5 d. ago With all these summits, Sir Keir is becoming Westminster's answer to Sherpa Tenzing

QUENTIN LETTS: Summits were once rare events at which the leaders of the USSR and USA frostily shook hands.

Politics

9 d. ago Couple spotted 'getting it on' in office building as students secretly film and giggle

One couple were caught out after they appeared to get it on where they thought it was private – only to be captured on camera by students who couldn't control their laughter

Society

9 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

1 week ago QUENTIN LETTS: Wrists trembling, Reeves sounded shrivelled as she tried to blame 'the party opposite'...but everyone knows she has brought disaster on herself

The speech lasted 33 minutes, half the time of a real Budget. For all Labour's groans when Tories talked of 'an emergency Budget', this nonetheless felt like a big event.

Events

1 week ago QUENTIN LETTS from Westminster: One great oddity of the Assisted Dying Bill is that the MP with an undertaker's manner is pro

QUENTIN LETTS: Yesterday saw the Bill's last committee stages, that part of the legislative process when a small group of MPs chews over details of a proposed law.

Events

1 week ago Is it OK to say Tuchel’s two England wins have been a bit dull? – Football Weekly podcast

Max Rushden is joined by Nicky Bandini, Lucy Ward and Paul Watson as Thomas Tuchel maintains his 100% start with EnglandRate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and emailOn the podcast today; England win another qualifier on the road to the World Cup in 2026. Some critics have been vocal about how dull both games of the Thomas Tuchel era have been but isn’t this just the way they were always destined to go? Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago QUENTIN LETTS from Westminster: In a different life, Heidi could have dreamed of call

QUENTIN LETTS: Despite jokes about the Chancellor being 'Rachel from customer complaints', the Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, is a stronger candidate for that role.

Politics

2 w. ago Idleness is rotting Britain. The welfare budget is heading for £100BILLION. That's why it's our moral duty to slash benefits: QUENTIN LETTS

We could have done with Norman Tebbit in the Commons this week, if only for dramatic variety. MPs were discussing welfare cuts that turned out to be soggier than trailed.

Economics

2 w. ago Idleness is rotting Britain. The welfare budget costs £3,000 BILLION. That's why it's our moral duty to slash benefits: QUENTIN LETTS

We could have done with Norman Tebbit in the Commons this week, if only for dramatic variety. MPs were discussing welfare cuts that turned out to be soggier than trailed.

Economics

2 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Prof Powell was so tickled by her own remarks, she bared her gnashers like an Aintree winner

QUENTIN LETTS: A couple of days after Nasa 's stranded astronauts returned to Earth it fell to Lucy Powell, Leader of the Commons, to make an allusion to space travel.

Politics

2 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Words are used like cheap marge in supermarket sandwiches. No one means what they say

QUENTIN LETTS: Sir Keir Starmer called Israel's latest attacks on Gaza 'truly shocking'. When Sir Keir says 'shocking', which he does quite often, he keeps his lips rigid like a ventriloquist.

Politics

2 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS: I didn't hear one word of concern for the poor devils whose taxes pay for these benefits

QUENTIN LETTS: Savings could have been several billions more but the Government crumbled with concessions. Tony Blair would not have caved in like that.

Economics

2 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS: Liz Kendall clutched her Marje Proops specs and did a bit of shouting at the Tories. But she was meant to be whackin' her OWN side!

Field Marshal Grigory Potemkin (d.1791) was the toyboy of Catherine the Great who allegedly tried to impress his empress by erecting house facades on the banks of the River Dnieper.

Politics

3 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS on Keir Starmer's quango reform speech: As the blinky old sausage deserted his Centrist

Downing Street chief of staff Morgan McSweeney arranged for the Prime Minister to deliver his speech at a Hull firm that makes disinfectant and condoms.

Politics