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Anne Mcelvoy

Anne Mcelvoy

The Guardian

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Prince Andrew's naivety just made Keir Starmer's job much harder

15.12.2024 4

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Assad will soon discover that Moscow is a prison with a valet service

10.12.2024 8

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Angela Rayner will become the unpopular face of Labour's housing plan

08.12.2024 4

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Starmer faces more than one choice between the EU and US – he has many ahead

To govern is to choose between disadvantages, as the wily General de Gaulle diagnosed. Keir Starmer is less categoric. At the Lord Mayor’s white-tie...

05.12.2024 10

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Pub quiz question: can you remember Keir Starmer's 'five bold missions'?

The early months of this Government have been rock and roll – and not in a Rolling Stones kind of way. Sore heads about rising taxes and farmland...

05.12.2024 40

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Rod Stewart shows that retirement is just for the middle classes

Rod Stewart is playing Glastonbury next year at the age of 80, beating Stevie Wonder, rumoured to also be performing, at a mere 74. Elton John did his...

26.11.2024 3

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Brexit wasn't just the fault of 'crazy Brits' - Angela Merkel's memoir proves it

Brexit, to many European leaders at the time and since, has been a swearword. On my professional shuttles between Brussels, Berlin and Paris, it’s a...

25.11.2024 10

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Labour's tone deaf response to farmers is a gift to Kemi Badenoch

Britain has had a sleepy agricultural lobby compared with more excitable European counterparts. Occasionally, the pro-hunting and shooting Countryside...

19.11.2024 5

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Starmer isn't ducking his day job with foreign trips - Brexit Britain needs friends

The Keir-miles are mounting fast. A leader whose previous experience of the world beyond Holborn and St Pancras and legal London was limited to human...

17.11.2024 10

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

How Trump will tackle climate change – and why it might work

Six thousand miles away from Washington, DC, the ghost of a Donald Trump victory hangs in the oil-tinged air on the Caspian Sea at the COP29 climate...

12.11.2024 5

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

This isn’t just any defeat - it will need a huge Democrat reckoning

Democratic campaign merch, like Kamala Harris’s election bid, is now in the clearance bin – in the airport gift shop in Washington DC, I spotted a...

10.11.2024 10

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Melania knows exactly how to play First Lady this time round

So much for the anticipation of a “first gentleman”. One consequence of electing another male White House incumbent is that the tradition of...

08.11.2024 5

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

A new dawn at The Spectator brings Gove and Badenoch together again

The Spectator editor’s office comes with a battered antique leather chair and distressed sofa so old that I can remember sitting on it when I worked...

04.11.2024 6

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Kemi Badenoch has two years to impress - and Boris Johnson is ready to help

Sitting in a parliamentary office with Kemi Badenoch shortly before the close of the Tory vote last week, two things struck me. The first was that...

04.11.2024 6

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Rachel 'CEO' Reeves passes her audition for the top job

The style was brisk, the pussy bow blouse had echoes of the Margaret Thatcher Powerfrau era – but alas it proved a bit droopy in the heat of the...

30.10.2024 7

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Donald Trump's campaign thrived off hate - until now

It looked like an election devoid of an “October surprise” – the kind of last-minute turnaround that could shift the White House race from...

29.10.2024 5

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Who is really ready to blame for the pre-Budget chaos?

Whose fault is the upcoming Budget – an event that will leave many more of us paying more tax? The run-up to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s speech...

27.10.2024 6

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Labour is locking itself into a prisons paradox

It is an image that channels chirpy, geezer gangsters on TV: a convicted armed kidnapper released early from jail in Kent yelling, “big up Keir...

23.10.2024 6

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Rachel Reeves is caught between investors and her own party

In his recent memoir, Tony Blair retells an American joke for election season. A politician arrives at the pearly gates and St Peter offers him a...

20.10.2024 10

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Badenoch needs the right radical ideas - not the rows

No one wishing for a quiet life would suggest voting for Kemi Badenoch in the Conservative leadership race. One of the last two competitors for the...

15.10.2024 4

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The P&O row is proof no one knows what Starmer really thinks

The Government’s skirmish with DP World, the large Dubai-based investor to the UK, has ended in a peace treaty at the expense of the Transport...

14.10.2024 10

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The Israel-Lebanon conflict is about to hit Westminster hard

A year on from the Hamas’s attack on Israel, most of us can remember the anxiety and horror of the days afterwards as the images of human carnage...

08.10.2024 5

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The rise of Morgan McSweeny is a bitter blow to Sue Gray  

Well, that was quick. As Keir Starmer nears his 100 days milestone, a pinnacle used by incoming governments to declare their early successes and point...

07.10.2024 10

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

What exactly is going on behind closed doors for Keir Starmer?

On it rumbles, the quarrel about donations to support trendy prime ministerial spectacles, posh frocks for the the first lady of No 10, freebies to...

04.10.2024 10

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The JD Vance train has left the station

It was the battle for second place – the chance for the vice presidential contenders to amplify their respective campaigns. Tim Walz, the stolid...

02.10.2024 10

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Kemi Badenoch's maternity pay row shows Liz Truss still haunts the Tories

For the depleted tribe of Tory members, a thin crowd of diehard acolytes and the weary leadership candidate teams arriving at the party’s Birmingham...

30.09.2024 6

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

This was Starmer's chance to get a grip on his party - did he use it or lose it?

There’s never much va-va-voom about Keir Starmer’s rhetoric, which is heavily dependent on well-trodden metaphor. After the “sunlight of hope”...

24.09.2024 9

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Assassination attempts are now a part of US politics

It has often been claimed in this election year that “violence has no place” in American politics. Reality begs to differ: the election season got...

18.09.2024 6

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Why Blair’s lessons in leadership still count

Keir Starmer is bedding into the less enjoyable side of being Prime Minister. This weekend, it is a cash-for-dresses moment over alleged failures to...

15.09.2024 5

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The new owner of the Spectator didn’t cough up £100m just for the fun of it

‘Expect the unexpected” is the bland but pointed advice given by the evasive editor of the Daily Beast to the bemused William Boot, accidental...

15.09.2024 20

The Guardian

Anne Mcelvoy

Harris brings Trump down from Great Shrek to Wizard of Oz

Given the propensity of both sides to project a winning streak, it is often clearer to ask who lost a campaign debate than who won it. Donald Trump...

11.09.2024 10

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Kate has shown us the future of the royals

The art of power play in the Royal Family has taken many forms down the centuries. In the case of the Princess of Wales, a video happily announcing...

11.09.2024 8

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

There’s a whiff of meanness on Labour’s winter fuel allowance

This Tuesday will see the first thunderclap disrupting the “sunlight of hope” promised by Keir Starmer after his July victory. Having foregrounded...

08.09.2024 9

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Angela Merkel's vision has hit the rocks – in Germany and beyond

It’s a disconcerting sign of how Germany’s expectations have shifted that the far-right Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD) first place result...

03.09.2024 9

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The Oasis nostalgia is damaging Keir Starmer

I woke up just before Oasis tickets went on sale, opened up two browsers and settled into a stupor of checking if we had made it to the front of...

01.09.2024 7

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Starmer’s caution could leave his great German reset kaput

Keir Starmer went to Berlin this week aiming for a semi-success. A trip to Germany so early in his tenure is intended to signal seriousness about a...

29.08.2024 6

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Drop the mic: why Trump and Harris can’t even agree about how to debate

It was billed as the great debate of the 2024 US election – the electoral equivalent of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier’s epic boxing clash in the...

27.08.2024 5

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The Tory chumocracy is dead. Now it's Keir's 'mates' feeling the heat

The Tory chumocracy is dead, long live Labour’s fast-track scheme for its friends. The first weeks in office are busy ones behind the doors of No 10...

25.08.2024 7

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The Democrats flaunt grandeur just as much as Republicans

In a country that prides itself on escaping the social strictures of pre-independence, British-dominated America, the Democratic Convention is proving...

22.08.2024 4

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

America needs to know what Kamala Harris really stands for

Bye Joe, hello Kamala. President Biden’s farewell at the Democratic National Convention was a stirring and, at times, tearful valedictory in front...

20.08.2024 7

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The Democratic Convention isn't just a coronation for Kamala Harris - it's an audition too

Kamala Harris’s travel plans to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago began when her role was simply to whip up support for a faltering...

18.08.2024 9

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Labour's £6,000-per-driver rail union deal has stopped the strikes - for now

Asked why he robbed banks, an apocryphal serial robber was said to have replied, “because that’s where the money is”. A similar logic is on...

15.08.2024 4

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

American tech bros are going after Keir Starmer – he should be flattered

No sooner had Keir Starmer dealt with a damaging outbreak of violence at home than he found himself in another fight as the rhetorical target of...

13.08.2024 6

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The first lesson Keir Starmer can learn from the riots

The first place a smart but inexperienced new leader should look when crisis flares and criticism laps at the Downing Street door is in the mirror. No...

12.08.2024 10

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The Trump vs Harris debate is a test America urgently needs

It’s on: the televised debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on the ABC network a month from now, location and format TBD, fireworks and...

09.08.2024 3

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The Democrat nominee who stopped Trump's momentum with one word: 'weird'

Whatever might befall the Kamala Harris campaign after her choice of Minnesota governor Tim Walz as running mate today, it will not be for want of...

06.08.2024 5

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

Tax rows and riots signal the end of Starmer's honeymoon

A wry 19th century American discussing changes of government said that they resembled a journey by stagecoach: the best that could be said was that...

04.08.2024 4

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

The diplomacy on show in the Russian prisoner swap is a positive step for Ukraine

The Cold War roll call of prisoner swaps began in earnest in 1962, with the exchange of Rudolf Abel and Francis Gary Powers at the Glienicke Bridge...

02.08.2024 5

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

BBC bosses must now face tough questions about their judgement

The unravelling of Huw Edwards is a moment of deep trouble for the BBC, its most senior news managers and executives and the Director General himself....

01.08.2024 4

iNews

Anne Mcelvoy

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