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Stephen Daisley

Stephen Daisley

The Spectator

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Thwarting Iran’s attack was not a ‘win’ for Israel

‘You got a win. Take the win.’ This is reportedly what US President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call...

yesterday 20

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Netanyahu cannot afford hot war with Iran

Iran’s drone attack on Israel is an escalation from the fiery but ultimately empty rhetoric we are used to from Tehran. In different times and with...

previous day 2

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Have Scottish politicians read the Cass Review?

The Cass Review may prove to be a tipping point in radical gender ideology’s march through mainstream politics, institutions and civil society. It...

11.04.2024 4

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Don’t feel too encouraged by police leniency with JK Rowling

Police Scotland, who are responsible for enforcing Humza Yousaf’s Hate Crime Act, have found no criminality in a series of tweets posted by JK...

02.04.2024 3

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

How Scotland ended up with the Hate Crime Act

Humza Yousaf’s illiberal Hate Crime Act is now in force and its first day has been a doozy. The SNP’s minister for victims and community safety...

01.04.2024 1

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Why did the Scottish government make allowances for Spain during Covid?

The Covid Inquiry’s recent Scottish sojourn brought several weeks of bad headlines for the SNP. One revelation got less attention than others but...

24.03.2024 4

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Cameron is wrong to threaten Israel with an arms embargo

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron is threatening to suspend arms sales to Israel. The Telegraph reports that the former prime minister...

23.03.2024 3

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

The hubris of Scotland’s lofty Net Zero targets

Scotland’s climate goals are ‘no longer credible’ and there is ‘no comprehensive strategy’ to move away from carbon to Net Zero. That is the...

20.03.2024 5

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

How to fix the elites

Few things get the British quite as worked up as private schools. To the left, they are factories of inequality that turn scions of privilege into the...

19.03.2024 4

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Israel’s ‘allies’ should reckon with reality

Everyone wants an end to the fighting in Gaza. The United States backs ‘an immediate and sustained ceasefire’. The European Commission urges ‘an...

18.03.2024 30

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Will NHS Scotland follow suit and ban puberty blockers?

The decision by NHS England to end the prescription of puberty blockers to minors at gender identity clinics will be a source of relief to those who...

13.03.2024 10

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

The revolution has devoured AOC

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the super-progressive congresswoman, was leaving the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn with her fiancé when she was confronted by...

06.03.2024 6

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Vulnerable children don’t belong in jail

Britain’s prisons brim with vulnerable people but perhaps the most vulnerable are children. At 30 September 2023, there were 301 children in prison...

05.03.2024 4

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

One thing the Tories can learn from Canada’s conservatives

When contemplating the scale of the Tories’ expected drubbing in the coming general election, some commentators reach for the example of Canada’s...

29.02.2024 20

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Britain’s politicians should never bow to a mob

The government and the SNP are furious at the Speaker over his parliamentary jiggery-pokery on the Gaza vote. In calling Labour’s amendment to an...

22.02.2024 10

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Defacing Amy Winehouse’s statue is anti-Semitic

It’s not about Jews, it’s about Zionism. It’s not anti-Semitism, it’s pro-Palestinianism. It’s not racism, it’s social justice.  These...

19.02.2024 2

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Britain’s Jews aren’t safe

The explosion of hatred and extremism prompted by the October 7 massacre was never going to limit itself to the Jewish state. Even as early reports...

18.02.2024 10

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Why Donald Cameron should be in the Lords

Finally, Rishi Sunak has put a half-decent Cameron in the House of Lords. In raising Donald Cameron to the peerage and appointing him parliamentary...

10.02.2024 5

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Javier Milei is no populist

When Javier Milei visited Israel and announced that he would be moving Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem, I suppose that was terribly...

07.02.2024 9

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Nothing will change after Mike Freer stands down

Nothing will change in the wake of Mike Freer’s decision to stand down. That a Member of Parliament says he is leaving politics because of...

01.02.2024 6

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Spain and the mystery of Scotland’s Covid travel list

Nicola Sturgeon had a very rough time at the UK Covid-19 inquiry in Edinburgh yesterday. A sticky moment in particular was when Scottish cabinet...

01.02.2024 10

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

David Cameron is in a muddle over Palestine

The definition of madness, commonly attributed to Albert Einstein, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. In all...

31.01.2024 20

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

John Fetterman’s noble support for Israel should be no surprise

Politicians are like bad boys: never fall in love with them, they’ll always hurt you in the end. But try as I might, and I have tried mightily, I...

28.01.2024 10

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

How John Fetterman’s support for Israel made him a target for Democrats

Politicians are like bad boys: never fall in love with them, they’ll always hurt you in the end. But try as I might, and I have tried mightily, I...

28.01.2024 10

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

It doesn’t matter if Sunak is replaced

Sir Simon Clarke’s call to replace Rishi Sunak leans heavily on Tory MPs being in denial about the scale of defeat that could be heading their...

24.01.2024 3

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill is a sham

In voting through the government’s Rwanda Bill, Conservative MPs have made a declaration: they want to reduce illegal immigration but they don’t...

18.01.2024 4

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Could a 1997-style wipeout spell the end of the Tories?

There is not a crumb of comfort for the Conservatives in the YouGov poll splashed across the front of this morning’s Daily Telegraph. It forecasts...

15.01.2024 3

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Why isn’t the Sun backing Starmer?

The Sun’s reporting on Sir Keir Starmer’s legal activities is strident and therefore curious. The paper reports, in thunderous terms, on a number...

10.01.2024 4

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

The Reform party is just another Thatcherite redux

What exactly does the Reform party stand for? Helpfully, its leader Richard Tice gave a press conference on Wednesday at which he sketched out some...

05.01.2024 2

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

London / Who will remind the Met Police of their duties?

On Saturday, according to the Daily Telegraph, pro-Palestinian protestors ‘brought Oxford Street to a standstill on one of the busiest shopping days...

24.12.2023 5

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

The two-state solution is dead

Tzipi Hotovely has committed the gravest sin in diplomacy: speaking candidly. In an interview with Sky News, Israel’s ambassador to the Court of St...

16.12.2023 30

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

It’s time to crack down on the SNP’s foreign affairs freelancing

For those who still believe in that old-fashioned thing called the British constitution, there has come a glimmer of hope from an unlikely source....

11.12.2023 10

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

The SNP should have listened to Kate Forbes

Kate Forbes has called on the Scottish Government to accept Friday’s judgment on its controversial gender legislation. The Gender Recognition Reform...

09.12.2023 4

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Barbara Rymell deserved dignity

There is no getting around the death of Barbara Rymell. When I read the Telegraph’s story about this 91-year-old who died while care home staff...

07.12.2023 3

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Licence fee row / The Tories are governing for Westminster obsessives

You know the Tories are worried about their core vote when they start talking tough on the BBC licence fee. Rishi Sunak took time out of his Cop28...

04.12.2023 3

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Alistair Darling only saved the country

Alistair Darling was one of the most consequential politicians of the past half-century but he had the misfortune to be a quiet, self-effacing man and...

30.11.2023 4

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Is Scotland waking up to the dire state of its NHS?

If the NHS is the closest thing we have to a religion, as Nigel Lawson reckoned, then Paul Gray is not just a blasphemer but an apostate. Professor...

29.11.2023 3

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

There’s no one to vote for if you want controlled immigration

There has been much Tory huffing and puffing about the ONS revising 2022 net migration to 745,000, up from its previous estimate of 606,000. James...

23.11.2023 4

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Removing Hamas will not solve everything

Ever since Hamas invaded Israel, massacred 1,200 of its citizens and kidnapped 240 as hostages, there has been an effort to distance the Gazan...

23.11.2023 7

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

The Scottish Greens’ oil crusade is coming unstuck

‘Well, well, well,’ as the meme goes. ‘If it isn’t the consequences of my own actions.’ The news that Grangemouth, Scotland’s last oil...

23.11.2023 7

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Jailhouse rot: why we should all care about our wretched prisons

Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, has issued an urgent notification to the justice secretary about HMP Bedford, a category B reception...

17.11.2023 7

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

The problem with the BBC’s Israel coverage

Since the 7 October massacre, various institutions across the West have damaged their reputations when covering the murder of 1,200 Jews. Chief among...

16.11.2023 10

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Suella Braverman hit Sunak where it hurts

Sacked ministers seldom have nice things to say about the boss but Suella Braverman’s letter to Rishi Sunak is a ferocious assault on the Prime...

14.11.2023 6

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

David Cameron? Seriously?

All political careers end in failure but few return to prove it a second time. David Cameron, forced to resign after his defeat in the EU referendum,...

13.11.2023 10

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Why is the Welsh parliament condemning Israel?

This week, the Welsh parliament announced that it ‘condemns the Israeli Government’s indiscriminate attacks on Gaza’ and ‘calls on the...

10.11.2023 8

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Suella Braverman is right for once

There can be few sins in politics graver than giving Suella Braverman a point. Yet that is exactly what the Home Secretary has in her Times op-ed when...

09.11.2023 2

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

TikTok teens have an anti-Semitism blind spot

How could anyone hate Lily Ebert? The 99-year-old from Golders Green dedicates her life to teaching younger generations about the Shoah. Lily survived...

08.11.2023 4

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

It’s time to have a think about devolution

The Scottish government has launched another white paper on independence, this time on the subject of migration. It is the sixth paper in the...

03.11.2023 2

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Suella Braverman is all talk

Three cheers for Suella Braverman, hammer of the left. The Home Secretary has provoked yet more howls of indignation from progressives after...

31.10.2023 1

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Could Ash Regan’s defection be the beginning of the end for Humza Yousaf?

Eight months ago, Ash Regan was a contender for the leadership of the SNP, alongside Kate Forbes and eventual winner Humza Yousaf. Today she quit the...

28.10.2023 4

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

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