“As Reform’s polling numbers tank, I’ll be reporting why this could be curtains for Labour.”

ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!

There is NO “neutrality clause” in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. No ban on NATO membership. No Russian veto over Ukraine’s foreign policy. There IS an explicit commitment to refrain from economic coercion against Ukraine. Before invading Crimea and intervening militarily in Donbas in 2014, Russia was already using economic pressure to dictate Ukraine’s choices. In 2013, Moscow obstructed Ukrainian exports and explicitly threatened further trade restrictions if Kyiv signed an agreement with the EU. Putin’s adviser warned of billions in losses and default. That is precisely the kind of coercion paragraph 3 prohibited. Russia’s disregard for its commitments didn’t begin with the invasion. The economic pressure came first. Stop inventing obligations Ukraine never accepted to excuse Russia breaking the ones it actually signed. Sources: treaties.un.org/doc/Publicat… interfax.com/newsroom/top-st… ksl.com/article/news/world/r…

There are so many idiots on here claiming that the nuclear weapons Ukraine surrendered were "Russian, not Ukrainian," or that "Ukraine could never have used them." Let's set the historical record straight. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine inherited an enormous Soviet military infrastructure, including conventional weapons, armored vehicles, aircraft, strategic missiles, and the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal. Many Soviet soldiers stationed in Ukraine were themselves Ukrainian and subsequently joined the newly established Ukrainian Armed Forces. Those weapons weren't simply "Russian weapons." They were part of the military arsenal of a multinational state that no longer existed, left on the territory of a newly independent Ukraine. Now, about the claim that "Ukraine could never have used them." Ukraine wasn't some technologically backward country incapable of understanding nuclear weapons. It possessed one of the Soviet Union's most sophisticated aerospace and missile industries. Ukrainian engineers had helped design and manufacture Soviet strategic missiles, including systems capable of delivering nuclear warheads. Although Moscow retained central control over the nuclear launch system, that did not mean Ukraine was permanently incapable of developing independent operational control. Ukraine had the scientists, engineers, industrial infrastructure, and technical expertise to pursue that capability. Whether it could have accomplished this reliably, and at what cost, was a separate question. And Washington, London, and Moscow took the possibility of a nuclear-armed independent Ukraine seriously enough to make its disarmament a major diplomatic priority. Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, debated the issue extensively. Some lawmakers argued that Ukraine should retain a nuclear deterrent precisely because they feared future Russian aggression. Ultimately, Ukraine agreed to surrender its nuclear weapons, joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear-weapon state and receiving security assurances under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. And here we are today. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion in 2022. The very Russian aggression that Ukrainian lawmakers feared when debating whether to surrender their nuclear deterrent became a reality. You can debate whether Ukraine could have successfully maintained an independent nuclear arsenal. That's a legitimate historical and technical question. But pretending Ukraine had no claim to the weapons on its territory, no relevant nuclear expertise, and no reason to fear future Russian aggression is a distortion of the historical record.

Now would be a good time to remind everyone of these Trump facts, because apparently some people still need the refresher. Please meet the President of the United States: Flew on Epstein’s plane at least seven times. Just friends, I guess. Pleaded the Fifth more than 400 times in a single deposition. Nothing says “innocent” like refusing to answer a single question about your own business. 34 felony convictions. A record most people would call disqualifying. And 91 criminal charges. Accused of sexual misconduct or assault by at least 26 women. But sure, tell me again how he’s a great guy. 6 corporate bankruptcies. The self proclaimed greatest businessman alive somehow keeps running out of money. 5 draft deferments. Funny how the toughest guy in the room never actually showed up for duty. 4 criminal indictments. Not two. Not three. Four. 2 impeachments. A club of exactly one president. 2 of his own companies convicted of criminal tax fraud. Convicted. Not accused. Convicted. 1 fake university shut down. 1 fake charity shut down. Even his charity was a grift. Paid 25 million dollars to settle the Trump University fraud lawsuit because scamming people who believed in you costs money eventually. Ordered to pay 5 million dollars in the first E Jean Carroll sexual abuse verdict, then hit with 83.3 million more in the second. A jury said it twice so nobody could pretend it was a fluke. Ordered to pay 2 million dollars for looting his own so called charity. Stealing from a charity with his own name on it. Found liable for business fraud and originally slapped with a penalty topping 450 million dollars, later thrown out on appeal while the fraud finding itself stuck to him anyway. First president in modern history to increase the deficit every single year of a full term. Fiscal responsibility, apparently, was always just a talking point. Kept the debt to GDP ratio above 100 percent for his entire first term. Presided over the largest single day point drop in Dow Jones history at the time. So much for the guy who claimed to be a genius with money. Set the record for the longest government shutdown in US history in his first term at 35 days, then couldn’t resist beating his own miserable record in his second term with a 43 day shutdown, followed by yet another shutdown just months later. Encore nobody asked for. Added roughly 2.25 trillion dollars to the national debt in his first year back in office alone, pushing the debt past 39 trillion dollars. Somebody remind me who the party of fiscal discipline is again. Pushed through the largest defense budget increase since World War Two while the debt kept climbing anyway. Purged more than 300,000 federal employees in his first year back. Efficient, if your goal is chaos. Pardoned nearly 1,600 January 6 Capitol rioters. At least 40 of those pardoned rioters have already been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for new crimes since walking free. Shocking absolutely nobody. His family’s crypto ventures, including a meme coin and World Liberty Financial, pulled in more than 1.4 billion dollars in disclosed earnings while he sat in the Oval Office. Draining the swamp was apparently code for filling his own pockets. Sent the National Guard into American cities at a cost of nearly 500 million taxpayer dollars in 2025 alone. His own tariffs are projected to cost the average American household more than 2,500 dollars this year. You’re paying for this. Not China. You. No more foreign wars. Peace deal with Russia and Ukraine on Day One. None of this is a conspiracy theory, a rumor, or something you saw in a group chat. It is the actual, documented record, sitting in plain sight for anyone willing to look. So the next time someone tells you to relax and give him a chance, ask them how many more indictments, judgments, and shutdown records he needs to rack up before that chance runs out. Credit: Charles Curtis Rone

Finally some good news... You can join The Spectator for half price in our autumn sale.

I honestly don’t know how anyone could ever forgive the Tories for what they did. I certainly won’t.

All I remember of Hancock is him finding time to grope some woman’s bottom and divorce his wife. He did nothing to help us. And now we can see he and Johnson killed 43,000 in care homes. Bang then up.

- Matt Hancock said he’d put a protective ring around Care Homes. - Matt Hancock lied. - Boris Johnson also culpable. - Boris Johnson the worst possible PM at the worst possible time. - The Tories need to be out of government for a generation at least. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck1l…

Not an ounce of contrition. No apology, no guilt, no remorse. Covid inquiry? Tens of thousands of needless deaths? Water off a duck's back. It was only the little people anyway. @KemiBadenoch @Conservatives @griffitha @alexburghart @Jeremy_Hunt @michaelgove @BorisJohnson