Tory backbenchers will raise concerns about the government’s preparations for the lifting of controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants at a meeting with the Home Secretary in the next few weeks, I understand. Conservative MPs are becoming increasingly nervous about the situation, fearing that if handled poorly, it could have a particularly bad impact on
David Cameron’s Commons statement on Algeria just now was the most interventionist speech he has made since the one he delivered at the Foreign Policy Centre during his 2005 leadership bid. But this speech is far more important than that one because it is what he actually believes; the 2005 speech was written by Michael
Journalist and film director Michael Winner passed away today aged 77. He was a popular diarist in the pages of The Spectator, with his most recent offering appearing in January 2010. In that column, he described the filming of his TV series ‘Michael Winner’s Dining Stars’, and mused about what might happen if it flopped:
Israel’s election is tomorrow, yet voting started here yesterday. At Kirya Defense Headquarters in Tel Aviv, serving Israel Defence Force troops have cast their ballots, and today more polling stations will open for soldiers. There is not much solid information as to suggest how the troops will vote. In recent elections, however, they appear to have backed the parties of
Michael Winner’s family have announced that he’s paid his last bill and checked out. The 77-year-old director of Death Wish and world renowned food critic died at home in West London earlier today. In what became his last Winner’s Dinners column, Winner recently gave his loyal readership a glimpse at his final days, recounting his trip to Switzerland where he stayed at
Wales, sadly is one of the poorest regions of the United Kingdom. GVA stands at 75 per cent that of the UK average. Just 1 in 16 people earn more than £35,000. There is an over reliance on the public sector, and we must boost growth in our private sector. Too often the approach seems
I doubt that George Orwell needs ‘George Orwell Day’. Aldous Huxley, Henry Green, J.G. Ballard, each of those dead writers might benefit from a bit of sponsorship, and so might we. But Orwell? His spirit pervades our times, and with good reason. Orwell may have recognised some of the ill that our politics and era are producing,
So the Prime Minister’s speech is, as James hinted yesterday, going to be on Wednesday, and in London to avoid any further strikes of the Curse of Tutancameron’s Europe speech. His official spokesman confirmed the date this morning. Thanks to briefed extracts and further briefings over the weekend, we now have a rough outline of
The Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill returns to the Commons this afternoon for committee and remaining stages. As I reported last week, rebel backbench Lib Dems, the Labour front bench team and Green MP Caroline Lucas have tabled a number of amendments to the legislation to change the uprating itself, which may provoke heated exchanges on
It’s the anniversary of George Orwell’s death today – and HMRC seem to be marking the occasion with adverts in cashpoints celebrating their emerging status as the Big Brother of Britain. The above picture, which I took the other day from a cashpoint, shows a pair of female eyes staring and blinking at you as
Courtesy of Time magazine: This article has been changed. An earlier version stated that Oxford University accepted “only one black Caribbean student” in 2009, when in fact the university accepted one British black Caribbean undergraduate who declared his or her ethnicity when applying to Oxford. The article has also been amended to reflect the context
‘Pastime with good company’, attributed to Henry VIII Pastime with good company I love and shall until I die. Grudge who list, but none deny, So God be pleased, thus live will I. For my pastance, Hunt, sing and dance, My heart is set. All goodly sport For my comfort Who shall me let? Youth
The Prime Minister’s two statements on the Algerian hostage crisis on Friday and Sunday set some tongues wagging about what sort of a role he saw Britain playing in the ‘global response’ that was ‘about years, even decades’ to the terror threat in North Africa. William Hague fleshed that out a little bit more in
If the Tory party doesn’t improve its performance with ethnic minority voters, it’ll be nigh-on-impossible for it to win a general election in a generation’s time. The single biggest driver of not voting Tory is not being white and more than one in four under fives in Britain are non-white. This is the background to
In this morning’s Observer I write about the collapse of the old notions of honour and fair play in sport, banking, politics, journalism, the law and much else. As I acknowledge right away, hard evidence is hard to find. Football’s rules change: what was a manly tackle in the 1960s is a foul today. Yesterday’s
Israel’s PR electoral system annoys mainstream politicians because it encourages a plethora of fringe parties, who waste their time and prevent them from doing what they want. The governing Likud-Beiteinu came together on a promise to overhaul the system. The proposals include raising the threshold for entering the Knesset from 2 to 6 per cent,
I see that Will Self is being lined up as a “writer in residence” at BBC Radio Four. I think this is very good news. Self is an excellent writer and while obviously of the left, is not doctrinaire or predictable in his views. He has wit, he is well-read and very clever. Good luck
Not that it’s a great surprise, but Liam Fox has come out as an out-er – i.e., he’d vote to leave the European Union if it cannot be reformed. He has hinted at this before, writing that the idea of leaving the EU “holds no terror” for him but on Sunday Politics he explicitly told
David Cameron’s Europe speech already had a Tutankhamun-style curse on it before events forced him to postpone it, with the much longer delay from its original date of mid-autumn causing a feeding frenzy in the media, in his own party, his coalition partners, and in the opposition. By the end of last week, it was
In his latest statement on the Algerian hostage crisis this morning, the Prime Minister built on the interventionist language that James spotted in his Commons address on Friday. Cameron said: ‘This is a global threat and it will require a global response; it will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than