With just a couple of days left before the Budget, it came as no surprise to find the weekend press brimming with speculation about the Chancellor’s red box. While George Osborne did the rounds of the Sunday TV shows, news of proposed spending cuts dominated the headlines. The Observer devoted its front page to suggestions that
Angela Merkel continues to reap the whirlwind. In this weekend’s elections Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has emerged as the fastest-growing political insurgent party since 1945. It has managed to enter all three state parliaments – with over 10pc of the vote in Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and almost a quarter of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt, more than double the centre-left
Based on the tone that he took on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, we can expect George Osborne to take a rather defiant tone as he unveils this week’s Budget. The Chancellor has had a difficult few weeks, not least because of the retreat on pension reforms and defeat on Sunday trading, but he
With the Budget due next week, George Osborne appeared on the Andrew Marr show to warn of the need for further spending cuts. Keen to put forward an alternative vision for the UK economy, Labour’s Treasury team have also taken to the airwaves this morning. John McDonnell told Marr of the need for more long-term investment, arguing that
Who knew Nicola Sturgeon was a devotee of Saint Augustine? Her message to the SNP conference yesterday was simple: Lord, grant me independence but not yet. And how the people cheered! The mere mention of independence was enough to send the nationalists into a state of millenarian rapture as they imagined the ecstasy to come. Nothing
Lord Ashcroft is celebrating his 70th birthday at the Grosvenor House Hotel and Mr S is honoured to be one of the guests. William Hague, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan Smith, Penny Mordant and even Tom Watson are amongst the guests at perhaps the most lavish birthday party anyone will host in London this
Last night in Chicago, a mob of progressives shut down a Donald Trump rally. The protestors — described as mostly young millennials — infiltrated the University of Illinois Pavilion, in central Chicago, and set about subverting the event. They waved Mexican flags — pro-immigrant, geddit — and wore t-shirts calling Trump Hitler. There were violent clashes
Don’t expect ‘fireworks’ from the Budget one of Osborne’s closest political allies told me this week. Ahead of the Budget on Wednesday the Chancellor finds himself hemmed in by the EU referendum, fraying Tory discipline and the worsening global economic situation, I say in my Sun column this week. A Budget four years out from
The latest competition marked the tercentenary of Thomas Gray’s birth with an invitation to submit an ‘Elegy on a Country Churchyard’ written in the metre of his famous and enduringly popular poem. General Wolfe was a such a fan of Gray’s meditation on death and remembrance that in 1759, on the eve of the attack
In their interview in the Christmas edition of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth asked the Prime Minister whether he now considered that his intervention in Libya had been a mistake. David Cameron accepted that matters could have gone better since the fall of Gaddafi, but insisted that ‘what we were doing was preventing a
Although Alastair Campbell no longer works in politics, he remains a divisive figure in Westminster thanks to the reputation he earned as Tony Blair’s spin doctor. During this time, Campbell is said to have been instrumental in using spin to win parliamentary approval for Blair’s call to invade Iraq. Still, Campbell appears to think that
NOTE: Applications are now closed. Summer’s coming, and we’re looking for interns to spend a week or two with us here at The Spectator. We’re looking for people who love good journalism and understand how digital media works. The position will be paid (but not very much). We don’t mind where or whether you have gone to university; Frank
After Simon Hughes lost his seat in the general election, the Liberal Democrat stalwart went from Justice Minister to unemployed overnight. Happily the former Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats has since managed to find work, recently being appointed to cover maternity leave for the Open University’s head of public affairs Laura Burley. However, Mr S understands that
People — nice people, members of the public, concerned voters — keep coming up to me saying, ‘We want to hear the arguments about the EU referendum.’ It sounds a strange thing to want because, since the last years of Margaret Thatcher’s government, the arguments have rarely been out of the news for a week,
What is Labour’s biggest obstacle to getting back into government any time soon? Those who’ve spent any time thinking about the general election result – and the party still doesn’t talk that much about May 2015 – will say that until voters trust the party on the economy, it is not going to succeed. John
I usually take a stern view of corporate pay packets that are out of line with profits and shareholder value, but I’m prepared to make an exception for Bob Dudley. The American-born chief executive of BP collected $19.6 million last year, up 20 per cent on his 2014 remuneration, while the embattled oil giant clocked up
Liverpudlians are enjoying that Friday feeling thanks to new research showing that their city tops the list of affordable property hotspots. According to Which? Mortgage Advisers, Liverpool has seen the average price of a home soar by 40 per cent in the past five years. But the good news is tempered by the fact that prices
The tournament at Bunratty is Ireland’s premier chess competition and has been for several years. This year’s event, to which I was invited as a guest to deliver the closing speech, attracted a powerful field including the former world title challenger Nigel Short and the former British champion Gawain Jones as well as grandmasters Peter
Black to play. This position is from Skulte-Pein, Bunratty 2016. Black’s queen is attacked. His next move didn’t force immediate capitulation but did set up a winning attack. What was it? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 15 March or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk. There is a prize of £20 for the first
When the Japanese conductor Masaaki Suzuki leads his forces in a performance of a Bach cantata, does he worry that the non-Christians in his audience will face the fires of Hell? That seems a bizarre question to ask any conductor of Bach’s music, especially one from Japan, where only one per cent of the population