Politics

Simon Hughes’ desire (£) to stop Oxbridge academics interviewing potential students is muddle headed as well as an attack on the right of these universities to run their own affairs. If the coalition wants universities to pick on academic potential rather than academic performance to date, then the interview is a crucial part of this process. Sitting down with an applicant gives academics a chance to assess how this student’s mind works, to ask questions that they haven’t been drilled for. It allows them to use their professional discretion in choosing to make, say, a lower offer to a pupil from an underperforming school who in the interview demonstrates that

When Ed Balls is around, there are no shortages of stories. Balls, as is so often the case, has been the talk of Westminster today. First, there was the chatter generated by the FT’s story that members of the shadow Cabinet were irritated that Balls’ proposed VAT cut hadn’t been run past them. Then, there was Alistair Darling strikingly failing to endorse Balls’ VAT cut on the Daily Politics and to round it all off the shadow Chancellor was leading for Labour in its opposition day debate on the economy. The Tories are convinced that Balls’ relations with his fellow shadow Cabinet members is a weak spot for Labour. Indeed,

The normal Monday morning calm of The Spectator was disturbed today by an argument about David Cameron’s comments about fathers who go ‘AWOL’. I thought Cameron was right to say what he did, my editor didn’t. He felt that it wasn’t the Prime Minister’s job to moralise, and that him doing so was the beginning of a descent into totalitarianism.   The reason I think Cameron was right to speak out is that so many of the problems in this country are social or cultural. They can’t be solved by another piece of legislation or a government initiative. Rather, they require a broader cultural shift: a move away from the

Michael Gove is giving a big speech tomorrow on free schools amid evidence that the policy is beginning to gather momentum. The papers report today that there have been 281 applications to set up free schools in the round that closed this month alone (sentence updated).   One of the best known of these planned free schools is the one being set up Tony Blair’s former strategist Peter Hyman. Ever since The Spectator revealed back in May that Hyman was planning to take advantage of the Tories’ reforms to start his own school, there’s been considerable interest in what Hyman is up to. In today’s Sunday Times he eloquently defends