Politics

Largely because of events, the febrile atmosphere in the Tory party has gone as damp as the weather after weeks of bickering. A combination of the Woolwich killing and recess have turned attention elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t still bubbling away under the lid. As any MP will remind you, parliamentary recess isn’t holiday but more time in the constituency. And time in the constituency means time with your party members, who are particularly unhappy at the moment. So MPs aren’t necessarily going to return on Monday with relaxed, sunkissed faces: more furrowed brows after awkward chats with constituency chairs. Which is why the Tory leadership is busying

Boris Johnson is ‘absolutely increasingly confident’ that David Cameron will win in 2015. This was the Mayor’s attempt at responding to Andy Coulson’s suggestion that he’s desperate for the PM to fail so he can cycle in and save the party, a blond messiah. Attempt is perhaps the wrong word, as it suggests Boris made those remarks off the cuff when the Mayor gives every impression that he scripts each remark with as much care as he puts into his newspaper columns. He told 5 News’ Andy Bell: ‘I’m always grateful to Andy Coulson for his career advice but I’m backing David Cameron who I am absolutely increasingly confident is

Optimists might think that a wariness on the part of senior Tory ministers to push through the Communications Data Bill without the Lib Dems’ consent is at least a sign the parties are starting to appreciate the practical limits of Coalition. They clearly listened to the party when the row about an EU referendum bill flared earlier this month. Then, a Lib Dem source told Coffee House: ‘If you are going to start saying well the different parties in the Coalition can now bring forward any bills they like, then enjoy the mansion tax and 50p votes. That sort of thing would be of no benefit to either party in

There has been a lot of talk about Jesse Norman’s book on Edmund Burke, and deservedly so for it’s a good book – accessible, learned and relevant. Burke is, I suspect, one of the great unread authors; but he’s worth studying because he’s influenced so many of our past and present concerns. The place of tradition is one example; Burke sometimes defended traditions for their own sake, and one wonders what he might have made of gay marriage, the ‘snooper’s charter’ or the European Union. And his conception of the individual’s relationship with society (which one might broadly define as the institutions and ‘little platoons’ that make the nation state) is another

Welcome, Sally Bercow, to the naughtiest club in town: the Libel Club. The colourful Mrs Bercow has often got it in the neck from the press; what with her demimondaine ways and penchant for wearing bed clothes. But few things can endear one more to Grub Street than being found guilty of libel. Sally is covered in ordure at present, while weathering some dismal ‘innocent face’ banter from all and sundry. But, once the schadenfreude has abated and the damages paid, Fleet Street’s libel reformers may adopt her case for their cause. Stranger things have happened. Indeed, there is already rumbling on the wires. In the meantime, vindicated Lord McAlpine’s solicitor sounds a clear and concise note: ‘Mr Tugendhat’s judgment is one

The political response to the Woolwich murder is following two broad patterns. On the one hand, the party leaders make dignified, calm statements, tending almost to the banal. There was, for example, very little difference between the comments of Ed Miliband and those of Nigel Farage. Both condemned the murder, offered support to Drummer Rigby’s family and urged calm from all. Unity is not surprising: there is not much one can reasonably say about such events without jerking a knee and making oneself hostage to fortune. The beheading of an off-duty soldier is no more representative of Islam than the reaction of the English Defence League is representative of patriotism.

I was surprised to be told, by the editor of this magazine, that next week will mark the 20th anniversary of my standing down as Chancellor. The anniversary had entirely passed me by. I was asked this week why, if the economy was turning, George Osborne didn’t announce that he had spotted ‘green shoots’, as I observed in 1991. Although my remark, much rubbished at the time, turned out to be surprisingly prescient, I think Osborne is right to be cautious. Economic statistics are revised so often, trying to steer the economy as Chancellor is, as Harold Macmillan observed, like trying to catch a train using last year’s timetable. The

Anyone who googled ‘tax avoidance’ this week will have been confronted (between adverts for accountancy firms) with endless stories about Google’s own tax avoidance schemes. If the company’s reputational management team was striving to stem the flood of bad publicity, it was not succeeding. Salvation for -Google arrived only when Apple’s tax avoidance became the big story instead. That is what the internet has created: a sometimes frightening, uncontrollable world in which information flows from place to place almost instantly and (mostly) unimpeded. Few would deny, however that the internet has had a benign and enriching influence on our lives overall. Government officials often become bogged down in discussions to

It goes without saying that when it comes to serious national tragedies, David Cameron is the right man to give a statement from Downing Street. His response today to the Woolwich killing underlined how good he is at producing sensitive and thoughtful speeches which, though written swiftly, avoid any knee-jerk reaction. He should be commended for taking special care to insist that yesterday’s attack ‘was also a betrayal of Islam an of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country’ and that the fault for the killing ‘lies solely and purely with the sickening individuals who carried out this appalling attack’. His statement contained a long section on