Politics

The slide towards extinction in Scotland has persuaded the Tories to draw up a blueprint for separation, says Fraser Nelson. The Scottish Tories would split off — and Cameron’s Conservatives would become the English party For the son of an Aberdonian stockbroker, David Cameron has had an uneasy relationship with Scotland. It is a land of massacred Conservatives, even less hospitable to his party today than it was during the great Tory wipe-out ten years ago. In his visits north of the border, the Tory leader has not so much tried to lead the remaining Scottish Tories to victory, but to check their pulse. In London, there is serious concern

In a famous Spectator article of 17 January 1964, Iain Macleod denounced the ‘magic circle’ of senior Conservatives who had engineered the succession of Lord Home as prime minister the year before. The Crown was obliged to follow the advice tendered by Harold Macmillan, Macleod concluded, ‘but the result of the methods used was contradiction and misrepresentation. I do not think it was a precedent that will be followed.’ He was right. Since the election of Edward Heath in 1965, every Tory leader, with the exception of Michael Howard in 2003, has been chosen in a full-blown democratic contest. Twice since Home, there has been a change of Prime Minister

‘A Budget for business’ was how — as usual — it was spun beforehand. ‘A Budget to expand prosperity and fairness for Britain’s families’ was how the speech actually began. But this week’s 11th and final performance from Labour’s longest-serving Chancellor was in reality neither of these things: it was a Budget for Brown. The price Gordon Brown has paid for the exceptional length of his Treasury tenure and the exceptional strength of his grip on every other part of domestic government is that on Wednesday he was left with very little to say about policy and economic performance that he had not already said many times before. He did

Jamie Oliver would make an excellent investment manager. Not because he’s moonlighting as a private-equity mogul — although his rival influencer of public opinion, the rockstar/philanthropist  Bono, is doing exactly that — but because Jamie knows that in putting together a good dinner, or even a single dish, two aspects are vitally important. All the ingredients must be of the highest quality, and they must complement each other perfectly. If the white wine is too warm and the lollo rosso too limp, Jamie will see his friends stampeding for McDonald’s. Investment management is similar, though unlike celebrity cooking it hasn’t yet entered popular culture. No television programmes called Ready, Steady,

Next month the Office of Fair Trading will produce its long-awaited report into parking fines. It is expected to rule that charging motorists £60 for overstaying their welcome at a parking meter is unfair, and that in future councils must charge motorists only what it costs to issue the parking ticket. Actually, that’s not quite right: hell will freeze over before councils stop raising revenue through parking fines. What the OFT is really going to produce is a report on what it considers to be the ‘unreasonable’ practice of banks charging customers up to £39 for going into unauthorised overdraft. It will propose that banks be allowed to charge those

When Goldilocks broke into the three bears’ house and stole their breakfast, she found Baby Bear’s porridge to be just right — neither too hot nor too cold. The same is true of today’s ‘Goldilocks’ American economy: it is growing neither too fast nor too slowly but just right, to the great surprise of its many critics. In fact, America’s resilience in the face of intense economic headwinds has been one of the great surprises of the past 18 months. Wall Street pundits were convinced the US economy would grind to a halt in the second half of last year, and would by now be mired in rising unemployment, low