Society

Go to London or of any other Western capital and here is what you will not see. You will not see mass demonstrations against the Russian invasion of the Ukraine swaying down the same streets in which the liberal-left marched against the invasion of Iraq. You will not hear prominent left-wing voices emphasizing that Putin is attempting more than an invasion; that the Russian Federation – and what a benign word ‘federation’ is for a revived Tsarist autocracy – is the last of the European empires, and is seeking to expand its borders, as empires always do. In short, the activist left will not tell its followers that we are

If politics was science, you would call Wales the ‘control’ group, for public service reform. Here is a country where Labour are the only game in town and a socialist philosophy which places a monopolistic state provider at the centre of health care and education reigns supreme – yes, even more supreme than the pupils and patients this system is designed to serve. In fact, in devolved Wales, Labour are running the public services as Ed Milliband would like to see them; a Labourite utopia of State supremacy, with none of the so-called evils of alternative providers getting in the way of the tight grip of the State. So how

Any government can set out on a journey of reform – the question is whether they can stay on course upon hitting turbulence. The coalition is entering this phase now. Its flagship reforms, universal credit and free schools, are encountering difficulty. We all know about the welfare problems, but not much attention has yet fallen on the nature of Michael Gove’s impending headache. I looked at this in my Telegraph column. There are now 174 free schools in England, and by this time next year it’ll be almost 300. Statistically, some of these are going to have problems – and this is the test for the government. If you were a

It is 15 years since the publication of the Macpherson Report into the investigation of the death of Stephen Lawrence. The report may have done some good by making the police take crime against black people more seriously, but its main legacy is bad. Macpherson promulgated the doctrine that ‘A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.’ If the incident is thus defined then there is literally no end to racist incidents; and if the (self-defining) victims — or anyone else — can define a racist incident thus then the person alleged by them to be guilty is automatically convicted. This

Because I’d like to have a child, and I’m getting on a bit, my husband and I have spent time recently with consultants. They’re an odd breed with distinct and shared characteristics. Invariably, after we’ve all sat down, their first move is to tilt their chair back, or give it a little twirl (design permitting), just to signal how free and easy it is at the top of the medical tree. When they speak it’s with a sort of hurried condescension, as if giving career advice to a hopeless niece. And they scribble as they go, on some scrap of paper. Ovary, ovary, arrow, hieroglyph, arrow, ‘Got that? Hmmm?’ Follicle,

It is 15 years since the publication of the Macpherson Report into the investigation of the death of Stephen Lawrence. The report may have done some good by making the police take crime against black people more seriously, but its main legacy is bad. Macpherson promulgated the doctrine that ‘A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.’ If the incident is thus defined then there is literally no end to racist incidents; and if the (self-defining) victims — or anyone else — can define a racist incident thus then the person alleged by them to be guilty is automatically convicted. This