Society

Why was Melanie Phillips ousted as the Monday columnist for the Daily Mail? The Guardian suggests that she was frustrated by the ban on writing about Israel, which is not a restriction placed exclusively on Mel. Meanwhile, the peaceniks over at the Indy claim that Mel’s incendiary appearance on Question Time in June made Paul Dacre hit the red button. The clip above will refresh your memory. The Indy has an axe to grind (having lost Dominic Lawson, who is tipped to replace Mel); but I hear that it’s on the money. A source at the Mail tells me: ‘She played up to every stereotype of the paper, and it got too over the top’. Apparently, after the infamous

The age-old question cui bono (who benefits) should be asked regarding Russia and the United States’ diplomatic agreement on the international control and subsequent destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons. Amidst the hopefulness and optimism, the answers to this question prove disturbing. We must remember that it might take a disaster even worse than 100,000 dead and the use of WMDs against civilians before this light touch regulation of crimes against humanity is shown to be immoral and flawed. Who benefits? The Syrian government’s response is indicative, with Ali Haider, who has the Kafkaesque title of Minister of National Reconciliation, claiming ‘a victory for Syria won thanks to our Russian friends’. The Assad regime

Vince Cable is apparently the darling of his party. But not according to this highly scientific poll being conducted by the Campaign for Real Ale at the Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow, where the Business Secretary is currently the least popular pick from the top dogs in the party for the best person to have a pint with. What a bitter sensation that must be.

Last Tuesday, word began to spread in Whitehall that the United Nations were set to release a highly critical report about the Under-Occupancy Charge, aka the ‘Bedroom Tax’ to everyone but the government. Downing Street wanted to ignore the report, yet when it emerged that the UN’s Special Rapporteur was lined up for Wednesday’s Today programme, a plan was drawn up to fight back. Grant Shapps was activated and he fired the starting gun on what would be one of the more bizarre media wars this government has got into. Concern had been growing in the Department for Work and Pensions for several weeks about the behaviour of Raquel Rolnik, the UN’s Special

Twelve people have been killed in a shooting at US Naval Sea Systems Command’s HQ in Washington DC by a gunman later shot dead by police. The below charts events as they unfolded yesterday. It began at 8.20am EST in Building 197 of the Washington Navy Yard complex, which is home to 3,000 workers. Latest developments:- 8pm One of two suspects has been found and eliminated from inquiries, DC Police Tweets:- The white male in the tan outfit has been identified and is not a suspect or person of interest. — DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) September 16, 2013 7.10pm “It appears that we have at least 12 fatalities… no known

Jesse Norman MP, who used to lead the Prime Minister’s policy forum, is using his spare time to write for ConservativeHome. About twerking. For those of you who have missed this craze, the Oxford English Dictionary, in a shameless PR stunt, added the term to their latest edition: ‘To dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance.’ Turning to Jesse’s piece, apparently ‘the press have started to scrutinise’ Norman’s ‘public remarks with all the fervent enthusiasm of a group of Miley Cyrus fans at a twerking convention.’ How could we not? After all, Norman is the author of such deathless prose as this:

Since 2010, the average household water bill has increased by 14.5 percent. Indeed the average family has seen their overall utility bills rise by £384. Yet while jacking up our bills on the one hand the water companies have been indulging in serious levels of tax avoidance on the other. Over the past three years, a number of utility companies have used tax avoidance schemes – based on debt tax relief – which has substantially reduced their tax liabilities. Companies like Yorkshire Water and Thames Water. My study demonstrated that this tax avoidance has potentially cost the Exchequer almost £1 billion in the past three years. In my view industrial

In this week’s magazine Douglas Murray has struck up a friendship with Professor Richard Dawkins, despite things having started rather badly when Douglas previously suggested that the professor’s failure to criticise Islam was just him ‘showing his survival instinct’. Well, no one can accuse Dawkins of being shy on that front now, and the Professor recently received a sort of auto-de-fe for stating Islamophobic facts. But he was never a big fan of multiculturalism, at least the cultural relativism side that sought to treat western science as no better than the wacky beliefs of hunter-gatherer tribes; this has put him in conflict with some fellow opponents of the Church, who

‘Corruption’ is a subtle word, because it describes a process rather than an event. It does not merely mean bad behaviour: it means behaviour that becomes rotten out of something which was once good. That is why it often afflicts high-minded organisations more than ordinary businesses. People who think they are collectively moral are more self-deceiving than the average market trader. Hence the current embarrassments of the BBC about huge pay-offs. The reason that the Trust and executives are now publicly blaming each other over the issue is not because one side was in the wrong and the other in the right, but because, at the time, no one involved