PMQs live blog | 25 January 2012
PMQs 25 January
Society
Wednesday
Obama delivers his pitch for a second term
A Romney-seeking missile. That was what much of Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address amounted to last night. He didn’t mention the Republican presidential challenger by name, of course. That would have been too obvious. But he did dwell on those sorts of issues around taxation and jobs — including his ‘Buffett Rule’, by which, we learn, millionaires should pay at least a 30 per cent tax rate — that have been causing Romney trouble. To underline the point that ‘a billionaire [should] pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes’, Warren Buffett’s secretary was even among the Obamas’ guests for the evening. Obama’s ploy, when presenting
Tuesday
In defence of the Welfare Bill
The government’s welfare reforms seem to be staggering on, despite the concern from the Lords that they’ll harm those who need help most: children and the disabled. But before the Bill goes back to the Commons, and everyone becomes more agitated, let me put the case for the Bill from the perspective of someone it might affect. I have a vested interest in the impending changes to disability benefits, because both my brothers are autistic – one severely so. My family depends on the Disability Living Allowance; caring for my brothers is a full time occupation for both my parents, and without support they simply wouldn’t be able to cope.
Romney’s tax returns provide ammo for his opponents
Finally, grudgingly, Mitt Romney has released his tax returns for the last two years. After much um-ing and ah-ing — and a lot of prodding from Democrats, Newt Gingrich and the media – he has disclosed that he paid $3 million in tax on his 2010 income of $21.7 million, and $3.2 million on the $20.9 million he made in 2011. Romney hoped that releasing this information would allow him to move past the focus on his financial affairs, but his rivals – both inside and outside his own party — don’t seem prepared to let that happen. The Democrats are naturally keen to emphasise both Romney’s large investment profits
UK government debt hits £1 trillion
New figures out today show the UK’s public sector net debt at just over £1 trillion for the first time ever. In the first 19 months since it took over, the coalition added £225 billion to the £779 billion debt it inherited. And it’s projected to rack up another £390 billion by the next election.
Monday
Bringing the squeeze into focus
The ‘word of the year’ for 2011 is already featuring prominently in 2012. Yep, the ‘squeezed middle’ is the focus of the Resolution Foundation’s latest report, which they launched in central London earlier today. It’s a fascinating and nicely presented study, and I’d recommend you read it in full: this think tank really is very good at choosing the most revealing metrics to bring some clarity to an often vague debate. But, in the meantime, here are some of the things that stood out to me from today’s event: 1. The squeeze started long before the recession. Talk of the ‘squeezed middle’ often focuses on the impact of the
Leave the Isle of Grain alone
It is a fairly horrible thing to find oneself on the same side of the fence as that gabbling imbecilic hag, Janet Street-Porter. The sort of occurrence which makes you question your entire belief system. But her article today about the ludicrous plan to build a vast airport on the Isle of Grain is absolutely correct, in pretty much every respect. I don’t quite see why the entire south-east of England should be tarmaced over and used as a sort of giant public convenience for London. The Isle of Grain is one of the few areas south of the Wash which is of genuine environmental importance (rather than being one
Sunday
My favourite nighttime diversion
Late at night, when my wife is safely tucked up in bed, I sneak into my office and turn on the computer. I spend ages in front of the screen, mesmerised, panting with exertion. To my wife’s disgust — when she checks my browser history — I am almost always sporcling. ‘I married someone who wastes his life away doing THAT,’ she says with utter contempt. ‘I think I would rather it’s porn.’ It’s not porn. I’ve never really been porn-inclined, not even when I was 15 and magazines like Hustler were doing the rounds. Instead, I get my kicks out of nerdish geography quizzes on the US website,
Introducing Coffee House: the App
The Sunday Times lists the ‘Top 500 Apps in the world’ (£) today, and I’m pleased to say that The Spectator’s brand new app ranks no.4 in its ‘news apps’ category. The newspaper describes the list as ‘the good, the mad and lovely’ and ours emerges as little of all three. What we have sought to do with the new app is combine our blogs and the magazine, and we are (I think) the first magazine to do so. The Sunday Times gives it the thumbs-up. It ranks us behind its own app, and those of the BBC and Sky News. Here’s its verdict: ‘The contents page may be slightly
Lansley’s headache becomes a migraine
Now that the three party leaders have each pronounced on capitalism, domestic politics is returning to its familiar battlegrounds. And there are few more familiar battlegrounds, for this government, than the NHS. Earlier this week a couple of unions came out completely against Andrew Lansley’s health reforms, despite his previous efforts to accommodate their concerns. And now we learn that the Commons health select committee, chaired by the former Tory Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell, is set to criticise those reforms as well. According to the Observer, a report that they’re publishing this week will raise a common complaint: that it’s tricky for the NHS to both reorganise and find efficiencies
Saturday
Letters | 21 January 2012
Full speed ahead Sir: William Astor (‘Signal failure’, 14 January) writes that High Speed 2 is supported only by ‘northern Labour MPs who relish the thought of the beauty of the Chilterns being destroyed’. He seems to have missed the MPs from across the House of Commons who joined forces this week to welcome the project. Links between the north and the south of our nation are of vital importance. Better connections are great for jobs across the north of England, but they are also necessary for the overdue rebalancing of our economy to which the Prime Minister is firmly committed. Lord Astor relies on the internet as proof that
Ancient and Modern: Aristotle on Balls
The reason why shadow chancellor Balls is such a liability is that he is incapable of understanding how other people feel. That may not matter in relation to the opposition — they do not care how he feels either — but it does, for what one would have thought were fairly obvious reasons, when he is dealing with us. Aristotle (384–311 bc) explains why. In his brilliant Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle devotes considerable space to a discussion of the emotions and the way in which they may be manipulated to one’s advantage. He is especially interested in anger and its opposite, praotês, which means ‘calm, mildness, patience, tractability, good temper’.
Barometer | 21 January 2012
Condemned A Norfolk woman was given the honour of pressing a button to demolish a tower at the Campbells soup factory where her father was scalded to death in 1995. Here are some other buildings demolished to expunge bad memories: — 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, former home of Fred and Rose West — 5 College Close, Soham, Cambridgeshire, house where Ian Huntley killed two ten-year-old girls in 2002 — Beb al-Azizlya Compound, Tripoli, former home of General Gaddafi — Muiredge Cottage, Buckhaven, Fife, bungalow where Rab Thomson murdered his two children — 12205 Imperial Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, house where Anthony Sowell raped, murdered and buried 11 women All at sea
Chains
The other day I walked past Patisserie Valerie on the corner of Broadwick Street and Marshall Street, in a shop that used to be a potter’s. ‘This isn’t really Patisserie Valerie,’ I thought to myself. What I had always taken to be a proper name (of a place in Old Compton Street, after its move from Frith Street, where it had been bombed in the war) had now become a common noun (a chain). Luke Johnson, who runs Risk Capital Partners Ltd, the owners of the Patisserie Valerie chain, is not entirely to blame for this, since a few branches had opened before he took it over in 2006. And
Dear Mary | 21 January 2012
Q. A close neighbour has a two-car garage that occupies her entire street frontage. However, she has developed a habit of parking her car outside my house so that I then have to park way up the street (I only have one car). When her many children visit, they also park in front of my house if I am not there. I think this is rather rude. Is there any way I can tactfully get the message to her that she should either park in her garage or down the street, where there is plenty of room? I have considered appealing to the local council but this seems a bit
Status Anxiety | 21 January 2012
On Saturday 7 February my wife and I finally succumbed to the combined pester power of our four children and bought a hamster. They’ve been nagging us for over a year to buy them a pet and this seemed like the least hassle. We opted for a six-week-old Syrian with reddish-brown fur and white patches. We decided to call her Roxy on account of her being so pretty. It’s short for Roxana, the Bactrian princess that Alexander the Great fell in love with. I quickly realised that hamsters are a bit like printers, in that you think you’ve got a bargain until you realise what the running costs are. Roxy
The Spectator’s Notes | 21 January 2012
In Thought for the Day, of all places, the weird bitterness behind much Scottish nationalism was revealed. On Wednesday, John Bell of the Iona Community complained of the suffering of the Scots and asked people in the south-east of England how they would like it if their history books had been ‘written in Aberdeen’. We should not have minded a bit. Indeed, though I cannot immediately recall a schoolbook from Aberdeen, the quantity of excellent British educational material coming out of Scotland — think of Collins in Glasgow — always far exceeded the relative proportions of the UK population. So did the writers — Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, John
The turf: Emerging names
Every sport needs renewal and the most heartening thing about this jumping season is the growing prominence of a bunch of comparatively new, comparatively young trainers. A little older than some is the phenomenon John Ferguson. Moonlighting from his worldwide role as Sheikh Mohammed’s chief bloodstock adviser on the Flat, he has set up as a jumping trainer and had 18 winners from fewer than 50 runners, an extraordinary strike rate. In Wales Tim Vaughan goes from strength to strength, matched in the Cotswolds by Martin Keighley. Then there are the ex-Lambourn Likely Lads, a bunch of successful horse-handlers who were all assistant trainers there and did their courses together.
Real life | 21 January 2012
The visit from the accident assessor appointed by the insurance company sent me on a cleaning spree involving industrial quantities of bleach. I spent the hours preceding his arrival subjecting every corner of my flat to a thorough going-over. Then I lit scented candles and brewed fresh coffee. ‘What am I doing?’ I muttered dementedly as I grabbed the dog and deposited her in the bath 20 minutes before he was due. Cydney was happy enough. There’s nothing she likes better than lapping warm water from a shower spray while skidding up and down a bath tub. ‘Got to get you nice and clean,’ I said, as I emptied half
Low life | 21 January 2012
A week into the New Year I drove to town early to do a spot of shopping. The sun was shining, I felt well again, and I marched up the high street with a spring in my step. The still-thriving high street is predominantly Georgian, with here and there a few remaining Tudor merchants’ houses. The foundations and old stone walls are medieval, and the narrow street runs steeply upwards between the ancient river bridge at the bottom and a textbook motte-and-bailey castle at the top. You can either park at the top and walk down, or park at the bottom and walk up. It depends how you feel.