Society

Few people have been as vindicated about the failings of the euro as Marty Feldstein, who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Reagan. In 1997 he wrote a piece for Foreign Affairs called ‘The EMU and International Conflict’. In it, he argued that far from furthering peace and stability in Europe, the Euro would actually endanger it. Watching the events of the past few months, few could disagree with him. Feldstein has now returned to the debate pointing out that none of the current fixes being suggested will solve the single currency’s problems. He writes: ‘Although the form of political union advocated by Germany and others remains

When David Cameron sits down for lunch with Nicolas Sarkozy today, he is bound to ask his host how the presidential election is going. In response, President Sarkozy is likely to break into one his wide-faced smiles, and begin moving about energetically, as he tends to do when he is excited. Forget the polls that put Francois Hollande ahead in a two-way race. It is too early to tell what people really think and, crucially, it won’t be a two-person race. It is a five-person, two-round election. And so far, Sarkozy is doing very well. Besides Sarkozy and Hollande, four other candidates could make a difference to the outcome: Marine

This week’s Spectator cover star Nils-Axel Mörner brings some good news to a world otherwise mired in misery: sea levels are not rising dangerously – and haven’t been for at least 300 years. To many readers this may come as a surprise. After all, are not rising sea levels – caused, we are given to understand, by melting glaciers and shrinking polar ice – one of the main planks of the IPCC’s argument that we need to act now to ‘combat climate change’? But where the IPCC’s sea level figures are based on computer ‘projections’, questionable measurements and arbitrary adjustments, Mörner’s are based on extensive field observations. His most recent

The lack of growth in the economy has taken its toll on the government – and George Osborne – according to YouGov’s post-Autumn Staement poll. After the Budget in March, 34 per cent said the Chancellor was doing a good job – now it’s just 24 per cent. And the percentage saying he’s doing a bad job has risen from from 40 to 49. Here’s how the public’s view of the economic performance of the coalition as a whole has declined since Osborne’s first Budget: Despite this, Labour have failed to seize the initiative. Osborne still leads Ed Balls on the question of who’d make the better Chancellor, 30-24. Indeed,

Not many folk are aware of it, but there is an official riots inquiry and it has delivered its interim report today. Its conclusions are pretty clichéd and not really worth studying; David Lammy’s book is infinitely more instructive and readable. But it does produce a few figures about the rioters — or, I should say, those arrested mainly because they didn’t think to cover their face. I looked at this for my Telegraph column last week. Here’s my summary of today’s report:   1. Broken Britain. Some 46 per cent of those arrested live in the lowest ‘decile’. These guys are not working class, but welfare class. Abandoned by

Wednesday’s strike is going to be big — unlike the one in June, which I suspect most people didn’t really notice. You’re not going to be able to miss this one as 90 per cent plus of schools shut — compared to a third in June — and it takes half a day for anyone coming to Britain to pass through passport control. Michael Gove’s speech this morning is being widely seen as the government taking a more confrontational attitude to the strike. But I think that’s only half the story. What Gove was trying to do was appeal to the union membership while attacking those union leaders who really