Society

Thursday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

In this week’s Spectator

The latest edition of The Spectator is now out on iPad (click here for more info) and the newsagents (or £2, posted direct today). I thought CoffeeHousers may be interested in a small selection of the goodies we have in store.   1.  Andrew Neil on the conservative comeback in America. He spent the summer shadowing the Tea Party, and gives the best analysis you’ll read on what just happened – and what lies ahead. (You can read it here.) The Sunday Times’ Christina Lamb travelled across Nevada and California with the Tea Partiers, and tells tales from the campaign bus (one being that they only serve coffee). And Daniel

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The growing case for libel reform

Policy Exchange’s work on Islamism has been some of the most important undertaken by a think-tank in recent years. It has influenced and bolstered the thinking of brave politicians in both the last government and the current one. That’s why it is so important that Policy Exchange came off best in the libel case brought against it by North London Central mosque. The case is now over and the mosque has made, what Policy Exchange calls, ‘a substantial contribution’ towards the think tank’s costs. Policy Exchange has stated that it never meant to suggest that extremist literature was sold or distributed on the mosque’s grounds with the consent of the

Deroy Murdock

The rise of Marco Rubio

Of all the good news that the American Right is savouring at the moment, Marco Rubio’s victory must be near the top. Rubio won 49 percent of Florida’s vote, defeating Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek (20 percent) and (at 30 percent) Governor Charlie Crist, a frightfully ambitious former Republican, turned independent, who reportedly flirted with joining the Senate Democratic caucus, if elected. Rubio, a rising conservative star, promises to glow like the Sunshine State that he will represent.   For years, Republicans have been chided — rather unfairly — as the party of old, bald white men. Rubio undermines this accusation. Just 39 years old, Rubio exudes warmth and good humour.

Wednesday

Ed Howker

EXCLUSIVE: What about those who aren’t pulling a housing benefit scam?

Most sensible taxpayers think Britain’s current housing benefit costs to be a terrific scam. In the last five years the bill has risen by 25 percent. We now pay £21billion each year, a good chunk of which flows private landlords turning a healthy profit from the state’s responsibility to the poor. We all know by now that a slew of reforms designed to cut the bill by at least £2bn will stop the indefensible abuses of taxpayers’ money like this and this. That’s why Danny Alexander, among others, claims that the coalition must be ‘brave’ on housing benefit. But cast aside the most extreme exploiters of the system and ask

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Music hall act fails to cut it next to suave Etonian

Miliband’s in a mess. He makes it far too easy for Cameron to portray him as a hypocritical opportunist who sidles up to PMQs every week with lame soundbites and incoherent policies. How come? Perhaps because he sidles up to PMQs every week with lame soundbites and incoherent policies. Today he tried to unsettle the PM with the news that ‘members of his government’ (ie LibDems) ‘have given cast-iron guarantees that they would vote against a rise in tuition fees.’ This isn’t a Cameron problem. It’s a Clegg problem. Right issue, wrong tactics. Cameron had no difficulty adopting a noble but weary expression and praising his coalition partners for taking

Peter Hoskin

The tuition fees compromise

Away from the mid-terms, we have the little issue of tuition fees. David Willetts will today set out the government’s response to the Browne Review, and it’s expected to look something like this: a £9,000 cap on fees, but universities will have to show that they are making extra provisions for poorer students if they charge over £6,000. Students would effectively be loaned the money by the state, and would start paying it back once they earn £21,000 after graduation. It’s certainly a compromise arrangement, constructed with one eye on the Lib Dems and another on the universities. For Clegg’s backbenchers, there’s a rejection of the unlimited fees advocated by

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Fairness Doctrine

Fairness has become an important theme in contemporary politics and not just because the electorate – especially the Baby Boomers – are fond of complaining that “it’s not fair”. It doesn’t matter much what that something is or where the complaining is being done: fairness, or the perception of fairness is a thread connecting Washington to Paris via London. Here, the coalition’s welfare reforms are analysed in terms of their “fairness”; in France, protestors complain that pension reforms aren’t “fair” while in the United States there’s a widespread sense that the game is “unfairly” rigged against the common man. Each case is different but in each there’s a palpable sense

Piotr Brzezinski

California Dreamin’

Amidst the Democrats’ doom and gloom over the US midterm elections, there is one race that will give Obama hope, and it is in the world’s 8th largest economy: California. The state’s once and would-be future Governor, Jerry Brown, looks set for a comfortable win over Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay. Recent polls have put Brown, a career Democratic politician, ahead by nearly double-digit figures.  Brown leads despite the broader anti-insider, anti-Democrat wave; despite Whitman’s $141m campaign spend; despite having earned the nickname ‘Governor Moonbeam’ when last running the state; and despite gaffes like accusing Bill Clinton of lying not long after he appeared at a pro-Brown rally; 

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Yes, Julian Assange Is A Journalist

I’m not sure I understand the Wikileaks controversy. If one of the many definitions of news is (and always has been) that it is something that someone, somewhere does not want you to know then, yes, Julian Assange is a journalist. Perhaps newsman would be a better, more strictly accurate way of putting it. As such, it’s strange to see Americans accusing him of treason (he’s an Australian!) or William Hague complaining that the Wikileaks document-dumps put “British lives” at risk. So what? Then there’s Jonah Goldberg complaining that a column headlined “All Quiet On the Black-Ops Front” and subtitled “Why is Julian Assange Still Alive?” has – this may

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Why is Hopi Sen a Free Man?

By which I mean why isn’t he cooped up inside Ed Miliband’s office, working as a strategy-comms chap? Maybe he wouldn’t want the gig but it’s a good thing for us (in both a blogging and an anti-Labour sense) that he’s still a free man. Take this latest bout of good sense, for instance: Our nation has significant challenges – from deficit reduction to welfare policy to job growth. As an opposition we must have opinions on all of these, but lack the power to act on them. That is an exposed, vulnerable position. We already know how the Tories want to define us.  They want to spend the next four years painting us as

David Blackburn

Entente très cordiale

When it comes to pomp, Britain and France are still superpowers. The entente très cordiale has brought out all the plumage of 400 years of professional soldiering – bearskins, ostrich feathers, mink, gold leaf, thorough-bred horses, billowing capes and vibrant shades of scarlet and blue. Waterloo must have been a hell of a fashion show, before the guns inaugurated spectacle of a different kind.    As Liam Fox explained on the Today programme, this agreement enables two ailing but still ambitious powers to project force overseas beyond their specific territorial interests. They will share aircraft carrier capabilities, nuclear research secrets, and a pool of elite combat forces to be deployed

Mats Persson

A wasted opportunity for EU reform?

David Cameron made his statement on last week’s EU summit yesterday, answering a range of questions on the 2011 EU budget increase and future changes to the EU treaties. The Tory backbenchers appeared to be on their best behaviour, but Cameron did make an interesting admission. Asked by Ed Miliband if he would he be repatriating powers, he pointed to a reassurance that the UK’s opt out from economic sanctions remained intact, which was not really in question in the first place, and spoke of “progress on the EU budget”. It slipped through virtually unnoticed, but this second remark is actually quite worrying. Cameron’s answer suggested that he has agreed

David Blackburn

The inviolable right of prisoners

After 6 years of resistance, the British government has submitted to the European Court of Human Right’s judgement that prisoners have the right to vote. It will use a case in the Court of Appeal to make the announcement and then prepare itself for compensation suits. Understandably, the government is furious that it has been forced to make a concession on law and order, an area where they are weak enough already. Even Dominic Grieve, a firm supporter of the ECHR, is understood to be exasperated. Straining to limit the political damage, Ken Clark hopes to limit the franchise to those prisoners sentenced to less than four years; judges may also

Monday

Max Chambers

A harmful double standard

Professor David Nutt, the former Chief Drugs Adviser to the Government, has sparked controversy again today by pronouncing that alcohol is more harmful than heroin, crack, powder cocaine and methamphetamine. His findings are based on a paper published today, which builds on a 2007 journal that explored the same issues. So, is Professor Nutt right? If he is, what should the consequences be for public policy and, in particular, our systems of drug classification and alcohol taxation?   To find out, it is worth returning to Professor Nutt’s 2007 academic paper.  The relative harm of drugs is measured according to nine meters, taking into account the various aspects of physical

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 1 November – 6 November

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – providing your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’ – which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write – so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game – from political stories in your local

David Blackburn

All is not quiet of the welfare front

Welfare is fast becoming this parliament’s Ypres Salient – strategically critical, it is constantly contested. £20bn on social housing, £100bn on out of work benefits and £billions on universal benefits: welfare reform is where spending cuts are most conspicuous. A rhetorical confrontation is building and various tactical dispositions are being made. The Staggers’ George Eaton has an analysis that assumes that Labour’s current wedge-strategy (which I critiqued here) is not working because it is avowedly sectional, privileging those who might be caricatured as ‘undeserving’. Eaton argues that Labour must ‘launch a defence of the hard pressed majority’; those who work but still stand to lose, particularly families. Indeed, Westminster’s number-crunchers

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Labour’s Housing Benefit U-Turn

Hats off to Tom Harris for pointing out the obvious: comparing the coalition’s canges to housing benefit to Balkan ethnic cleansing or Auschwitz is neither big nor clever. Points too for reminding us that the Labour manifesto this year included this passage: Our goal is to make responsibility the cornerstone of our welfare state. Housing Benefit will be reformed to ensure that we do not subsidise people to live in the private sector on rents that other ordinary working families could not afford. How many “ordinary working families” (however they may be categorised) can afford to pay £25,000 in rent each year? Precious few, I submit. Granted, the coalition’s plans

David Blackburn

Confronting terror at home

As Julian Glover notes, Jack Straw let the cat out of the bag. ‘Never, ever, downplay the possible consequences,’ he says. The coverage of the recent bomb plot has largely ignored that it was foiled. That, by any definition, is a success, a vindication of our security services. Independent inspector Lord Carlile is right that improvements can be made to the bomb detection apparatus in airports and targeting security at the source of a threat – i.e. packages from the Yemen rather than package holidays. The previous government would have used this plot to introduce another wave of invasive legislation – never, ever, downplay the possible consequences to justify I.D.

Sunday

Martin Bright

The fault-line at the heart of Liberal Conservativism

Andrew Rawnsley has done well to identify the problems the coalition is having deciding its line on national security. His column today is a colourful evocation of the deadlock David Cameron and Nick Clegg face over  control orders and 28-day detention without charge. He calls it “alarmed semi-paralysis”, which is about right. Now they have seen the secret evidence and had the briefings from the intelligence services they somehow don’t feel so liberal any more. It is the sign of a mature democracy that it favours the liberty of its citizens over the control of them. But it also a lot easier to say you would be prepared to take risks