Society

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

What Harriet Harman won’t tell you

By her usual standards, Harriet Harman was quite effective in her response to George Osborne’s Budget earlier.  She was clear, direct and had a few gags at Vince Cable’s expense.  And she also benefitted from what, on the surface, was a strong central attack: the Office for Budget Responsibility, she said, has downgraded its jobs forecasts on the back of the Budget.  And so, she followed, this is a Budget which destroys jobs. But there were a few things that Harman wasn’t letting on.  First, as Jim Pickard points out at the FT, the OBR forecasts haven’t shifted by all that much from their previous incarnation.  And, second, they are

Peter Hoskin

Unspectacular, but quite effective

Well, that was excitingly unexciting.  There was little in George Osborne’s Budget that we didn’t expect, either in terms of rhetoric or policy.  But it still felt new and different nonetheless.  Here we had a Chancellor setting out exactly how much spending he will cut, and putting plenty of emphasis on both our deficit and debt burdens.  It drew a stark contrast with the Brown years, and was a solidly understated performance in itself. There will be plenty of attention paid to the hike in VAT, and rightly so.  But there were some macroeconomic forecasts which were just as eyecatching.  In his address, Osborne suggested that the deficit on “current

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Osborne’s Finest Hour?

Like many people, I’ve rarely been wholly convinced by George Osborne. So let it be said that this budget was perhaps his finest hour. Happily, there is something for everyone to complain about. It would be wrong if this were not the case. I suppose Osborne could have avoided putting up VAT (to 20%) had he not exempted the National Health Service from the consequences of his axe-wielding. Politically, however, one can see why this was a gamble too far. Nevertheless, this was, on the face of it, a good budget. Four out of every five pounds in savings come from spending restraint, not tax rises and this seems to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The old politics

The first Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions was the worst of the old politics. I’m all in favour of robust exchanges in the Commons but the Labour side was just shouting at Clegg today. As he was answering one question — and, I mean, actually answering — on Sheffield Forgemasters, one Labour MP tried to drown him out with cries of traitor. Although, I thought the question about whether Clegg could help Crimestoppers with the whereabouts of the fugitive Lib Dem donor Michael Brown was delivered with wit.   One thing worth noting is that the soft-ball questions to Clegg came from Tory—not Lib Dem—backbenchers. I was also struck by how

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Death by Taser: Coming to a Street Near You

Meanwhile, in other police news, Coppers in Birmingham are being armed with Tasers as a matter of course. Until recently, only firearms officers were so equipped. Sadly, this means that it’s only a matter of time before someone is killed by one of these things. That’s what happens when you start flinging 50,000 volt charges about. This isn’t a question of if but of when. It will happen. What’s more, I strongly suspect that handing more weapons  – even of the supposedly non-lethal type – actually makes everyone less safe. When the police are encouraged to think of themselves as paramilitaries then we shouldn’t be surprised when they start acting

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Another Disgraceful Prosecution

Like the Devil’s Kitchen, I’m late getting to this story travesty. The most enraging aspect of it is, of course, that one can no longer be surprised by this kind of behaviour. Yet again the police and the criminal justice system prove themselves out of touch with common sense or decency. A grandmother has been jailed for five years for possessing a “family heirloom” World War II pistol. Gail Cochrane, 53, had kept the gun for 29 years following the death of her father, who had been in the Royal Navy. Police found the weapon, a Browning self-loading pistol, during a search of her home in Dundee while looking for

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Heroic Journalism

I am a great admirer of John Rentoul’s series of Questions to Which the Answer is No and recommend it to you without hesitation. Until today, however, I had not known of the inspiration for this splendid feature. Discovering that it all began with the Daily Mail is no great surprise and could anything really be more perfect than the question* that Rentoul picked to begin this valuable series: There is, I submit, something almost heroic about this and the minds capable of producing such dizzying leaps of logic. It is magnificent. *As is often the case, the online version isn’t quite as good.

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg gets his retaliation in first

Nick Clegg has written to his MPs and party members trying to stiffen their sinews ahead of the Budget. The message is, yes this will be unpleasant, but it’s Labour’s fault—and they shouldn’t be allowed to forget that as they rail against it. It ends with this very David Cameron-esque sign-off, ‘Sorting out Labour’s mess will be difficult but it is the right thing to do.’ Tomorrow, will be the biggest test by far of the Coalition and Lib Dem support for it. Will we see Lib Dem MPs waving their order papers as Osborne sits down, will they have the stomach to cheer such a tough Budget? Tory MPs

Ed Holmes

Why a public sector pensions levy makes sense

Today’s papers are awash with stories that a public sector pensions levy will be announced in tomorrow Emergency Budget. Trade unions have already issued dire warnings, ranging from the PCS’s promise to “organise the widest possible popular opposition,” to Bob Crow of the RMT’s rather prosaic: “when someone’s winding up to give you a kicking you have a clear choice — you can either take them on right from the off or you can roll over and hope that they go away.”  Public sector workers, however, should not be so dismissive.   In our report, released on Friday, we argue for an “Irish style” graduated public pensions levy of 7.5

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 21 June – 27 June

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

Peter Hoskin

Who is prepared to cut, and who isn’t?

One of the leitmotifs of this Parliament  – and something which, by many inside accounts, is helping the coalition immensely – is the willingness of the civil service to wield the axe within their own departments.  And now, courtesy of Reform and the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a new survey suggests that this mentality may stretch beyond Whitehall.  It quizzes public sector “finance decision makers,” and the headline finding is that: “82 per cent of respondents think further savings can be made within their organisation in the next year without affecting the current level of service they provide.” Far more intriguing, though, is the finding that 84 percent of them

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 21 June 2010

…here are some of the posts made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson feels optimistic about George Osborne’s Budget. James Forsyth reports on the latest BP PR gaffe, and weighs up the political implications of Chris Huhne’s affair. Peter Hoskin observes David Cameron preview the austerity budget, and says that John Hutton is a good choice to review public sector pensions. Rod Liddle says that Stephen Fry has got it right, for once. And Melanie Phillips highlights more arrows of satire.

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Fabio the fall guy

How quickly they’ve all turned, the supposed football experts who, three months ago, were proclaiming Fabio Capello as the greatest manager since Sir Alf. Praising the discipline he imposed upon his team, praising his “flexible” 4-4-2 formation. Two adverse results against crap teams is all it took. Now he was wrong to have been strict with his pack of overpaid muppets, wrong to have stuck to 4-4-2. The press has joined the whine of complaint coming from the England dressing room; incredibly, it is on the side of the players. As a consequence, Fabio Capello has been publicly humiliated by both the team and the man he demoted from the

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

John Hutton: a good man for the job

While we’re enjoying a burst of optimism about the coalition, it’s worth highlighting the news that John Hutton has been put in charge of a review into public sector pensions.  As I’ve said before, Hutton was one of the most quietly impressive figures of the New Labour era, and someone who impressed during his time at work and pensions. Even the Tories’ current welfare agenda owes a lot to Hutton: he commission the Freud Review which set the parameters for welfare reform in this country, and he fought on its behalf against a reluctant Gordon Brown. In a wonkish sort of way, it will be exciting to see what happens

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Osborne’s massive opportunity

I’m quite optimistic about George Osborne’s budget – in the same sense that one might have been optimistic when Churchill took over from Chamberlain. Not because the situation is good, or because you think the road ahead will be easy or enjoyable, but because the road no longer leads to disaster. Not that Osborne is a Churchill – even though he will have his own fair share of blood, sweat toil and tears for us on Tuesday. I’m pretty confident he’ll head in the right direction, and at the right speed. I discuss this in my News of the World column today, but will say a little more here: 1.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Huhne and the future of the Coalition

The exposure of Chris Huhne’s affair could end up affecting the way the Coalition develops. At the last election, Huhne held his seats thanks to the loaned votes of Labour supporters; his literature emphasised how in Eastleigh the only way to keep the Tories out was to vote for him. His majority is 3,864 and the Labour vote there fell by 5,085. Once Huhne went into government with the Tories, he was always going to lose most of these Labour-leaning votes at the next election. But he’ll now also probably lose the support of some voters who feel let down by his behaviour. All in all, it looks like Huhne will

Saturday

Melissa Kite

Broadband battle

For nearly a year now, I’ve been promising my father I will brave the BT call centre to order him broadband. He knew that what he was asking me to do was a far greater thing than any father should ask of his daughter, so when the day finally dawned for me to make good on my pledge he volunteered to sit down with me as I made the call. Perhaps it was a good thing that we went in together, for within seconds of dialling the eighth circle of hell on speakerphone we were clinging to each other in sheer terror. Something called Talk and Surf was £15.99 a

Jeremy Clarke

Only connect

My laptop is a year old. The granite boulder on which it rested was, according to the guidebooks, 290 million years old. The granite was coarse-grained stuff, studded with oblong crystals of quartz and feldspar, and furry with lichen. My laptop is made of shiny black plastic, usually marred by my greasy palm prints, though it buffs up nicely with a tissue. Both granite boulder and the plastic laptop shell have previously been in a molten state and then cooled. They had that in common. But the laptop looked worthless next to the stone. I made this daft comparison while waiting for my email web page to load via my

Taki

Football overload

Is there anything worse than listening to those hucksters in South Africa going bananas over the ugly game called football? Modern society is dominated by emotion and propaganda, not to mention profit, and when all three are combined what we get is the World Cup. Technicolor pictures of fat men and women jumping up and down while blowing into a contraption called a vuvuzela dominate the front pages, as if an order had come from on high to feature the most boorish and the fattest cheering for the most foul-mouthed and overpaid. Posturing peacocks spouting gibberish go on ad nauseam about the brilliance of holding the cup in South Africa,

Ursula Buchan

In praise of greenfly

God may have a special preference for beetles but, frankly, aphids (greenfly to you, squire) are more my thing. If that seems a barmy thing for a gardener to say, rest assured I get just as irritated as everyone else by their vigour-sapping, leaf-curling, virus-transmitting presence on my flowers, fruit, vegetables and greenhouse plants. When they stick their hollow feeding tubes (stylets) into soft stems, the pressure in the plant pumps sugary sap into their bodies and they then excrete it, dripping sticky honeydew on to leaves below; this attracts small fungi called sooty moulds. What could be more annoying than that? But I also understand that, as the plant