Society

Monday

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 24 May – 30 May

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

Those coalition cuts in full

Here, via the Guardian Data Blog, is what each department will be contributing to Osborne’s £6.2 billion package of cuts this year: Department Contribution to cuts in 2010/11, £million % of department’s overall 2008/09 spending Business, Innovation and Skills 836 54.60 Communities and Local Government 780 2.12 Devolved Administrations 704 1.09 Transport 683 4.44 Education 670 1.06 Work and Pensions 535 0.39 Chancellor’s Departments 451 0.41 CLG spending by local government 405 1.59 Home Office 367 3.68 Justice 325 3.35 DEFRA 162 5.23 Culture, Media and Sport 88 1.29 Energy and Climate Change 85 4.05 Cabinet Office 79 1.05 Foreign and Commonwealth Office 55 2.85 Law Officers’ Departments 18 TOTAL

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 24 May 2010

…here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson says that David Cameron should seek the common ground. James Forsyth advises Cameron to pay attention to recent friendly warnings, and watches Andy Burnham fail to explain the point of his candidacy. Peter Hoskin sees plenty of encouraging signs from David Laws, and says that the Tories have their eyes on Iran. Charlotte Gore wonders whether the Tories have fallen victim to the Lib Dem Hug of Death. Martin Bright reports on Ken Livingstone stooping to new levels. Alex Massie praises the Third Most Important Man in Britain. And Melanie Phillips comments on what the death

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Osborne needs to make the moral case for cuts

Gordon Brown may have been defeated, but you can hear his voice in the broadcast reports this morning about the £6 billion cuts which George Osborne will mention today. The BBC was still expressing this in terms of frontline service cuts – the equivalent of 150 schools, apparently. This was the root intellectual error which sent Britain on the path of fiscal ruin – the idea that extra spending magically means extra, better services. If that were true, Britain should have the best schools on the planet and healthiest population in the world, given that our spending over the last decade years increased, quite literally, faster than any other country

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

The big week ahead

After the historic events of the past two weeks, it seems odd to say that the next few days are the most important of the coalition government so far.  But, until the emergency Budget on 22 June, there’s little that will hold quite so much significance as tomorrow’s announcement on spending cuts and the Queen’s Speech on Tuesday. This will be a major chance for the coalition to get more of the public onside for a programme which is set to last years. In which case, it’s unsurprising to read that the government will sweeten the medicine of cuts by hastening through some of its most radical, positive policies before

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Burnham fails to explain what the point of his candidacy is

Another Sunday, another Labour leadership contender on Marr. But Andy Burnham’s performance this morning did him few favours. His argument for his candidacy seems to be that because he’s northern and from a working class background he’d be a better leader than either of the Milibands or Ed Balls. The limitations around Burnham’s candidacy were exposed when the question of immigration came up, an issue that Burnham has sought to make central to his candidacy. Burnham said that immigration was one of those issues where Labour’s traditional vote felt the Labour government was ‘not on its side’. But when Marr pressed him on the issue, Burnham didn’t criticse the last

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Great Moments in Sub-Editing

Am cricketing today, so talk amongst yourselves. Or stay silent if you prefer. Meanwhile, here’s a reminder that the Murdoch press reaches parts their competitors can’t…

Saturday

Melissa Kite

No good deed . . .

Never do a good turn for anyone. What was I thinking, asking the lady if she’d like a lift up the Tube steps with her pram? I wasn’t even going in the same direction as her, for goodness sake. She was at the bottom of the steps looking up at the gargantuan climb ahead. I had just skipped happily down the steps on my way into town to have a nice, carefree night out. The mistake I made, as I caught sight of her standing helpless and alone with her buggy, was to allow my instincts to take over before my brain could say, ‘Whoa there, that’s got to be

Jeremy Clarke

Sausage saga

Opinion behind the counter in the busy, family-run Silver Grill fish and chip shop was sharply divided. The grieving Leicester City supporter who ran the place thought that Portsmouth had every chance of pulling it off. In the betting shop next door they were offering 33–1 on Pompey winning 1–0, he said, riddling the chip cage. Ridiculous odds. They are an experienced team and they won’t mind mixing it. If they rise to the occasion, Chelsea won’t have things all their own way, you mark my words, he said. But his nephew — baseball cap, beard and his arms so densely tattooed that at first glance it looks as if

Taki

Manhattan at its best

The block I’ve lived on these past 35 years is next to what no less a Manhattan authority than Woody Allen has called the most beautiful street in the city. At this time of year, the elms and poplar trees give my block a country feeling, which for me is as good as it gets. Country living in a city is what it’s all about. An English writer once described the place as being without trees, ‘but as if by a miracle little heaps of twigs and blown leaves gather in the gutters’. Looking out of my window I wonder what city she was referring to. The Bagel is leafier

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 22 May 2010

Q. May I pass on a tip to readers? I always used to feel a bit embarrassed if, when leaving a drinks party at about 9 p.m., people stopped me to ask where I was going. Usually I am going back to a dreary supper on my own but it seems so dull to say so. Moreover, admitting it often leaves one open to being corralled into an expensive and protracted restaurant experience. I have now found that the Daily Telegraph Court & Social pages are a useful source of inspiration for these occasions. Before going out I simply check the Today’s Birthdays column. If caught short, I claim that

Peter Jones

Mind your language | 22 May 2010

The weirdest sentence to me in the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats was this: ‘It is also likely there will be a grandfathering system for current peers.’ I had no idea what grandfathering was. The weirdest sentence to me in the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats was this: ‘It is also likely there will be a grandfathering system for current peers.’ I had no idea what grandfathering was. Could it be like mothering or babysitting? On looking it up, I discovered that a grandfather clause was a device used in the southern states of America to prevent black people from voting. ‘It

Toby Young Toby Young

Old Etonians don’t care about being liked. That’s why they make good PMs

To the untrained eye, the social gulf that separates David Cameron and Nick Clegg is hard to spot. They are both sons of financiers, both ex-public schoolboys, both the products of elite English universities and both in their early forties. Indeed, when they gave their joint press conference in the Rose Garden last week it was reminiscent of the final scene in A Comedy of Errors in which two twin brothers are reunited after being separated at birth. However, for those well versed in the manners and habits of the educated bourgeoisie, the differences between them could hardly be more pronounced. Cameron likes to remain aloof, whereas Clegg likes to

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody | 22 May 2010

Monday I finally got the call! I hadn’t been left behind, they’d just forgotten to tell me I was hired until they realised there weren’t any pot plants. I’m pleased as punch to have my old job of Ambience Management back. I don’t mind if Poppy is Chief-of-staff-to-the-chief-of-staff. I wouldn’t want the responsibility. You know, for sorting out The Mess. It’s horrific. You should see the note left in the upstairs flat: ‘Dear David and Samantha, The cooker’s on the blink and the fridge only works if you wedge something heavy against it. We found the Red Book worked well. Good luck, Gordon and Sarah. PS. Don’t use the microwave

Norman Stone

Diary – 22 May 2010

The last election in which I voted was that of 1997. On Blair’s brave glad morning I flew to Edinburgh for something, and as we touched down the intercom said, ‘Welcome to Scotland, a Tory-free zone.’ I thought — not a good thing for the national airline to be taking sides. On the way back I ran into Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was looking bloodily unbowed from an attempt to wrest Kirkcaldy from Lewis Moonie. Now he has made the House, and good luck to him. When he was an undergraduate at Oxford he was very good at organising Thatcherite events, which was where we met. Back then — 1988 or

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 22 May 2010

George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said he would hold an emergency Budget on 22 June. He announced the setting up of an Office for Budget Responsibility under Sir Alan Budd, one of the original members of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee in 1997. The office would publish its first economic and fiscal forecasts before the Budget. In the meantime the government looked for £6 billion of savings to make this year. Mr David Cameron, the Prime Minister, sought, as an adviser on poverty, Mr Frank Field, the Labour MP asked in 1997 to ‘think the unthinkable’ about welfare reform and sacked as a minister when he

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A friendly warning to Cameron

Charles Moore’s column in the Telegraph today on Cameron and the 1922 is quite an indictment of the way that the new Prime Minister has treated his parliamentary party. Charles has long been an advocate of Cameron. As Thatcher’s official biographer and the most trusted Conservative-leaning journalist of his generation, he has played a crucial role in explaining Cameron to the party. He has offered reassurance to the party that their leader is one of them. Criticism from a man who called Cameron the most skillful Tory leader of the opposition since Disraeli cannot be lightly dismissed by the Cameroons. Charles is surely right that this coalition cannot continue happily,

The Spectator

The self-preservation society

How quickly Nick Clegg is adapting to government doublespeak. He hailed a radical constitutional reform programme this week and declared that he is ‘taking away the government’s right to throw out parliament’. The reverse, in fact, is true. The coalition government proposes changing the constitution so it takes 55 per cent of MPs — rather than a straight majority — to force a general election, and all in the name of ‘stability’. This is understandable, but wrong. David Cameron is anxious about being at the mercy of the Lib Dems. They may well switch their allegiance to the Labour party when it suits them to call an election. But to

David Lammy

Clegg has given Cameron his Clause 4 moment

For ten years in parliament, I have sat opposite Conservative and Liberal Democrat colleagues. Never did I imagine they would form a government together. How on earth did we get here? And what does it all mean? The Tories won the most seats not just because we looked tired and stale as a government. It was because under Cameron, the Conservative party stopped falling for New Labour’s triangulation trap. Taking their cue from Bill Clinton, New Labour strategists made the decision to close down debate on certain issues, like crime, by moving to the right. This tactic allowed the Labour leadership to focus political debate elsewhere. Four elections in a

John C-Hulsman

Not so special any more

However cosy they may appear, neither Obama nor Cameron care much for the ‘special relationship’. But, says John C. Hulsman, that may be no bad thing Good student that he is, Barack Obama has been careful to dot his ‘i’s and cross his ‘t’s after the British election. Well aware that he is viewed as uninterested in transatlantic relations, Obama made sure he was quick off the mark; he was the first foreign leader to phone David Cameron when he became PM. It’s well known in Washington that the President considered Brown uninspiring, but Obama made it clear that this time it was different; that between them, Barack and Dave,