Society

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories who missed out on the Cabinet

Downing Street has just blasted out the full list of Cabinet ministers and those ministers entitled to attend Cabinet. The biggest casualty from the old shadow Cabinet is Chris Grayling who goes from being shadow Home Secretary to a minister of state at DWP. Grayling’s demotion has been much predicted in recent weeks. Tellingly, Grayling was the only shadow Cabinet member to argue against offering the Lib Dems a referendum on AV at the shadow Cabinet meeting on Monday. However, I expect he’ll make a good fist of the welfare brief—it is territory he knows well having shadowed DWP in opposition. The next most noticeable Tory absentees are Greg Clark,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Danny Alexander takes on a tough job

Danny Alexander is a brave man to take on the job of Scottish Secretary in this government. I did a slot on Radio Scotland last night and Labour and the SNP were tearing into the Lib Dems for going into coalition with the Tories, accusing them of selling out the 85 percent of Scots who had voted against the Tories. As a unionist, I found the whole conversation extremely disturbing. Even on the Labour side, there seemed to be no recognition that this was a UK election and what mattered was the UK distribution of seats. When you combine this with the fact that Tory MPs are acutely conscious that

Peter Hoskin

Sense reigns, as the Tories redefine their health spending pledge

Here’s another sensible development for the day: the Tories have diluted their pledge to keep on increasing health spending.  As the FT’s Alex Barker reports, the Lib-Con political settlement is going to contain these words: ‘We will increase NHS spending in every year of the parliament.’ So what’s the difference?  Well, the previous pledge was to increase health spending in real terms each year – whereas this new formulation suggests that cash spending will increase, but that there will be cuts once you account for inflation.  Sure, it doesn’t smash the ringfence down completely.  But it’s still progress so far as the fiscal crisis is concerned.  Score one up for

Peter Hoskin

Iain Duncan Smith’s appointment is a triumph for the welfare agenda

Of all the Cabinet positions announced so far, one is more eyecatching, and holds more promise, than all the rest: Iain Duncan Smith has been appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.  Through his work with the Centre for Social Justice, IDS has shown that he not only knows his way intimately around the welfare brief, but cares deeply about it too.  The hope now is that this will energise the Tories’ welfare-to-work policies, and also put the CSJ’s crucial benefit reforms on the government’s agenda.  On a day when unemployment has risen once again, this may prove to be one of the best decisions that Prime Minister Cameron

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Who will be education secretary?

Doing the media rounds this morning, both David Laws and Michael Gove have said that they do not know which one of them will be education secretary in the Cameron Clegg government. But judging from what I’m hearing, last night’s media reports that Gove would not be education secretary appear to have been premature.

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Text for Dave and Nick

Hold hands, gentlemen, and say together: Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope. And this, as I suggested a long 36 hours ago, is what it’s all about and why this agreement needs to be for a full parliament: [T]he stakes in this game are much higher than the question of who wins what and who gives what up in the next few days, weeks and months. There is – no, there may be – an opportunity for Cameron to redraw the map in

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Disgraceful Prosecution that Should Shame Britain

Let’s suppose you were heading off on holiday and then let’s suppose that snow had closed the airport and your plans were ruined. You might be vexed and then you might post a message on Twitter that hinted at your frustration. Suppose this Tweet read something like, oh, I don’t know, this: “Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week… otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!” Would you then be surprised to be arrested under the Terrorism Act? I think you might be. Well today poor Paul Chambers was found guilty under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 for sending an “indecent, obscene or menacing” message.

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 10 May – 16 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

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Guardian: Clegg setting a Monday night deadline for any deal with the Tories

Patrick Wintour reports in The Guardian tonight that Nick Clegg thinks that the talks between the Tories and the Lib Dems have only 24 hours to run before the public loses patience. This suggests that tomorrow night has become the unofficial deadline for a deal to be agreed. On the Tory side, David Cameron would be in a far stronger position if he arrived at the meeting of the Tory parliamentary party at 6pm on Monday night with a deal. If there’s a deal, I suspect that some MPs will pull their horns in. But if nothing has been agreed, MPs will express themselves more fully. One thing to watch

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tory negotiating team

As the BBC reports that David Cameron has arrived at the negotiations between the Tories and the Lib Dems it is worth taking a look at the Tory negotiating team. It has been put together to try and maximise the prospects of a deal. Ed Llewellyn, who worked for Paddy Ashdown in Bosnia and is close friends with many Liberal Democrats, and Oliver Letwin are there to make the Lib Dems think that if these guys are Tories then a deal with them wouldn’t be so bad after all. Indeed, when I told one Tory that Llewellyn and Letwin were on the negotiating team, he shot back: ‘So  Llewellyn and Letwin  are

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Nail a cretin – the winner(s)!!!!

Many thanks for all those of you who have submitted hilarious examples of the most ludicrous, stomach-churning balls spoke during that bizarre election campaign. I know I promised to have a result by Friday morning but I was still drunk as a consequence of celebrating the result in Redditch, so many apologies. It was a close call, in the end. I agree absolutely with Eddie who complained long and loud about repeated injunctions for “change”, “fairness”, “respect”, “hardworking families” and so on. Even more so with Mark who complained about the continual usage of the meaningless phrase “frontline services”. What are frontline services? But three winners of the bubbly. Oedipus

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The two meanings of No PR

When the leadership reassuresConservatives that there’ll be no PR, they mean that Britain will not end up with a different voting system. When senior MPs tell the leadership that PR is a red-line, they mean a referendum on PR is unacceptable. As I say in the Mail on Sunday, those close to the leadership are looking at the idea of a referendum on PR in two years time after a commission of inquiry chaired by someone who is not keen on PR. They think that this referendum could be won and is therefore worth risking if that’s the price of a deal with the Lib Dems. But if Cameron did

Saturday

Melissa Kite

Seeds of discontent

Dating must be God’s way of making you appreciate Gardeners’ Question Time. There is no other explanation for why it is so nerve-grindingly awful. I would rather do anything than go through this torture, including listening to people moan about the fact that the soil in their east-facing herbaceous border is too alkaline for an azalea. As I sit here quietly buzzing with shock and awe from my latest outing, I cannot help but reflect on dating disasters past, if only to reassure myself that it could always be worse. There have been some real stinkers. 1) The man who pretended he couldn’t see me. My friend Janet set me

Jeremy Clarke

Growing friendship

I used to see Tom now and again at the local gym. I’d be on the treadmill and he’d be in front of the mirror lifting weights. He was already big then, but he was all chest and shoulders and no legs and the disproportion looked ridiculous. Broad at the top, he seemed to taper down to a point. Also, his shoulders were too high, too level and too immobile. One day this inverted triangle with blond hair flopping over a spotty schoolboy face spoke to me. He appeared on the next treadmill and said he’d just been outside to do some sprints on the football pitch, but abandoned the

Taki

Sky’s the limit

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Let me take you away from politics for a bit, and bring you down here to Myrtle Beach, a downmarket Miami Beach but with much nicer and friendlier locals. There is even a Hemingway Street — Papa came fishing around here — which would never happen in Miami. Only porn stars and drug dealers have streets named after them in that sweaty Sodom and Gomorrah, although the city did once allow Xaviera Hollander, author of The Happy Hooker, to ride on a float on the 4th of July. First things first, however. I flew to Myrtle Beach with some other judokas for the US National Championships

Alan Judd

Perk of the job

One of the perks of this job is the loan cars. Manufacturers keep press fleets of current models for launches and for loans to motoring writers to try out and write about. When the cars leave the fleet, they are usually sold into the dealer network, from where they are sold to you, as demonstrators. They’re a good buy: well maintained, immaculately cleaned and, if — perish the thought — the hacks have knocked them about a bit, properly repaired. Most loans are for about a week, like the BMW X5 I’m awaiting today, just in time for Badminton. Bentleys and Aston Martins tend to come in anonymous covered lorries

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 8 May 2010

Q. A dear friend was recently introduced to a woman my wife and I dimly recall as a casual acquaintance from our children’s schooldays whom we had found rather aggressive. She asked for our telephone number, explaining what splendid friends we used to be and, unaware of our true sentiments towards this woman, our friend gave it. We ignored the message she left on our machine. Now she is pressing our friend to organise a get-together, suggesting we probably didn’t get the answer-phone message. How do we save our friend embarrassment and avoid meeting up with our one-time acquaintance? Name and address withheld A. Press 141 to achieve ‘number withheld’

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 8 May 2010

I’ve just been laughing at a television advertisement for ‘snail polish’. I’ve just been laughing at a television advertisement for ‘snail polish’. It turns out to be ‘Sixty Seconds Nail Polish’. Normally when we use ‘sixty second’ adjectivally, it remains in the singular form. BBC 3 television has an item called ‘Sixty Second News’. Perhaps what has happened is that a make-up company, Rimmel, has named a product ‘Sixty Seconds’, and has then been reluctant to adjust the valuable brand-name according to the laws of grammar. Hence the polished snails. It has not all been laughter in my sheltered life of kitchen, church and children, and I shall not even

Toby Young Toby Young

It’s time to come out after all these years: ladies and gentlemen, I am a Tory

Four weeks ago, I made one of the toughest decisions of my life. Ever since I was a child I’ve known I was different but I’ve done my best to conceal that fact. For most of my adult life I’ve pretended to be ‘normal’ and my late mother, God bless her, went to her grave without knowing the truth. But I cannot continue to live a lie. At the beginning of the election campaign I finally came out. Ladies and gentleman, I am a Tory. Not surprisingly, many of my friends said they already knew this. Indeed, they claimed to be amused to discover I was under the impression that