Society

Monday

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 3 May – 9 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

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Talking Balls | 3 May 2010

The parties’ education spokesmen are debating on the Daily Politics shortly and so Ed Balls will be singing his favourite tune, investment versus cuts. In a classic Balls move, he is alleging that the Tories plan to make £6 billion of efficiency savings across government would lead to 14,000 teachers losing their jobs. Balls gets to this figure by assuming that £1.1 billion of these savings would come from the schools’ budget and that £860 million of this would come from staff redundancies. This is very odd as Balls himself says there are £950 million of efficiency savings that can be made in schools and presumably these savings don’t include

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tonight’s polls are in hung parliament territory

ICM for The Guardian and YouGov for the Sun tonight both point towards a hung parliament. ICM has the Tories on 33 down three from the last ICM poll, Labour down one to 28 and the Lib Dems up one to 28 and others up four to 12. YouGov puts the Tories on 34, the Lib Dems up one to 29 and Labour on 28. Polling on a Bank holiday weekend is particularly difficult. But these two polls will put a bit of a dent in the media narrative that a Tory majority is becoming the most likely result.   It’ll be interesting to see if some of the Tory

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The next test for Nick Clegg

Whatever one thinks of his polices, Nick Clegg has played his hand very well in this campaign. Few would have expected Clegg to make as much use of the leaders’ debates as he has. But now the debates are over, Clegg has to find another way of making an impact if his party is to hold onto second place. In the final days of the campaign, there’s going to be a tendency among the media to concentrate on the outgoing PM and the prospective PM. This is going to be heightened by a sense that the Tories might, in the end, get a majority. To an extent, Clegg is protected

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The morning after the election before

Before the final leaders’ debate, the studio audience was kept entertained by the screening of an episode of Yes Minister. It was an appropriate choice given that an indecisive result will give the mandarins huge power as they advise the parties on how to make a deal and the palace on who to invite to form a government once Brown has failed to do so. If David Cameron does not win an overall majority, I expect he’ll move straight onto the attack: demanding that Gordon Brown recognises he has no mandate to govern and that Nick Clegg rules out any deal with Labour. As I write in the Mail on

Saturday

Melissa Kite

Fessing up

I have done something so utterly heinous that I cannot keep it to myself. Even though writing it down is going to get me into all sorts of trouble, for the sake of my sanity I have to confess. It’s something I’ve been doing for years but only just realised. I must have been in denial, because it is just so shameful. It was a terrible shock when I finally rumbled myself. I was sitting at the kitchen table ploughing through the latest election leaflets pushed through my door, searching in vain for a grain of policy that might apply to an insignificant little single girl like me — nothing,

Jeremy Clarke

Dismal scenario

Here is a middle-aged man lying in bed in his black and green striped pyjamas. The bed is a single bed and he is reading a book. On the bedside cupboard is a 1970s Grundig Elite Boy portable radio tuned to The World Tonight. Next to that is a photograph of his 17-year-old son in a cheap frame. His son is looking annoyed with the person holding the camera. Slippers, much stained, rest east–west in parallel alignment beside the bed. On the wall above the man’s head is a framed colonial map of the Nyasaland Protectorate. On the floor, but within easy reach, a pile of books nearly two-feet high.

Taki

Nature trail

New York It’s up early every day, before 8 a.m., and a brisk walk through the park before breakfast on the way to judo practice. A pale green washes the fields, daffodils pushing through the crusty earth. The joggers are out in force, young Jewish princesses struggling while getting in shape for serious Bloomingdale’s shopping in the afternoon. The US Nationals are this weekend and I’ve been behaving myself. I now get hammered only twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. The walk through Central Park is the calm before the storm, the respite before the hell I know I will have to go though on arrival. And that’s when

Robin Oakley

Twelve for the Flat

During elections, said H.L. Mencken, all the parties rush around the country insisting that the others are unfit to govern — and in the end they are all proved right. I don’t bet on politics because as a part-time political commentator I don’t want to be accused of letting wagers colour my judgment, but I did advise my friends last autumn to back a hung Parliament when you could still get 4–1 against. The Twelve to Follow over the jumps I named then have not stood the test of time quite so well. Two never made it to the track, but five managed to win and we had half a

Henrietta Bredin

The great communicator

Conductor Marin Alsop talks to Henrietta Bredin about sharing a concert platform with Bernstein Last September there was a Mass Rally at the Southbank Centre in London. For an entire day the concert halls and foyers overflowed with shoals of people — children lugging instruments, parents rushing after them, singers clutching scores — all gathered to help launch the Bernstein Project, a year-long celebration of the extraordinary genius of Leonard Bernstein. Beginning with fanfares from Bernstein’s Mass, it will culminate in July with a complete performance of that work, involving community choirs, a marching band and a rock group, alongside dancers and professional soloists. This joyful eruption of an event

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 1 May 2010

Q. Further to your correspondence with ‘name withheld’ of Yokohama, I have a recurring problem with my beautiful Japanese wife of many years and I was wondering if you could help. Here in Australia, when meeting people for the first time, they often ask, ‘Where did you meet your wife?’ I then usually explain that we met here in Australia. But if they do not ask, therein lies the problem because I know they may be silently coming to the wrong conclusion. It is common here for desperate, lonely farmers to purchase ‘mail order’ brides from the Philippines and other poor countries. My worry is that I don’t want people

Toby Young Toby Young

On the eve of the election, the future of our proposed school hangs in the balance

As the leader of a group of parents trying to set up Britain’s first free school, I’ve been spending the past week or so frantically mugging up on the Liberal Democrats’ education policy. In the event of a hung parliament, would the Lib Dems support the Conservatives’ educational reforms? On the face of it, the answer’s no. One of the ways in which the Tories are proposing to make life easier for groups like mine is to take away the veto that local authorities have over the creation of new academies. My local council is Conservative-controlled and will probably remain so after 6 May, but as we saw from the

The Spectator

Letters | 1 May 2010

Making it work Sir: Your leading article (24 April) tells us that: ‘A hung parliament would be a disaster. Coalitions do not work in Westminster’s adversarial system.’ Can’t you see that the adversarial system, with its focus on doing down the opposition rather than on working collegially to decide what might be best for the nation, is exactly what we are sick of? If our voting preferences result in a coalition then we’ll expect our elected representatives to damn well make it work. If they let it become a disaster we may choose not to vote for any of them ever again. Derek Rowntree Banbury Dividing lines Sir: James Forsyth’s

Tamzin Lightwater

Diary of a Notting Hill nobody | 1 May 2010

Monday Hoorah! After our triumphant hung parliament noose broadcast we are planning an even more direct appeal to the British public to give Dave the majority he deserves. In our next public information film — entitled ‘Britain, beware stupidity!’ — we will argue that the Lib Dem surge is proof that Gordon has made the electorate thick as two short planks. Lack of decent education and dumbing down means we now have a nation of voters so daft they are thinking of choosing Nick Clegg. This just shows why we must get Gordon out of power. Gids will look directly into the camera with a grave, sorrowful expression and say:

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 1 May 2010

Is this the glottal stop election? My husband shouts: ‘No’ a lo’ o’ bo’le’ at the television whenever Ed Balls or George Osborne come on. Is this the glottal stop election? My husband shouts: ‘No’ a lo’ o’ bo’le’ at the television whenever Ed Balls or George Osborne come on. He calms down when Vince Cable starts speaking. The glottal stop (plosive) is not lazy. The Cockney uses it instead of the t in Saturday, but it is quite hard to make that little obstruction of the throat in the right place. The sound is, however, still associated with rejection of the trappings of their upbringing. The glottal stop has

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 1 May 2010

On the eve of the third television debate by the leaders of Britain’s three main parties, on the subject of the economy, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a report on the size of the spending cuts and tax rises needed and criticised the parties for failing to set out how they would achieve them. On the eve of the third television debate by the leaders of Britain’s three main parties, on the subject of the economy, the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a report on the size of the spending cuts and tax rises needed and criticised the parties for failing to set out how they would achieve them.

Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 01 May 2010

After failing to lay a glove on David Cameron in his pre-election interview, the professional personality Jeremy Paxman is said to have called him a ‘smooth bastard’, an admission of failure if ever there was one. After failing to lay a glove on David Cameron in his pre-election interview, the professional personality Jeremy Paxman is said to have called him a ‘smooth bastard’, an admission of failure if ever there was one. Paxman’s problem is that, being merely an interviewer, he is master of none of the technical problems on which he was challenging the Tory leader. It is a subject on which Socrates was eloquent. A principle that lies

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Two more polls indicate a hung parliament with the Tories as the largest party

Two more polls have just come out, YouGov for the Sunday Times and BPIX for the Mail on Sunday. The two polls both point towards a hung parliament with the Tories as the largest party and both put the Lib Dems in second. YouGov have Tories 35, Lib Dems 28 and Labour 27 and BPIX Tories 34, Lib Dem 30 and Labour 27. If the Tories get the most votes and the most seats, as all the polls today suggest they will, Cameron will end up as Prime Ministers. The Lib Dems have said too often that the party with the most votes and the most seats has a mandate

James Forsyth James Forsyth

ComRes shows a ten point Tory lead

The ComRes poll tonight will also cheer the Tories. It has them with a lead of 10 points. The numbers are Tories 38, Labour 28 and the Lib Dems 25. The Tories are up two and the other two main parties are each down one. On a uniform national swing, this would leave the Tories 11 seats short of a majority. But I would be very surprised if the Tory operation in the party’s target seats did not produce a majority from a ten point lead.  

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Marginals poll suggests the Tories are on course for a majority of four

An ICM poll of Labour Tory marginals for the News of the World has Cameron getting a majority, albeit one of four. (Although, the write-through saYS that the majority of four assumes that every Unionist MP returned from Ulster will back the Tories which is not a given). These marginals polls are expensive and so are done rarely, but they are a more useful than standard polling as they show you what is happening in the seats that will make most difference to the result. It was famously one of these marginals polls that led to Brown calling off the election in 2007.