Society

Hogmanay is still a couple of days away, but it’s proving to be a very happy old year for us at 22 Old Queen St. The Spectator just been named political magazine of 2009 by readers of Iain Dale’s blog. Normally, we’d maintain a bashful silence: but I’d like to say a quick thanks to anyone out there who voted for us. Matthew Parris and myself also picked up gongs in the political writer category, and that other chap lurking around the building, Andrew Neil, was named broadcaster of the year, and This Week was voted no.2 political programme of the year. My question: how do we make The Spectator

New York’s ever falling murder rate is one of the wonders of modern urban policy. It is proof that decisive political leadership can arrest and then reverse decline that many had considered inevitable. This year, as The New York Times reports, New York is scheduled to record the lowest number of murders since records began in 1962. In 1990 there were 2,245 murders in 2009, to date, there have been 461. Now, it has often been rightly said that Britain should learn from the success of broken windows policing. But reading the piece in the Times today, I was struck by the fact that the murder rate is still falling

Now is not a good time–politically–to be an incumbent. The economic realities mean that tough choices have to be made: services cut, taxes raised or both. So it is a clever move by Jon Cruddas and Chuka Umunna to set up a website, Tory stories, scrutinising the work of Tory councils. It also plays to the message that many in the Labour party, but notably not Gordon Brown and Ed Balls, want to push: Cameron and a few top Tories might have changed the rest of the party hasn’t.  The  Tories are keen to show that they will not balance the budget on the backs of the low paid, note

I have some advice for CoffeeHousers hungry for the latest evidence about the guy who tried to blow up the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight: go to the American press and their websites.  They are 100% free to pursue these stories: the press in Britain isn’t. Not any more. The suspect suffering second degree burns in hospital, named by the US authorities as a Nigerian called Farouk Abdul Mutallab, may have been living in London. This is, alas, no surprise. It fits with Britain’s reputation as Europe’s no1 incubator of terrorists  – let’s remember that the 7/7 bombers were home-grown. And it raises huge questions which a free press should be pursuing. But

Barring major political catastrophe, Coffee House will be falling silent over the next few days as we all celebrate Christmas.  Many thanks to CoffeeHousers for your contributions over the past year.  We hope you enjoy a happy holiday. If you’re looking to fill your time, then Paul Johnson’s and Lloyd Evans’ pieces from the Christmas issue of the magazine are well worth a read.  We’ll be uploading more magazine content over the next week.