Society

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Viewing suggestions for government

Ben Brogan writes a very useful article in today’s Telegraph, outlining the preparations that the Tories are making for government.  He details some of the meetings between shadow ministers and top civil servants; the advice that Michael Heseltine has given the Cameroons (“don’t bother with special advisers”); and William Hague’s directives for the Foreign Office.  But it’s this passage that jumped out at me: “Alongside the formal talks, there have been seminars, breakfasts and long sessions with former mandarins and ministers who have all brought their expertise to bear. There are even reading and viewing lists, which include Gerald Kaufman’s How to be a Minister and Alastair Campbell’s diaries, as

Daniel Korski

Deputy Sheriff Brown Unveils AfPak strategy

Yesterday Gordon Brown told the House about the UK’s new “AfPak” strategy, laying out what can best be seen as a companion piece to the US strategy unveiled by Barack Obama a few weeks ago. (Notice how the US took six pages to say what the UK needs 32 pages for). Britain will boost troop numbers in the run-up to the presidential elections and spend more money on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. A lot of money. Between 2009 and 2013, the British development agency will spend £665 million in Pakistan. Over the same period, £510 million will go towards Afghanistan’s development. Despite this, the reaction has been critical.

Peter Hoskin

How bad could this get?

There’s little more to add to this alarming snippet from the Daily Mail, except to say that the publication of MPs’ expense receipts looks set to become the most damaging scandal of Gordon Brown’s premiership: “Three Labour MPs are said to be terrified that the release of their expenses claims will expose them as adulterers and financial cheats. Four ministers are also understood to have warned party whips they might have to resign for abusing the system, when MPs’ receipts are published before the summer recess in July. The three unnamed backbenchers are said to have been placed on ‘suicide watch’ by Labour whips, who fear they might break down

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why we need a proper debate about the 50p tax rate

As every Hitchhikers fan knows, the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42. The question about the new tax on the super-rich is framed in a similar way. Will it raise £2.4bn as the Treasury claims? Or will it lose about £800m as the IFS model suggests? All of this – the future of Britain’s status as a low tax economy – depends on the gradient of the Laffer curve. And if the debate is had properly, and had now, then we may be able to stop David Cameron making a dreadful mistake. CoffeeHousers will know the idea behind the Laffer curve, but perhaps not the story. In

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Obama and Cricket

It’s true you know, Barack Obama does want to un-make the United States of America. First he takes a quick cricket lesson from Brian Lara, now he’s reading Joseph O’Neill’s (splendid) Netherland – a novel that is, at least in part, about cricket in New York City. Could anything be more un-American? Of course not. Except, of course, cricket has a long and proud history in the United States and, for a while, it seemed as likely that cricket would become the national pastime as baseball. Indeed, the world’s first international cricket match was contested by teams representing the United States and Canada. Personally, I blame the decision to move

Virginia Matthews

University prospects are still a thorny issue

‘If you are sending your child to an independent school because you think this somehow guarantees a place at a top-quality university, then as things stand, you may be taking a bit of a gamble,’ says Vicky Tuck, head of Cheltenham Ladies’ College. ‘If you are sending your child to an independent school because you think this somehow guarantees a place at a top-quality university, then as things stand, you may be taking a bit of a gamble,’ says Vicky Tuck, head of Cheltenham Ladies’ College. ‘Although it is clear that traditionally independent schools have had the upper hand when it comes to getting into Oxbridge, very bright children from

Virginia Matthews

Chalking up the costs

‘Although enquiries about and acceptances of private school places appear to have increased slightly in recent months, we won’t really know if the recession has started to bite until September. ‘Although enquiries about and acceptances of private school places appear to have increased slightly in recent months, we won’t really know if the recession has started to bite until September. Even if parents have already paid perhaps £1,000 for a boarding school place, the downturn may mean that a few lose their jobs between now and then and pupils don’t actually turn up.’ That’s the view of Dick Davison, spokesman for the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (an association of heads

Virginia Matthews

The right special needs school is out there

Yet the first UK school to specialise in dyslexia, as well as dyspraxia and Asperger’s Syndrome, opened its doors in 1946, when spelling and reading problems were dismissed as ‘word blindness’. Now one of only 20 special dyslexia schools in the country and with just 90 places on offer, the independent, co-ed Frewen College in Rye, East Sussex — whose four houses are named after celebrated dyslexics Sir Richard Branson, Nigel Kennedy, Sir Steven Redgrave and Jamie Oliver — is both expensive and effective. ‘At an annual £15,500 for a junior day place or £28,000 for a senior boarder, our fees approach those of Eton,’ says business manager Jeremy Field,

Dorothy Lepkowska

Entrance tests repay close examination

It is usually not enough merely to be able to afford to send a child to an independent school. Many fee-paying senior schools operate a form of selection, and admit pupils only upon the successful completion of the Common Entrance Examination, or an equivalent. The exam is particularly popular among boarding schools, and is intended to test whether the child has the right level of ability to do well there. It can be taken for entry at ages 11, 12 and 13 years. Girls’ senior schools tend to admit pupils from 11, while boys will transfer to secondary schooling from 13. In most cases, a child will also be subject

Dorothy Lepkowska

What to look for in an independent school

Independent schooling is an expensive business with fees typically ranging from about £10,000 a year for a day school to more than £25,000 per annum for boarding. Multiply that over the 11 years of a pupil’s compulsory schooling, add the number of children in your family, and tot up all the extras — such as school uniforms, trips, music lessons and tennis coaching — and it may turn your hair grey. But how can parents make the right decision about where to send their child? To some degree, of course, that depends on what they are looking for. Parents who have a child with special needs may, for example, be

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama’s personal appeal

In the slew of polling data that has come out to mark Obama’s 100 days, two numbers stand out to me: 81 percent of Americans like Obama, that’s 30 percent more than support his policies. This is a result of several things: his personal manner, the fact that people appreciate the historical significance of having a black president and the respect afforded the presidency. But I think an often overlooked factor is that even though Obama is a committed liberal he has some conservative instincts on, most notably, family policy and education. Take this comment from him in a just released interview with the New York Times Magazine: “My grandmother

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Gurkha victory is a victory for the House

Parliament has handed away too many of its powers in recent years and the behaviour of too many of its members have brought it into disrepute, but today it did the right thing in standing up for the rights of Gurkhas. To my mind, any Gurkha who served should have the right to live here if they so choose. Watching PMQs today, you sensed that the House was girding itself to assert its authority. The tell-tale sign was the near silence from the Labour side as Gordon Brown attempted to defend the indefensible. His emphasis on how the country could not afford to allow the Gurkhas, people who had been

Peter Hoskin

Government defeated in Gurkha vote

Good news.  The Lib Dem motion to extend equal settlement rights to all Gurkhas has just been passed in the Commons, by 267 to 246 votes.  Nick Clegg, too often a figure of fun in Westminster, deserves a great deal of credit over this. By contrast, Gordon Brown positioned his government on the wrong side of the issue, and he’s been rewarded with a not insignificant rebellion by Labour MPs.  So, more bad headlines for the PM tomorrow and a futher erosion of his authority.  He really is just lurching from one calamity to another.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Two points about swine flu

A well-informed friend of mine, in the medical world, has been dealing with this swine flu scare, and I thought I’d pass on what he has to say. The good news: this is not the end of the human race. Swine flu is contagious, far more so than the H5N1 bird flu, when you pretty much had to strangle an infected chicken to catch it. But when swine flu moves on from person to person, its severity falls dramatically. So while it is fatal for the few who have (for reasons yet unexplained) caught it from a primary source, it will not be so from people who catch it second

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs live blog | 29 April 2009

Brown begins with a tribute to the solider who died in Afghanistan. Bill Cash then asks Brown when he next intends to do a ‘comedy turn’ on YouTube. An irritated Brown bats it back. Brown announces in a reply to a question about swine flue that there are three more confirmed UK cases. One school in Torbay, where a pupil is sick, will be closed for the duration. Cameron leads on swine flu, asking about the national flu line which isn’t yet up and running. Brown chooses to try and play father of the nation, talking slowly and very deliberately and avoiding taking any party political shots. Another question about

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The idea behind Brown’s expenses debacle

One of the many odd aspects of Gordon Brown’s expenses gambit was why he came out with a proposal that was bound to be mocked as paying MPs just to turn up. It would only have been worth the Prime Minister coming out with his own proposals before the official review and before he’d consulted with other party leaders and his own MPs, if he was going to propose a regime that was tougher than others would have wanted; one that would have marked him out as someone who was going to end this culture of feather-bedding. But in the FT today, Sue Cameron suggests one plausible explanation for Brown’s

Peter Hoskin

The Tories expand their ambitions

Opposite their interview with William Hague, the Times offers a useful insight into the Tories’ electoral strategy: “The increasing likelihood of victory for the Conservatives at the next election has prompted the party to consider diverting resources away from seats it believes are already in the bag to those previously regarded as unrealistic prospects. They include seats such as Dagenham, which is currently 164 on the hit list. The Conservatives would need a swing of just over 8 per cent to capture the seat, which was held by Labour’s Jon Cruddas at the last election with a majority of 7,605. Other seats that could benefit from the new funding priorities include Luton South,

Peter Hoskin

Hague talks referenda

The headline-grabber from William Hague’s interview with the Times seems to be his admission that “it is likely that [the Tories] are going to be able to win the next election”.  But this section rather caught my eye: “And for the first time he hinted that a referendum could still be promised in the Tory manifesto, even if the treaty had been ratified. Previously the Tories have said that they would not let matters rest in the event of the treaty being ratified but have declined to expand on what they might do. Mr Hague said that, if it were not ratified by the time of a Tory victory, there

Eric Ellis

Fear and incomprehension still dominate our perception of Asia

Eric Ellis questions whether Kevin Rudd’s plan to make Australia the West’s most ‘Asia-literate’ country has anything going for it except geography An old friend of mine, a self-made corporate tyro embedded at the Big End of Sydney, asked me recently why I bother writing from miserable, crisis-racked places like Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Thailand. Moreover, he asked, why do I return to Jakarta, a city ranked by any measure you like as a corrupt urban hellhole of ocean-going proportions. ‘Mate,’ he emailed after scanning perfunctorily through a Speccie despatch I’d penned from Afghanistan before he rushed to his bucolic hobby farm in the Hunter Valley, ‘no one here