All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
This article was first published in The Spectator on 9 October, 1959. I am a totally non-political animal. I prefer the name of the Liberal Party to the name of any other and I vote Conservative rather than Labour, mainly because the Conservatives have bigger bottoms and I believe that big bottoms make for better government
A Telegraph journalist, Lucy Denyer, has written about how rubbish it is that people are calling their children stupid, made-up names. (Spoiler alert: I’m anti stupid made-up names.) Trouble is, while she hasn’t exactly gone the Fifi Trixibelle/Peaches route herself, she has called her son Atticus. And no, it’s not the friend of Cicero she had
Patrick O’Flynn has surfaced to explain his remarks about Nigel Farage and the team around him. On Sky News, O’Flynn denied he was gunning for Farage’s position, describing him as ‘my political hero’, but blamed a ‘couple of people in his inner circle’ who he said are ‘wrong ‘uns’: ‘The advisers he’s got around him
That some Tory MPs wouldn’t like the idea of Michael Gove scrapping the Human Rights Act has been known for some time, but there is something else worth keeping an eye out for in the next few weeks as the Tories draw up their proposals. Some Conservatives, like Dominic Grieve, have long been opposed to
The reasons why England and Wales voted so convincingly for a Conservative Government on Thursday will be debated forever, but one of the most obvious is the complete rejection of both Labour and Liberal Democrats in any constituency that has a hint of the countryside about it. This is graphically illustrated by the post-election constituency
The briefing war inside Ukip continues with the Nigel Farage camp hitting back at Patrick O’Flynn, after his remarks in the Times today. The battle is between two sides: those who are close to and work for Nigel Farage, and others in the party who are concerned about who the Ukip leader is listening to. Team Farage
The age of enlightenment was a beautiful thing. People cast aside dogma and authority. They started to think for themselves. Natural science flourished. Understanding of the natural world increased. The hegemony of religion slowly declined. Eventually real universities were created and real democracy developed. The modern world was born. People like Francis Bacon, Voltaire and
Still inside that bubble, David Aaronovitch informs us that, regardless of the election result, we are all of a metrosexual mindset, whatever that is. Like it or not, the country as a whole is becoming ‘more like’ London. This was written in response to the slings and arrows flung at Labour for neglecting its northern,
Ukip is doing a very good job of convincing voters it is not a serious party. After days of shadowboxing over the use of Short money to fund the party in Westminster, its economic spokesman Patrick O”Flynn has broken cover to attack Nigel Farage — and he certainly isn’t holding back. In today’s Times, O’Flynn says the
The Stepford Student website is full of interesting articles on current affairs. For instance ‘I couldn’t give a single flying shit about electoral reform’ by Nathan Akehurst and ‘Vote for whoever the fuck you want’ by Edgar Sait-Jones. There’s something for everyone. ‘Tim Lott’s annoying but Rod Liddle is a fuckbadger’ by Ruby Lott-Lavigna, would, I am sure, amuse Rod. Tim Lott might be
From ‘The Right Spirit of Concentration’, The Spectator, 15 May 1915: It need not be supposed that we are blind to the dangers which arise from a large number of aliens in our midst. We have several times written of these dangers. But latterly, whenever the subject was debated in Parliament, the answer was that
The Prince of Wales’s ‘spider letters’ are out today – his letters to government ministers written or annotated in his distinctive spidery hand (see above) have been released under the Freedom of Information Act. Hat tip to James Snell on Twitter for alerting me to this utter garbage from the Guardian’s liveblog: What can we tell about Charles’ personality
On Monday when 56 SNP MPs descended on Westminster, the youngest of the new intake Mhairi Black gushed that everyone had been so nice. Two days in, and cross-party relations have begun to cool. Carol Monaghan, the MP for Glasgow North West, claims that Simon Burns, the Tory MP for Chelmsford, scolded her as well as her fellow SNP politicians for
Prince Charles’s ‘black spider’ letters have just been released. Here are seven things we learnt about the future monarch from the correspondence: 1) He wants consumers to buy British (from a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair from 2004): 2) He is worried about defence spending (from a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair from 2004): 3) He
Although the palace has played down concerns regarding the publication of Prince Charles’s ‘black spider’ memos to Government departments, given that they have spent nearly a decade fighting against their publication it can be presumed that the prince is not happy about the situation. Not that the Prince of Wales wishes to let his feelings
There were some dangerous pledges made in the heat of the election battle from both politicians and pundits. Paddy Ashdown promised to eat his hat should the exit poll prediction bear out. It did, and he has not consumed his hat, though he did go halfway and consume a hat-shaped cake. A similarly rash exit poll
As the news of John Whittingdale’s appointment as Culture Secretary came through, I happened to be sorting my pile of threatening letters from TV Licensing. It was taking me a bit of time, as there are 34 of them, accumulated over the past two years or so. Faithful readers of this column may remember that
The Labour party has decided on a medium-length campaign to elect its new leader, the Press Association reports, with the announcement on 12 September. This is slightly odd, given NEC members were still on their way to the meeting where they’ll vote on the timetable, but there you go. If that date is approved, it is
You can’t be on a campus for more than 10 minutes nowadays without hearing about inclusivity. Universities and students’ unions are mad for it. At the University of Sussex, a statement declaring that ‘The Union is committed to providing an inclusive and supportive environment’ has to be read, aloud, before every students’ union meeting. Students
The reshuffle seems to have gone down reasonably well with Tory MPs – though there is as yet still no position for Nadhim Zahawi or Jesse Norman, which some think rather odd. The pair organised the Lords rebellion and are both able and bright. But Norman in particular may be in a bit of a
In 2012, Steve Hilton quit his role as David Cameron’s senior adviser in frustration at the compromises of coalition and the slow pace of reform. Since then, he has maintained an almost total vow of silence on British politics. He had no desire to say anything that could be turned into a tricky headline for
Almost four million people voted for Ukip on 7 May. That, in itself, is an astonishing achievement for a party which is a) newish and b) endured more vilification than even Ed Miliband had to put up with, from both the press and of course the BBC. It would be nice to think that at some
A certain amount of amnesia is required if you are to believe everything the ‘public health’ lobby tells you. Alcohol is frequently in the media but the only story relating to drink that is genuinely newsworthy is the steep decline in drinking that has occurred in the last decade. Britain has been witnessing its biggest
The great Robert Harris has defended the pollsters who got the recent elections so wrong by quoting Cicero on the electorate’s fickleness. Cicero certainly acknowledged the problem when he was defending one Gnaeus Plancius in 54 bc, but made a rather different point. Plancius had been accused of rigging his election to the position of
Ed Miliband’s spin doctor Tom Baldwin has been rather quiet since Labour’s disastrous election night results. Now the former Times journalist has explained his radio silence in an article for the Guardian. He says he has been avoiding the news after the Tories had ‘a win they did not fully expect or really deserve’. However, the appointment
After Jeremy Clarkson was sacked from Top Gear, his fellow presenters James May and Richard Hammond resigned in protest. Since then, the trio have been spotted together over the past few weeks having ‘secret talks’ about their futures, with the pair reportedly visiting the home of ITV director Peter Fincham. Now Mr S hears that with talks
The Tories are already putting some clear blue water between the coalition and the present majority government. Firstly, the new Business Secretary Sajid Javid has promised new tougher strike laws — ensuring that a minimum turn out of 50 per cent turnout is required for all strikes, while 40 per cent of all members will need
And so now we have to suffer the epic delusions, temper tantrums and hissy fits of the metro-left. They simply cannot believe how you scumbags could have got it so wrong last Thursday, you morons. You vindictive, selfish morons. That has been the general response from all of the people, the liberal middle-class lefties, who
From ‘Germany and the United States’, The Spectator, 15 May 1915: The questions that concern us now to the exclusion of all others are: What will the German answer be to Mr. Wilson? and To what action by the United States will Mr. Wilson’s Note lead? We take it for granted that Germany will not
I was at the IEA/Taxpayers’ Alliance post-election conference yesterday, listening to Lord Ashcroft giving facts and figures about why voters chose the Tories. Given how wrong all of the pollsters were, I did find myself wondering whether it was worth listening to this. A Tory majority government has just been elected, confounding every single bookmaker and pollster in
Ukip is embroiled in an almighty row about money. It suddenly has too much of it, apparently. Guido reports that Douglas Carswell is refusing to take the full £650,000 of Short money that his party is entitled to for running a parliamentary operation that represents the four million votes the party won in the election. Ukip
Autism is being diagnosed all over the place right now. There’s been an explosion in the number of cases, we’re told. This could be something to do with better diagnostic tools, and it’s hard to argue that more media coverage of mental health isn’t a good thing. But the scientific community still know little about this mysterious condition
My father recently passed away, and the stories people inevitably tell of the dead brought back memories of childhood. As a small boy I remember Sunday lunches that culminated with my IRA-supporting godmother storming out after dad had said something especially offensive about Ireland. But she’d be back the following month and all was forgotten.
To appoint one Equalities Minister who voted against gay marriage looked sloppy, to do it twice looks frankly strange. Yet that is what the Prime Minister has just done. Education Secretary Nicky Morgan voted against same sex marriage in July 2013, though she claims she has subsequently changed her mind. Caroline Dinenage, the Gosport MP, who has