All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
That was a surprisingly well-mannered debate, tightly moderated, with the main chaos coming from the member of the audience who decided to start heckling (and then stopped, followed by an ominous thud). There wasn’t a big upset at any point, and even the big moments weren’t really big stories. Those big moments were Nick Clegg going
Welcome to The Spectator’s live coverage of the seven-way leaders’ debate on ITV. We’ll be providing the latest developments and analysis on the programme, starting at 8pm this evening. This page will automatically reload
Look, I’m sorry about this, but Jim Webb is no more going to be the Democratic nominee next year than Rick Santorum is going to be the Republican candidate for the Presidency of the United States. Indeed Santorum, who has no chance, has a better chance than Webb of succeeding Barack Obama. Which is annoying,
Which David Cameron will take the stage for tonight’s seven-way showdown? Will it be the competent, likeable and reasonable statesman who has steered the economy onto safer ground? Or the tetchy one who calls Ed Miliband a ‘waste of space’ at Prime Minister’s Questions? On Monday, speaking at a lectern outside the door of Number
Last month the Supreme Court ruled that Prince Charles’s ‘black spider memos’ to government ministers should be made public. The decision comes following a ten year legal battle between Buckingham Palace and the Guardian, after Clarence House argued that the contents of the letters were private. With the release now impending, Max Hastings has offered a taste of what
There are many grating phrases in modern British politics. ‘Best practice.’ ‘Fit for purpose.’ ‘Let me explain’ (just bloody well explain!). And that tendency of Labour politicians to preface pretty much everything they say with a schoolmarmish ‘Look’, as in ‘Look here’. As in: ‘You donuts know nothing, so I am going to put you
1) Can Natalie Bennett do enough to spark another Green surge? After Natalie Bennett’s infamous ‘brain fade’ the Green surge faded away. The media stopped giving the Greens the attention they had been and without the oxygen of publicity, support for the party fell away; this morning’s YouGov poll has the Greens on 4%, their
Being a Christian in Britain today is to invite pity or condescension, writes Michael Gove in this week’s cover piece. Why is that, and what is the future of Christianity in Britain? Michael Gove joined Isabel Hardman and Ken Costa, the Chairman of Alpha International, on this week’s View from 22 podcast, to discuss the issue.
The link between wealth and attainment is a subject that’s close to my heart, or perhaps more accurately my cerebral cortex. Like 20 per cent of the population I was raised in technical poverty. My first home was a touring caravan. It’s safe to say that no statistician would have expected me to amount to
Tonight’s televised debate between seven of the party leaders promises to be one of the most interesting events of the campaign. In this View from 22 podcast special, Fraser Nelson, Isabel Hardman, James Forsyth and I discuss who is expected to do well, the issues that will be raised, which leaders will gang up on
I notice an online howl of anguish from a Kentucky professor of biology who faces demands from local evangelical Christians that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in his classes. This, it seems to me, parallels the Prince of Wales’s successful lobbying for some NHS funds to be diverted from conventional medicine to homeopathy. I
After Alex Salmond was outed as ordering pink champagne in not one but two interviews last week, naysayers were quick to ridicule the former Scottish First Minister for his lavish choice of tipple. However, Mr S has it on the highest authority that Salmond was guzzling in the name of the people. The rosé tipple, Mr S is told, is not
The party leaders have been reflecting on the challenges facing them ahead of tonight’s TV debates. Nigel Farage said this morning that he wished there weren’t so many of them taking part, something the audience may also feel by the end of tonight’s two-hour extravaganza. But the Ukip leader is probably peeved by the sheer
Could you live on a zero-hours contract? David Cameron was forced to admit, during his grilling by Jeremy Paxman, that he couldn’t. But 1.4 million Britons do. Some out of choice, some through necessity. But the latest attempts by the main parties to tackle the injustices of zero-hours contracts fail to get to the heart of
The leader column in this week’s edition of the magazine (please subscribe, by the way) asks an excellent question: Why aren’t the Tories winning? After all, and despite everything, David Cameron has presided over a period of, first, economic stabilisation and, now, some useful quantity of economic growth. His party is better trusted on economic issues than
Tonight’s leaders’ debate will see the seven party leaders battle to be heard on ITV. The set up has given organisers a headache as they work out how to arrange it without the debate descending into chaos. For Alison Jackson who is going to shoot a lookalike version in its aftermath, she has another issue to contend with. The English artist, who is known for her lookalike photographs
From ‘News of the Week‘, The Spectator, 3 April 1915: Some remarks made by Dr. Lyttelton, the Head-Master of Eton, in a sermon at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, on Thursday week have caused a storm in a tea-cup. Dr. Lyttelton argued that the Germans must be saved from the results of their own appalling venom by
Will George Osborne come ever clean about his successes? I caught up with the Chancellor in Leeds today and asked him about the Treasury’s role in the jobs miracle. I put it to him: isn’t it the case that he has decided to go slower on deficit reduction to support the jobs boom? The figures show
Mock Nick Clegg all you like, but he is taking an impressively pragmatic approach to this General Election. The Deputy Prime Minister knows that he might not get as much coverage as the main parties or the insurgent parties if he just says things (though already announcing a lot of your manifesto and charging hacks
David Cameron has written a rather interesting piece for Premier Christianity magazine on his faith and the meaning of Easter. I use the word ‘interesting’ advisedly and in the sense that an aged relative might deploy it when regarding some new fangled Christmas present that has a touch screen. The final two paragraphs are particularly interesting:
After years of hearing how terrible Western interventions are in the Middle East (Exhibits A, B and C the fiascos of Iraq, Afghanistan and post-Gaddafi Libya), it will be interesting to see how a Saudi-led all-Muslim intervention fares in Yemen. My prediction is it won’t be much better than those of the infidels. For a
Yesterday Ed Miliband declared that it was high time the James Bond films moved with the times and cast a woman as the next 007. Although the comments were met with outrage from some of the more traditional Bond fans, the Labour leader can take heart that Camilla Rutherford has picked up his rallying cry. Speaking
A couple of weeks ago some dance instructors went to Westminster to coach MPs to shake their tushes for the cameras, while they promised to support a ‘dance manifesto’ for Britain. Since then the image of MPs twerking has stuck to the inside of my head like snail slime on my hands. I’ve scrubbed away
When people say Noel Gallagher is big-headed, they don’t know the half of it. He has what is known as a ‘classic rock-star build’ – that is, a tiny, fragile little body with a ludicrously big bonce on top, like one of those football figurines. I know this because I saw him once. He was
Here’s an interesting factoid. We have gone the longest time since any serving Cabinet Minister has lost their seat… ever. Seven were booted out in 1997, most famously Defence Secretary Michael Portillo in Enfield Southgate – an experience shared by just 32 people since 1900. To some extent, MPs from marginals may be less likely
Will the Liberal Democrats avoid being wiped out at the upcoming election? In his latest round of constituency polling, Lord Ashcroft has revisited eight Liberal Democrat marginal constituencies he deems to be close races. Across all the seats, Ashcroft reports there is presently a four per cent swing to the Tories since the last election. Use the interactive
Perhaps, the biggest question of this campaign is whether the Tories will gain support in the next five and a bit weeks. If they don’t, Cameron will almost certainly lose and Ed Miliband will become Prime Minister. In his column today, Danny Finkelstein looks at polling data produced by Andrew Cooper of Populus to see
There’s not much love for Labour in Scotland at the moment, with Mr S reporting this week that Jim Murphy has failed to mention his own party on campaign leaflets. As the SNP come out on top in the polls and the reds hope for a ‘late swing‘ to Labour north of the border, the Scottish Labour leader
The debate over the future of Britain’s airports will reach its conclusion in just four months. In this View from 22 podcast special, The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson discusses the current state of the debate and the likely outcomes of the Davies Commission with Stewart Wingate, CEO of Gatwick Airport; Simon Calder, Travel Editor of The Independent and Christian Wolmar,
The Labour reaction today to the Telegraph’s high-volume splash on 100 business leaders warning about the dangers of a Labour government has largely been along the lines of ‘how interesting, and tomorrow will you tell us about the Pope’s theology?’ The coverage of the letter, which has the mark of Tory co-chair Lord Feldman, has
When is a disaster also a miracle? When it allows Scottish Labour to simultaneously endure its worst result since 1931 and live to fight another day, that’s when. Yesterday’s ComRes/ITV poll is the best news Labour has enjoyed in months. That’s how grim it has been for Labour lately. A poll of voters in 40 Labour
Tomorrow’s TV debate between the seven party leaders is the chance for the insurgent parties to muscle up to the mainstream leaders, make them look tired and old, and in doing so gain more supporters. But the leader with the biggest challenge is Nick Clegg, the insurgent in the 2010 debates, now coming to the end
Mr S was a guest at Spectator Life‘s birthday party at Belgraves. To mark the magazine’s third anniversary, party-goers including Princess Michael of Kent, Pippa Middleton, Rachel Johnson and Mick Hucknall joined editor Olivia Cole to raise a glass in celebration. Gosford Park actress Camilla Rutherford stuck to water at the event, revealing to Steerpike that she is expecting her
From ‘National Concentration‘, The Spectator, 3 April 1915: A WORD or two of explanation seems necessary in regard to the attitude which we and others have taken up towards football displays, racing, and drinking during the war. Some people seem to think that those who hold our views want to find in the war an