All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Would he say no to saying no? The first question at PMQs, from Gregg McClymont, was about Cameron’s vote in the EU referendum, (if it ever happens). McClymont wants the PM to rule out ruling out Britain’s participation in the economic suicide pact based in Brussels. Nope, said Cameron. He went on to boast that
A recent study has suggested that over half of Britain’s Jews feel they have no future in the UK. At first glance this might seem outrageous, indeed incredible. Arguably (one might say) we Jews are the most successfully integrated of all the UK’s ethnic minorities. A miniscule set of communities – comprising in total 0.5 per
Last Sunday, David Cameron marched through Paris in solidarity, so it seemed, with those who stand up for free speech. Anyone who thought he meant it must now be crying out, ‘Je suis un right Charlie!’ Hardly had the march finished than the Prime Minister had rediscovered his other side: the one which reacts to
Nigel Farage will now have to compete for space at the bar with comedian Al Murray, who has announced he will stand for Parliament in South Thanet, as The Pub Landlord for the Free United Kingdom Party. FUKP’s manifesto contains many ‘common sense policies’ similar to those we’ve heard before from the Pub Landlord. Here’s how he will offer the voters
PMQs today was dominated by the debate about debates. After a few statesmanlike questions about the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks, Miliband started to needle Cameron about his reluctance to take part in TV debates while Labour MPs made chicken noises. Cameron claimed that he was happy to take part in TV debates as
Dear Peta, Thank you for your recent letter objecting to my campaign to support British livestock farming and encouraging sustainable red meat industry. I read with interest your argument that consuming red meat is ‘out of touch’ and ‘irresponsible’. I am sure the millions of ordinary Britons who have enjoyed roast beef or a shepherd’s
Trouble is brewing in Parliament. First there was vegan month, which rattled the cages of the establishment’s red-blooded males, and now a proposal for a meat month has led to beef between a Tory MP and Peta. The animal rights group have asked Neil Parish, who is chair of the All-Parliamentary Group on Animal Welfare, to reconsider his proposal for
Labour, the Lib Dems and Ukip are having quite a bit of fun with their identical letters from their respective leaders demanding that David Cameron take part in the TV debates – or risk having something done to him that is even worse than a noun being turned into a verb (the latest threat is
Je suis Charlie indeed. This is the problem with placards — there is rarely enough room to fit in the caveats, the qualifying clauses and the necessary evasions. I suppose you could write them on the back of the placard, one after the other, in biro. Or write in brackets and in much smaller letters, directly
The recent BDO and PDA darts championships were undeniably glorious. Ronnie O’Sullivan is arguing that snooker needs to learn from darts by introducing shot clocks and power play to speed things up. Perhaps another way of boosting snooker’s status would be to bring in an element of hooliganism. John Wells was delighted when a Jamaican
This afternoon Labour has its debate on forcing energy companies to pass on lower oil prices to their customers. The potency of the political attack has been blunted rather by the party’s admission that its energy price freeze is in fact a cap, rather than an endless promise that no matter how fabulously low prices
There is the distinct suspicion that at last some more usually bien-pensant commentators are getting it. I mean getting the threat posed to us by irritated Muslim people. First, unexpectedly, David Aaronovitch talked a degree of sense in the Times last Thursday. Yay, David, way to go. Something else you’ve been wrong about for ten years –
From ‘The Windfalls of Soldiering’, The Spectator, 16 January 1915: This war is unlike all our previous wars, in that it was known from the very beginning that a vast number of men would be required. Thus it was plain at once that the only speedy way of reaching the front for the civilian of
Mr S’s favourite ‘rent-a-quote’ Mo Ansar appears to have missed the message in a Twitter spat with our own Alex Massie. Ansar, who was a planning manager at Lloyds-TSB in Winchester until 2006, has reinvented himself as the ‘voice of Islam’ in recent years. He may, however, want to try thinking before sharing opinions in the future… #Newsnight
There was a certain irony to the news that @CENTCOM had been hacked yesterday afternoon. While President Obama was giving a speech on cybersecurity, the U.S. Central Command Twitter account was spouting pro-Isis propaganda. Nothing new here, though. Since day one, Isis have used the internet to threaten the West and in particular American soldiers. During
David Cameron and George Osborne addressed Tory MPs this evening. The meeting was to update the Tory parliamentary party on the economy and its place in the party’s election strategy. Cameron told them that whatever the question was, the answer was that you can only have it with a strong economy and urged them to
listen to ‘Chris Leslie says Labour will cut the deficit through gun licences’ on audioBoom
It was no expenses spared last night at One Great George Street to toast the departure of long-time Andrew Marr Show editor Barney Jones. Most ‘leaving dos’ in journalism involve a few beers down the Dog and Duck but Aunty was an extremely kind benefactor, providing fine wines and canapés as well as music from Nick
Even though they ended up walking through the lobbies together (though not hand in hand, skipping, sadly), Ed Balls and George Osborne still managed to have the sort of Commons showdown that would fit right in to the script of Bridget Jones. On and on their furious fighting went, over whether the long-term economic plan
To the Oldie literary lunch where Mr S dined alongside the magazine’s editor Alexander Chancellor and Alan Johnson. Talk soon turned to Johnson’s former boss Tony Blair, as the Labour politician recalled a joke that backfired spectacularly. ‘Probably the reason why I fell out,’ Johnson said, before stopping himself and tactically rephrasing. ‘Alex and I have
The latest issue of Charlie Hebdo goes on sale tomorrow, with around 1,000 copies expected to be available in the UK. Some people have decided that buying it shows ils sont Charlie, but both David Cameron and Nick Clegg don’t appear to be joining the rush for copies. The Deputy Prime Minister told the Today programme that
David Cameron is holding another one of his parliamentary party meetings this evening to discuss party strategy and rally the troops. Normally these things are quite well-attended, save a few conscientious objectors who think these events are an attempt by Downing Street to undermine the 1922 Committee. But today’s one might look a little quieter,
Londoners were not a happy bunch this morning. Aside from the cold, wet weather, two-thirds of the capital’s buses were not running — thanks to a strike arranged by trade union Unite. Bus drivers are protesting over pay, as they believe the lack of a collective deal across all bus operators is unfair. Currently, there are 80-odd
Nigel Farage has performed a useful public service this week. Yes, really, he has. The UKIP leader, you see, is a believer in Root Causes. He is, in fact, a Root Causer and, like every member of that miserable tribe, liable to see every event as confirming the righteousness of his own longstanding, stale-breathed, prejudices. You
Last week Nick Robinson took a swipe at Russell Brand’s call for the public to refrain from voting, claiming that it could undermine democracy. He went so far as to say that in a choice between quitting the BBC and defending democracy he would choose the latter. Happily it didn’t come to that and instead the
‘Ukip seems to have imploded,’ one ‘mainstream’ politician remarked to me yesterday. ‘We haven’t heard anything from them.’ True, Ukip have been rather quiet since Christmas, but anyone in the Tories or Labour who is dancing around imagining that they’re set fair for an election without Nigel Farage has got rather carried away. The truth
One of the obsessions that will only get worse over the next few months – along with checking every poll that comes out every day to see whether you’re six points up, four points behind, or level-pegging – is what ‘red lines’ the parties will set out for their Coalition negotiations. David Cameron has made
Flick Drummond’s campaign to win a Conservative seat in Portsmouth South has hit a bump in the road. Word reaches Mr S that plans for a set of campaign posters for Flick had to be revised after the Conservatives realised that from a distance the poster could be misread as -well, another word starting in F. The issue
Meetings of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee are rarely so popular that they have to book an overspill room, but today’s hearing with Tony Blair was a sell-out occasion, with both the Wilson Room and the Boothroyd Room in Portcullis House packed with people wanting to watch the former Prime Minister give evidence on
For goods, as opposed to services, Britain has just joined the Eurozone deflation club. This morning’s figures show that goods (i.e., the stuff we buy) were 1pc cheaper in Christmas 2014 than Christmas 2013. Factor in services and still, UK consumer price inflation was 0.5pc in December, the (joint) lowest since records began in 2004 (pdf).
From ‘The British Reply and American Comments’, The Spectator, 16 January 1915: We have not the slightest desire to punish American commerce or any neutral commerce. Our whole object is to destroy our enemies, and it is only so far as American commerce interferes with that object that we interfere with American commerce. That the
Could there be anything more offensive to feminists than the use of young girls as suicide bombers? I doubt it. And I imagine that’s exactly why the militant Islamist group Boko Haram has adopted it as the latest technique in its campaign to overthrow the Nigerian government and create an Islamic state. In April last year, when Boko
What is going on with the opinion polls? In his first national poll of 2015, Lord Ashcroft has the Conservatives six points ahead of Labour at 34 per cent — whereas Populus also have a new poll out today putting Labour five points ahead. And yesterday’s YouGov poll put both on 32 per cent. As the
The public can always tell an election is near when the photo opportunities start to increase. Just such an occasion occurred on the 10th anniversary of the Hunting Act in November, when the Parliamentary Labour Party office invited MPs to have a photograph taken, ‘with a large fox holding up a sign saying “Back the