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Poor old Andrew Lansley. When he quit as Health Secretary he was touted as Britain’s next EU Commissioner – that didn’t happen. In return for agreeing to stand down from parliament, he was promised another sinecure. David Cameron had been lining up his former Health Secretary (and former mentor) to become UN humanitarian affairs and emergency relief co-ordinator. But
Things became heated in the commons today after Barry Sheerman told Esther McVey to stop being a ‘hard-hearted Hannah’ during a Department for Work and Pensions questions. The incident occurred after Sheerman voiced his concerns over the department’s handling of the government’s welfare reforms. McVey has taken none too kindly to the term, which is a reference to an Ella
I can understand why the Tories have ring-fenced the NHS, but if they do want to indulge in a little trimming I know just where to start – with the moron who signed off on the online ‘calculator’ that assesses your risk of a heart attack. ‘Official NHS calculator predicts when you will have a heart attack,’ says a
“We’ve got to look at the data”. And so ended the Peter Moores era. Sure, Moores may yet remain the England cricket coach but he can never move on from the ignominy of this morning’s disaster in Australia. He could, at a pinch, remain in office but he’ll never again be respected. “We’ve got to
There are not many things to celebrate about Gordon Brown’s time in office. He was a vilified leader; often quite rightly so. His Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, did not fare much better. However, a recent terror trial in New York showed that the criticism they received was not always deserved. On 8 April 2009, a large
Mr S was a guest at the press night of Ruby Wax’s one woman show at the St James Theatre. The comedian gave the audience a break down of her best selling book Sane New World, which tells you how to train your brain to cope with the demands of the 21st century. The topic of ambition was raised, with Wax making the point
Imagine a party that’s a cross between the SNP, Syriza and Ukip – one that is anti-establishment and combines the self-regard of the plucky outsider with an intermittent lead in the opinion polls. Imagine that and you’re getting close to the character of Sinn Féin, as manifest in its party conference this weekend. The last you
The three main parties are in an aggressive mood today. TheTories have a new attack poster warning voters about the dangers of a Labour-SNP deal, while Labour is warning voters of the danger of ‘1930s’ Tory spending plans, and the Lib Dems are launching their own plans to grow the economy. For Labour, today’s speech
Mr S’s disclosure that the Electoral Commission have approved Al Murray’s Freedom United Kingdom Party as an official party for the election has not gone down well with Nigel Farage. The leader of Ukip says the decision is a ‘disgrace’ as FUKP are a joke party. Speaking at the Ukip South West conference, Farage called for everyone in the commission to
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 13 March 1915: The more the operations at the Dardanelles are considered the more clearly is their vast importance realized. If in co-operation with the Russian Fleet from the Black Sea we succeed in taking possession of what remains of Turkey in Europe, including the great fortress of
I understand that David Cameron has ordered a re-write of the Tory manifesto. Jo Johnson and the Number 10 policy unit, which he heads, had written and submitted a first draft of the manifesto to Cameron. But word has come back that Cameron feels that the tone is not right. As I say in my
Two politicians put in very assured and impressive performances on Marr this morning – if you can include nimbly dodging questions that you don’t want to answer ‘impressive’. of course, within the parameters of the way politicians are expected to behave, Caroline Flint and Philip Hammond did very well because they didn’t give anything away
The Sunday Times today reports proof of what many have long suspected: that if you give bright disadvantaged kids the same support that pupils get at private schools and they beat their privately-educated rivals at top universities. Get three decent A-levels at a private school and you’ve a 65 per cent chance of going to
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 6 March 1915: The great German campaign against our shipping, under which we were to be cut off from all human aid and every merchant ship that dared to approach our ports torpedoed and sunk, has ended in what can only be called an amazing fiasco. In the
Fifty years since the first civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, America still has huge problems with race. Only this week a federal investigation into the killing of an unarmed black man in Ferguson last year concluded that the police there were racist. They’ve been making millions of dollars by targeting black people and
After Mr S brought you the news last week that old-school anarchist and ‘Class War’ editor Ian Bone wanted to run in Kensington, his class struggle group – in a surprisingly officious process – held an ‘adoption meeting’ for him last night to make him their candidate. Bone updates Steerpike on his strategy: ‘If Dan Snow is adopted
Nietzsche famously said that in Heaven ‘all the interesting people are missing’. To judge by the entries for the latest competition — which asked you to describe your idea of heaven or hell in verse — most of you agree that paradise might not be all it’s cracked up to be. It was a large
From ‘Lord Kitchener’, The Spectator, 6 March 1915: We are grateful to Lord Kitchener because at the very beginning of the war he formed what Mr. Bonar Law calls “a gigantic conception,” not only of the military needs of the nation, but of our ability to meet those needs. Other men and lesser men, even
I wish I could get worked up about the televised election debates (or lack thereof). I can understand that it’s a very important to the broadcasters, who don’t mind reducing the campaign to three US-style standoffs. But if they don’t go ahead, is it really an outrage? Is our democracy really the poorer for it? When broadcasters are angry, they
This story was first published in tonight’s Evening Blend email, a free round-up and analysis of the day’s political events. Sign up here. Over the past few weeks, Coalition ministers have been fighting over plans favoured by the Lib Dems to force companies with more than 250 workers to publish details of their gender pay
The broadcasters have rejected David Cameron’s offer of one seven-way debate before the start of the short campaign. Instead, they are sticking to their plan for two seven-way debates and one head to head between Cameron and Miliband in the short campaign. This means that the debates, certainly in terms of Cameron’s participation, are pretty
Natalie Bennett needed to give a good solid speech to the Green Party conference after a difficult few weeks, and she managed that today. The Green leader hadn’t undergone a personality transplant though, so she still wasn’t the most stirring speaker ever. listen to ‘Natalie Bennett speaking at the Green Party Conference’ on audioBoom
There was an interesting survey by Chatham House a few weeks back; asked which countries they had good feelings about, the British put the following as their top ten favourite. 1 Australia: 47% favourable 2 Canada: 44% 3 = USA and the Netherlands: 33% 5 Sweden: 28% 6 Norway: 26% 7 Ireland: 24% 8 Germany: 21%
Oh dear, Mr S has some bad news for Nigel Farage. The Ukip leader’s South Thanet rival Al Murray has had his application to make the Freedom United Kingdom Party an officially registered political party approved. This means that he can now run for the coveted seat in May. The Electoral Commission has given the application
‘What I’m seeing in this election is the influence of these big American advisers and it’s becoming the most negative, personal and nasty campaign I’ve ever seen.’ So said Nigel Farage to LBC this morning, as he promised to ‘rise above’ personal attacks in the coming election slog. Stung by rumours about his declining health,
Earlier this week, Sadiq Khan MP ‘admitted Labour could not reinstate £600m of legal aid cuts imposed by the government’. These are cuts which continue to have a very real impact on our society. They’ve left parents unrepresented when family judges are considering the future care of their children. They have deterred workers who are racially or
Labour has found Sir John Major rather useful in this Parliament, with his criticisms of government policy and praise of Ed Miliband’s energy price freeze. But his op-ed in today’s Telegraph in which he demands that Ed Miliband rule out a coalition with the Scottish National Party is rather less helpful. What makes this call
As Lord Ashcroft turned 69 this week, the international businessman celebrated with a polling event on his birthday to announce the impending Labour bloodbath north of the border: ‘Good evening and welcome. If you have ever wondered what a pollster does to celebrate his birthday, now you know. Somebody kindly asked me this morning if this
This week Tony Blair donated £106,000 to the Labour Party, with £1,000 going to each Labour candidate fighting for a target seat. Ed Miliband has since faced flak for accepting the ‘blood money’ funds, due to unease over the source of the cash given Blair’s dealings with dictatorships such as Kazakhstan. Not that any of this is worrying
From ‘The “Willing” Badge’, The Spectator, 6 March 1915: A final ground for giving badges to those who have offered themselves and been rejected must be mentioned. Under any scheme for the presentation of badges a register should be kept giving in general terms the ground on which each man was rejected—namely, medical reasons, such
Miriam Clegg said in a recent interview that she had banned her husband Nick Clegg from the kitchen on ‘health and safety grounds’. But happily, the leader of the Liberal Democrats can now have at least one dish to his name after spending a day making Cornish pasties as part of the St Piran’s Day festivities with
New drug-driving regulations came into force on Monday, establishing legal limits for the levels of sixteen intoxicating substances in the blood. Eight are illegal drugs, and eight are legal, prescription drugs. Police are being issued with new roadside testing kits, though these can only detect the presence of cocaine and THC (the main psychoactive ingredient
The votes are in for the Guardian staff ballot. After Mr S reported a lacklustre display from all four internal candidates at the hustings, it is Katharine Viner who has come out on top. Viner, the current editor of Guardian US, is guaranteed a final round interview after winning with over 50 per cent of the vote. Of
Ukip is fighting its most important and difficult election campaign to date. If the party is victorious in May, there is a chance it will become an established Westminster force — around for many years to come. But if Ukip fails, its chance to crack the Commons will have passed and the party’s peak will be
