All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Normally this blog is about relatively silly things, I’m happy to admit. Is red wine good for you? (No.) Are high heels good for you? (No.) I mean, it’s worth debunking that sort of nonsense when newspapers print it, but I don’t pretend that I’m fighting some moral crusade. Most of the time, anyway. But
And so the Age of Nicola dawns. Elected First Minister by the Scottish Parliament yesterday; sworn in this morning. Taking First Minister’s Questions this afternoon. Alex Salmond’s departure was a long drawn-out affair but it will not take Nicola Sturgeon anything like as long to leave her own distinct impression on Scottish politics. I am
Do today’s students care about free speech? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Brendan O’Neill and Harriet Brown from the University of Oxford debate this week’s cover feature on the ‘Stepford Students’ and the rise of group think among undergraduates. Brendan and Harriet discuss the Oxford Students for Life debate cancelled this week, following a
From The Spectator, 21 November 1914: We are glad to learn that the laudable persistence of the Prince of Wales has been rewarded, and that he has been allowed to go to the front, where he is now an A.D.C. to Sir John French. We can well believe the statement that the Prince is at
Ironic Tory roars greeted Miliband’s ascent to the vertical at PMQs today. He assumed his habitual spanked puppy look. It’s quite a sight, Ed’s expression of frosty endurance. Part dismay, part weariness, part moral indignation, it makes him look like a nun who’s just discovered her favourite choirboy reading a porn mag. On went the
Stockton South is seventh on Labour’s target seat list in terms of the swing needed to win yet a Survation poll in the constituency has put the current Tory MP James Wharton on track to hold it. When don’t-knows are stripped out, poll (tables here) puts Wharton two points ahead of Labour’s candidate Louise Baldock on
Wonderful: Labour has a new slogan on immigration, which appears to be the Conservatives’ old slogan from 2005, the one that Labour said was racist. I have far more respect for any Labour politician who actually defends their record on mass immigration – only a fifth of which was from Europe, incidentally, although that gets at
PMQs is in a rut. The exchanges between Cameron and Miliband now descend into the trading of insults even faster than they did before and both sides simply use PMQs as an opportunity to trot out stock lines. Miliband was determined to use today’s exchanges to paint Cameron as a kiss-up, kick-down politician, trying to
Mark Reckless has landed himself in the soup over comments he made at hustings last night about what might happen to EU migrants if Britain quit the EU. First reported in the The Guardian, the following exchange was captured on ITV Meridian last night: listen to ‘Mark Reckless says he is against deporting existing EU migrants’
Let’s be honest, just for a moment. The Rochester and Strood by-election has been a disgrace. It has been a sewer race during which the two leading protagonists have done their best to demonstrate their lack of fitness for office. In this, if nothing else, they have been successful. I wouldn’t expect anything better from
Can you out-Ukip Ukip? Depending on which day of the week it is, both mainstream political parties think you can and you can’t. Last week Ed Miliband said you couldn’t and that he wouldn’t, arguing that it was about time someone levelled with Nigel Farage’s party. Yesterday Yvette Cooper announced tough immigration measures that some
It must, I sometimes think, be exhausting, if you actually take health advice from newspapers; diligently eating eggs one week but not the next, avoiding mobile phones in case they irradiate your gonads, avoiding all foreign-looking people in case they’ve got that Ebola. I thought this particularly the case this week when I read the
From The Spectator, 21 November 1914: If nations obtain the Governments that they deserve, it may be hoped that they do not always deserve their postage-stamps. If that were so, we should be a less deserving nation than we were in the twenty or thirty years which followed the introduction of “adhesive labels” in 1840,
Who is tougher on immigration? Neither the Tories nor Labour want to be left behind by Ukip, and have descended into an arms race over who can best crack down on EU migration. Today Ed Miliband’s party launched a two-pronged attack on the subject, with Yvette Cooper speaking in the morning about her plans to
How did an amendment brought by a Lib Dem backbencher to an uncontroversial bill wind up with the government sustaining its first proper defeat? Today Greg Mulholland’s changes to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill which would allow pub landlords to buy beer from whatever company they liked rather than the company who owns
If anyone ever wondered what the over-promoted, incapable and incompetent Baroness Sayeeda Warsi was planning to do in retirement, now we know: provoke British Jews on Twitter. Today, after four Jews, one a British citizen, were butchered while praying in Israel, Sayeeda Warsi used the opportunity to taunt British Jews. Not just the Zionist Federation but
It seems the most exciting thing to come out of today’s Commons press gallery lunch with Danny Alexander was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s claim that George Osborne locks his fridge in the department. Mr Steerpike has never been afflicted by an attack of the munchies while lurking in that part of Whitehall but
Most weeks there is a demonstration of some sort in Parliament Square. I can hear the noise from my office and occasionally read the odd banner or two. Some are confusing, occasionally amusing, often serious, but always important to the supporters. Most make me think a bit about the cause being championed. But each one
It’s hard to believe a whole decade has passed since the Hunting Act was passed on 18 November 2004. This legislation, undeniably one of the most contentious seen in modern political times, outlawed the killing of foxes, hares, mink and deer by dogs, ending centuries of cruelty. Over that period of time we have seen
At the height of the 2005 election, the then Tory leader Michael Howard (advised by one Lynton Crosby) declared: ‘Let’s be clear. It’s not racist to talk about immigration. It’s not racist to criticise the system. It’s not racist to want to limit the numbers. It’s just plain common sense.’ Howard was lambasted by Labour for
I have the honour of having my Ch4 Dispatches documentary, now available online, reviewed by Michael White in the Guardian today. I think he was expecting me to lay into Labour, and critiques the show as if I did. In general, I seem to be charged with being in possession of opinions about inequality while being right-wing. I plead
This year’s Autumn Statement isn’t going to be full of a great deal of Christmas cheer. But as it’ll take place just over five months before the General Election, Tory MPs are still pushing for small giveaways from the government to tempt voters to back their party. One such campaign comes from Andrew Bridgen, who
Myleene Klass had a bit of a go at Ed Miliband last night when she appeared next to the Labour leader on The Agenda. She was very cross about what she described as a ‘sexy tax that says let’s take from the rich and give it to the poor’, which is of course Labour’s mansion
The recent case reported in the press of a 17 year old mother who deliberately binge drank alcohol during her pregnancy, resulting in a baby with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and who now stands accused of administering a ‘noxious substance’ to the baby and criminal negligence, represents the beginning of what may subsequently morph into
Emmanuel Macron has only been the French economy minister for a few months, but already he’s attracted plenty of domestic outrage, mostly from socialists who think he’s a bit too right-wing. Now the former banker seems to be aiming for a wider audience to provoke, suggesting in meetings in London yesterday that Germany should drop
In the magazine a couple of weeks ago I asked if we were in the early stages of a Catholic civil war fuelled by confusion over Pope Francis’s apparent willingness to soften the Church’s pastoral approach to divorcees and gay people. Hostilities began during the disastrous Synod of the Family, at which liberal officials gave a press conference
From The Spectator, 21 November 1914: WE record with deep regret the death of Lord Roberts, which occurred last Saturday evening at Sir John French’s headquarters. Lord Roberts had gone to France specially to visit the Indian troops, of whom he was Colonel-in-Chief. He caught cold on Thursday week, and his heart was not strong
The most sobering column you’ll read today is the FT’s Gideon Rachman, no doom monger, warning about the risk of a nuclear war. Rachman is concerned about how quick Vladimir Putin’s Russia now is to rattle the nuclear sabre. Now, as Rachman points out, part of the reason that Russia does this is to make
At 8pm tonight, I’m presenting a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on inequality, entitled How The Rich Get Richer. In 27 fact-filled minutes, I go through a lot of things – arguing that inequality is about more than tax receipts, and tackling it means more than complaining about rich people. In fact, I’d argue that the
Having walked across Afghanistan, governed a province of Iraq and written award winning books about his adventures, now Rory Stewart has delivered his own son: ‘Penrith and the Border MP Rory Stewart has announced the birth of his first son – which he ended up delivering himself on the bathroom floor. Alexander Wolf Stewart was
A week after uproar in the Commons over the vote on the European Arrest Warrant that was or wasn’t a vote, depending on what you fancied believing, Theresa May faced MPs at Home Office questions where she was rather quickly pulled up on that debacle. Shadow Home Office minister David Hanson asked why the House
After the disgraced PR guru Max Clifford was sentenced to eight years at Her Majesty’s pleasure for a series of indecent assaults, he was forced to close his management firm with hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of debts. Still, word reaches Mr S that Clifford’s jail term hasn’t stopped him from trying to trade
Did you know that snoring was bad for your heart? It’s thought to cause changes in the carotid artery and is linked to metabolic syndrome, both of which put you at risk of cardiovascular disease. Not only that, you’ll keep your partner awake, which won’t do your relationship a lot of good, either. So what
‘This a long way from the pigsties in east Kent where I smoked my first cigar,’ said 92 year-old Baroness Trumpington as she collected her lifetime achievement award at the Spectator’s Cigar Smoker of the Year awards last night. At a packed Boisdale, the top prize was awarded to Arnold Schwarzenegger, with Frasier’s Kelsey Grammer