All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
If the Liberal Democrats stand any chance of making gains at the Conservatives expense, then Nicola Blackwood is precisely the sort of MP they need to depose. She won her seat, Oxford West and Abingdon, with a gossamer majority of 176 and its in the top three Lib Dem targets. Perhaps for that reason she
Is Labour wise to go to war with the head of Boots for warning that a Miliband government would be a ‘catastrophe’ for Britain? The party, which has spent considerable effort trying to persuade business that it is friendly after all, seems to be reversing over that hard work by turning on Stefano Pessina in
A gunman is shooting ponies on Dartmoor. Yes, it’s true; a trained sniper is wandering the moor, singling out ponies one by one. But don’t worry – it’s probably not as bad as you think. Charlotte Faulkner, a conservationist, is shooting them with contraceptive darts in a bid to control the number of foals born
Reports have emerged of a new row that has engulfed parliament: where and where not to vape? After complaints of people using e-cigarettes near the chamber, the House of Commons authorities are mulling over how to treat the craze. Some MPs are pushing for a revival of the traditional Smoking Room so they can puff away on their
By some quirk of fate, just as news reached the papers that the Scottish nurse who had contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone was now recovered, the guest on that Radio 4 staple Desert Island Discs was the scientist who first identified the virus. This gave a programme that can seem rather outdated and superficial a
The Tories are embarking on an ‘education week’, which means they won’t just be fighting Labour but also the Lib Dems, as the latter like to strike up a fight whenever something involving Michael Gove crops up. Indeed, some Tories suspect the Lib Dems in the Education department as being the source of today’s Independent
With the opinion polls so tight at the moment, we’re having to look for other ways to try and work out what the general election result will be. One indicator worth watching is which party is spending more time thinking about the leadership contest that would follow an election. Now, there has been plenty of
Today’s huge Podemos rally in Madrid is a reminder that Syriza’s victory in Greece has emboldened the anti-austerity left across the Eurozone. What worries Angela Merkel and other northern European leaders is, as I say in the magazine this week, that any concessions to the new government in Athens, will lead to Podemos—a party which
A screening of The Imitation Game hosted by the American ambassador Matthew Barzun saw Alan Turing’s nephew Sir John Dermot Turing and his great-niece Rachel Barnes welcomed to 24 Grosvenor Square. There Barzun spoke of the progress that both America and Britain have made with gay rights since Turing’s day. The wartime code-breaker committed suicide after he was found guilty of gross indecency and given chemical
The most recent challenge asked for blues songs from well-known politicians contemplating the forthcoming general election. In a small but accomplished entry the Lib Dem leader dominated the stage. John O’Byrne’s Nick Clegg drew inspiration from B.B. King’s ‘Worry, worry’ — ‘Apologies, apologies, apologies/ Apologies are all I can do’ — and the ghosts of
From ‘Free Traders and Trade Problems’, The Spectator, 30 January 1915: There is every reason to believe that if the chemists of the country would now concentrate on these chemical problems, a solution would be found which would enable us to build up chemical industries capable of holding their own even against a German combine.
Bit of a coup for Sarah Vine, Daily Mail columnist (and wife of Michael Gove), don’t you think? Her piece on date rape elicited a trenchant response from Harriet Harman, who was indeed mentioned in it. I can’t think of many politicians who get down and dirty with a columnist like that; mostly they loftily
Who wants to work with who after the General Election? It’s a question that pundits like to chew over, partly because few politicians can afford to rule anything out with the polls suggesting quite such a jumbly outcome in May. But today two parties effectively ruled out a coalition with one another, even though they’re
We all need stories ‘to help us make sense of the complexity of reality’, intones the sensible sounding voice of Adam Curtis at the start of his new documentary about Afghanistan, Bitter Lake. But stories told by ‘those in power’ are ‘increasingly unconvincing and hollow’. What a relief then that Curtis has raided the archives
January has been 30 days of chaos for Labour, according to Grant Shapps — but what about the Tories’ bad headlines? In a press conference this morning, Shapps outlined all of the negative press Labour has received in 2015 so far (pdf of the document here). But he ended up having to defend his party
Russell Brand and Johann Hari were once the revolutionary dream team, working side-by-side to produce the comedian’s YouTube series The Trews. Brand hired the self-confessed plagiarist last year to help with his videos. Now, alas, Mr S hears it is the end of the road for the like-minded pair, with Hari quitting. The writer apparently wants to focus on his next
No, they bloody didn’t. They just didn’t. ‘Cats detected my cancer’, reads a headline on Mail Online. But, let’s face it, they didn’t at all. The ways in which this story is nonsense are obvious. Stephanie Doody, the woman in question, says (and, I’m sure, believes – and may even be right) that her three
We can be sure that between now and May there will be an endless barrage of lies and disinformation aimed at belittling this government’s achievements in improving schools. The real danger is not that these arguments will be persuasive, but that they will not be rebutted. It sometimes seems as if the government has lost
I suspect that you were as appalled as I by the plight of young mum, Marie Buchan, from Selly Oak in Birmingham. She has eight children – called stuff like Latoya and Tia – and currently claims a meagre £26,000 per year in benefits to feed them all. But now the government’s benefits cap has
Today marks fifty years since the funeral of Winston Churchill. In the 5 February 1965 edition of The Spectator, editor Iain Macleod wrote under the pen name Quoodle about the occasion. There has never been such a funeral service I before. There will never be again. It was splendid and solemn, but it was also glorious and triumphant. There
Julie Walters added weight to Chris Bryant’s claim that British culture is dominated by the upper classes when she said that there are very few opportunities for working class actors today. Walter’s fellow actress Sheila Hancock, however, thinks it’s not worth getting her knickers in a twist about. ‘Are there a lot of posh actors? Yes. Are
From ‘The Running Fight in the North Sea’, The Spectator, 30 January 1915: THE splendid success of the battle-cruisers under Admiral Beatty in the North Sea last Sunday means much more than that they sunk the German armoured cruiser ‘Blücher,’ as well as a light cruiser, and very seriously damaged two German battle-cruisers. It means
In the run-up to the Greek election, European figures were adamant that there wasn’t as much to worry about as people thought. They argued that Syriza wouldn’t come close to winning a majority and that it would have to do a coalition deal with Potami who would end up moderating its demands. This complacency was
While the behaviour of the Westminster mob at PMQs is often reminiscent of playground bickering, the women of Scotland are taking a more civilised approach as they prepare for First Minister’s Questions. Far from any hostilities between their opposing parties, Nicola Sturgeon has been joshing on Twitter with Ruth Davidson, Leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, and Kezia Dugdale, Deputy
In the last few years alcohol has become the leading cause of death in men under 50 years of age, and it will soon achieve a similar deadly status in women. Alcohol-induced liver deaths have quadrupled in the past 40 years whereas deaths from heart and lung disease have halved. The reasons for this are
The coalition helped bury an enduring and dangerous myth in a major report into the country’s chronic housing crisis released this week. The year-long probe rubbishes the idea councils are stopped from building new homes by Treasury ‘caps’ on their borrowing powers. As research published on Coffee House revealed last year, the idea caps hold them
After Mr S’s disclosure that a Tory MP plotted to knock over a BBC cameraman to cease filming for Inside the Commons, speculation is rife as to who the backbencher could be. Steerpike was curious to hear the show’s presenter Michael Cockerell deny that the culprit was Bill Wiggin. The Tory MP had very publicly lost his
Michael Cockerell’s new documentary series inside the House of Commons saw the reporter gain unprecedented access to parliament. However, while many MPs were keen to be involved, a group of Tory MPs plotted to knock over a BBC cameraman in order to stop them filming. The astonishing claim was made by Cockerell at a press screening today of
The Greens may be in the middle of a national ‘surge’, with more than 50,000 members, but in one part of the country, their brand isn’t particularly trendy. In Brighton, the Greens on the council aren’t the best advert for the party – something our leading article picks up on this week. Indeed, such are
Seventy years on from the liberation of Auschwitz, Roman Kent, who was 12 when he was sent there, wept as he implored the world not to allow anything like that to happen again. ‘How can one erase the sight of human skeletons – just skin and bones, but still alive?’ he said. ‘How can I
Who will benefit from Syriza’s victory in Greece? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, James Forsyth and Sebastian Borger discuss this week’s Spectator cover feature on the impending European revolt. How will David Cameron make political capital from the rise of the anti-austerity party? What are the challenges facing Angela Merkel? Will similar parties be
Isabel Oakeshott has gone to such lengths to get close to David Cameron for the biography she is helping Lord Ashcroft write that she has even been pictured following him on his jogs. Now David Cameron’s nemesis Ashcroft has given an insight into what readers can expect from the tome. Speaking at the Political Book
It’s been a tough few weeks for Chris Bryant since he claimed that ‘we can’t just have a culture dominated by Eddie Redmayne and James Blunt and their ilk’ in an interview with The Guardian. Privately educated Blunt didn’t take kindly to the comments and responded by calling Bryant a ‘classist gimp’ in an open letter. If that
John Bercow got more than he bargained for last night when he presented an award at Paddy Power’s Political Book Awards. Appearing on stage alongside Rory Bremner to giveaway the gong for ‘Polemic of the Year,’ the Speaker of the House of Commons was grilled by the impressionist on the rising cost of the Westminster gym upgrade. Bremner said, ‘Can I