All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Rather ironically, the best analogy I can summon to describe my appointment and role with Policy Exchange as senior research fellow on Obesity and Physical Activity is an enormous buffet made up of your favourite food. The problem would be deciding where to start and then knowing when to stop. Sadly, the obesity and inactivity pandemic
I really wouldn’t want to be chief executive of Tesco, I wrote in January, because the ‘too big, too dull, too dominant’ supermarket giant, besieged by discounters, has become ‘a business-school case study of a brand that has lost all positive emotional connection to its customers’; the incumbent Philip Clarke, a Tesco lifer with scant hope of measuring up to his predecessor Sir
For years, Secretaries of State for Health have studiously ignored one of the most corrosive regulations to the NHS: the European Working Time Directive. Although the EU is not supposed to have any remit over health, this ‘health and safety’ directive limits junior doctors’ hours to an average of 48 hours per week, with added
The European Council has spoken! We must all come back on Thursday after it has considered its approach to fresh sanctions against Russia. The communiqué from today’s meeting of the Council is full of fine ambition: albeit ambition that was agreed on 18 July. We are promised an extended list of: ‘…entities and persons, including
Travelling back from holiday yesterday we had Jeremy Vine’s show on the car radio and the Radio 2 man was talking about the fighting in Gaza and as is often the case with such matters how the subject is framed is at least as interesting as anything that is subsequently said during the discussion. In
David Cameron talked tough on sanctions yesterday, suggesting that he had the German and French support. I believe he means what he says and is serious about following through with sanctions. I could even be convinced that France and Germany have hardened their positions to the point where they are genuinely willing to consider ‘stage
In the last reshuffle, David Cameron made Tina Stowell the leader of the House of Lords. But, astonishingly, he didn’t make her a full member of the Cabinet, giving her only the right to attend. This, understandably, outraged peers; they quite rightly feel that the leader of the second chamber should be in the Cabinet.
On matters domestic (England and Wales division) I was sad to see Dominic Grieve turfed-out of the cabinet in last week’s reshuffle. Today he pops up in the Times to remind us (well, me) why his departure has lowered the average level of decency in the cabinet. According to the former Attorney-General, the Prime Minister’s plans to
During Owen Paterson’s vocal conversation with David Cameron in defence of his record as Environment Minister after learning he was being sacked, Paterson reportedly said: ‘this will be a kick in the teeth to 12 million countryside voters… you are making a big mistake’. There is already mounting evidence to suggest Paterson could be right.
Washington, D.C. Ed Miliband met with Barack Obama yesterday, haven’t you heard? The British press covered the visit with their usual gusto but the visit barely registered on the radar of American outlets. Out of the country’s most influential papers, neither the New York Times nor the Wall Street Journal wrote a single word about the potential next prime minister of
Priti Patel, poster girl for the next generation of the Tory right, will be a key face on the airwaves come election time. When the PM offered her a job last week, she confirmed No. 10’s hope that she is a modern voice. After Cameron told her: ‘I’d like you to go to the Treasury, Priti’, she
In the middle of a troubled and brawling world: some hope and inspiration. In last week’s edition of The Spectator we ran a piece by Jim de Zoete about the incredible story of David Rudisha, the Masai warrior and 800 metres world champion who ran what Sebastian Coe has described as ‘the greatest race of
Mr S hears that the race to succeed Paxo came down to two candidates: the PM programme’s Eddie Mair and Today’s Evan Davis. Davis’s move frees up the morning slot — with the berth potentially pencilled in for Nick Robinson after next year’s general election. That, in turn, would trigger a race for one of
People talk about their commitment to equality and diversity so readily they must assume there is no conflict between the two. The phrase falls off the tongue as if it were an all-in-one package, and people can ‘celebrate diversity’ and support equal rights without a smidgeon of self-doubt. Until, that is, they have to make a
Nicky Morgan described the findings of Peter Clarke’s report into the Birmingham schools scandal as ‘disturbing’, and laid out how she plans to respond. listen to ‘Nicky Morgan’s statement on the Trojan Horse scandal report’ on Audioboo
Peter Clarke, a former counter-terror chief, has published a report today which reveals that an ‘aggressive Islamist agenda’ was pursued in ‘Trojan horse’ schools in Birmingham. He has found evidence of a coordinated plan to impose strict Islamic teaching on pupils. This piece by Douglas Murray was originally published in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 14 June 2014:
The Department of Education has published a damning report today which suggests there was an ‘aggressive Islamist agenda’ pursued in a number of the ‘Trojan horse’ schools in Birmingham. Peter Clarke, a former counter-terror chief, published the report, which found evidence of a coordinated plan to impose strict Islamic teaching on pupils. Michael Gove, the
Jobs must surely be one of the great success stories of this government: 1.8 million more people in work, and unemployment at its lowest level since 2008. Increasingly the coalition’s welfare reforms are taking the plaudits for this successful turnaround. This success will only continue as the reforms bed in. The roll out of Universal
In the 25 November 2006 edition of The Spectator, Neil Barnett recalled his encounters with the poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko. Two days before the magazine went to press, Litvinenko died from radiation poisoning. As Theresa May reopens the investigation into his death, we are republishing Barnett’s interview once more: The hotel off a main square in
There isn’t a single item of Burberry in my wardrobe, I’m afraid, so I was unaware until this week of the fashion genius that is the firm’s chief executive Christopher Bailey, whose £20 million pay deal received a thumbs-down from 53 per cent of shareholders at last week’s AGM. The vote was not binding on
I’m in the US right now, where the national conversation is – it’s safe to say – not fixed on Ed Miliband’s White House trip. We now have photographic proof of this event, but what’s Barack Obama saying? A prize for the best suggestion. PS some unkind souls have suggested that this picture is the
David Cameron has made a statement to the House of Commons about the destruction of MH17 over eastern Ukraine. He was quick to say that even those who shot down flight MH17 would not have intended to commit such an atrocity. But, nevertheless, he excoriated Russia. ‘A conflict that could have been curtailed by Moscow
New Education Secretary Nicky Morgan wasted no time in stamping her mark on her department – sacking all three of Michael Gove’s special advisers on Friday morning. Friends tell Mr S that Henry Cook, Beth Armstrong and Jamie Martin were ‘keen to stay on in order to enable a smooth transition’, but it was not
Nicky Morgan came to parliament today to praise Michael Gove, not to bury him: ‘It is a privilege,’ she said, ‘to follow him in this role.’ Her first outing as Education Secretary was an unqualified success. She plodded amiably where Michael Gove had dazzled; but, nonetheless, she was effective. The Opposition launched a well-orchestrated attack
Reading the papers over the last few days, you’d be forgiven for thinking that no teachers backed Michael Gove and his agenda. But a letter in The Sunday Times yesterday told a very different story. Signed by 76 people, most of them head teachers of outstanding schools in deprived areas, it praised him as ‘a man
Tony Blair, international superstar, has jetted into London to deliver the inaugural Philip Gould Memorial Lecture at Progress, a think tank. The speech would have enraged the likes of Len McCluskey, in the unlikely event that he listened to it. Blair trotted out all the pleasing soundbites of the past. The ‘third way’ was, he
With the BBC set to make a formal announcement about Jeremy Paxman’s replacement at Newsnight imminently, tweets from BBC staff revealing the news were hurriedly deleted. Not quite all of them, though. Evan Davis to join #newsnight following the departure of Jeremy Paxman. — Lucy Walker (@lucybellewalker) July 21, 2014 It’s Evan Davis, apparently.
George Osborne has been in retail mode this morning, selling his pension reforms and explaining how pensioners can unlock their life’s savings. The Chancellor has said that the Treasury will work with the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, Age UK and other organisations to provide pensioners with the best possible impartial guidance to transform their retirement. Interested
Perhaps it’s my imagination, but every time the Rt Rev James Jones, former Bishop of Liverpool, pops up on Thought for the Day I hear an undertone of disappointed ambition. The same goes for Lord Harries, ex-Bishop of Oxford and, like Jones, once spoken of as a future Archbishop of Canterbury. It’s as if they’re
Eighteen hundred years ago, Romano-Britons with a variety of medical conditions would have visited the healing temple at Lydney Park in Gloucestershire, with some of them drinking the iron-rich waters found there. One person left behind a small offering – perhaps in appreciation of a successful cure – in the form of a model forearm.
If anyone thought Stephen Dorrell would take a break from talking about health after standing down as chairman of the House of Commons health select committee, they were quite wrong. The Spectator finds him in his Portcullis House office preparing to give a speech to the think tank Reform — his first since quitting the post —
In this week’s View from 22 morning review, Douglas Murray, James Forsyth and Mary Wakefield discuss the weekend’s main stories. Can Europe really enforce sanctions on Putin, in the wake of the shooting down of MH17? And what has been the fallout over the weekend from Cameron’s reshuffle?
Mr S was sipping his breakfast tea when he saw this plea from deposed Cabinet minister Owen Paterson: I’m looking for someone to run my new office, but I seem to have lost Dominic Cummings’s phone number. Can anyone help? — Owen Paterson MP (@Owen_PatersonMP) July 21, 2014 Cameroons need not apply.
To judge by much of the western media coverage in recent days, you would have thought that Vladimir Putin had spent last Thursday sitting in the Kremlin, plotting how to blacken his image in the West even further, before settling on the brilliant idea of getting some clueless proxies to blow an international airliner out
