All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
One of the many blows landed by Alex Salmond during last night’s debate centred on Alistair Darling’s criticism of the Office of Budget Responsibility, set up in 2010 by George Osborne to provide independent economic forecasts for the Treasury. The OBR’s numbers have been key to the Better Together’s onslaught on the numerical black holes at the
The leader of Rotherham Council has resigned following the results of a report which found that at least 1,400 children were victims of ‘appalling’ sexual exploitation in the town during a sixteen year period. The report details the ‘blatant’ collective failures during most of Roger Stone’s leadership. Professor Alexis Jay, a former senior social worker
Boris Johnson has confirmed that he is going to apply to be the Conservative candidate for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. His announcement comes on the same day that Nigel Farage is expected to be confirmed as the Ukip candidate for South Thanet, which suggests that the Conservatives are keen to use Boris as their anti-Farage
Well that was a gubbing. No doubt about it. Alex Salmond won last night’s debate against Alistair Darling just as thoroughly as he’d lost their first encounter. Sure, some Unionists tried to put a cheerful spin on it – “We’ll take that” one senior Labour figure told me – but don’t you believe any of
With just a few days before the House of Commons returns for the autumn term, the revolt against John Bercow’s plan to appoint Carol Mills as Clerk of the House is growing. Coffee House has seen a motion that a cross-party group of MPs plan to table to stop the Speaker in his tracks. The
Isis has the Ebola bomb. So be very, very afraid. If you’re a nutjob, that is. The conspiracy website Before It’s News reports that ‘whistleblower and former police officer’ Greg Evensen has discovered that ‘Isis now has the weaponised Ebola virus, here in America!’ Evensen also reveals who’s pulling the strings of Isis. Yup: Barack
Both camps in the Scottish independence debate have now has their shock: Alex Salmond was shaken to be beaten by Alistair Darling in the first debate, while a confident Darling seemed shaken last night that the First Minister wasn’t giving identical answers to the questions he repeated from his initial victorious round. As we discussed
The Spectator, 29 August 1914: “WE need all the recruits we can get,” said the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, and he said no more than every thinking man knows to be true. We need, not one hundred thousand, but at the very least five hundred thousand men, and as many more as
In this View from 22 podcast special, Alex Massie, Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson analyse this evening’s going on in Glasgow, as Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling took part in the second round of their independence debates. The polls released immediately after the debate from The Guardian/ICM has Salmond the clear winner on 79%, with Darling on just 21% of the
Welcome to tonight’s liveblog of the BBC debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow. 00:05 In this View from 22 podcast special, Isabel Hardman, Alex Massie and Fraser Nelson discuss what they made of tonight’s debate. listen to ‘Scottish Independence Debate special – with Isabel Hardman, Alex Massie and Fraser
Like Paradise Lost, no-one – not even humble freelance hacks – ever wished the Scottish independence referendum campaign longer. We are, most of us, exhausted. Almost all passion has been spent. Which is just as well since, frankly, people are beginning to lose the run of themselves. Take the ice bucket challenge. (Readers unfamiliar with social
During my short and probably best forgotten acting career, I found myself on the pointy end of Dickie Attenborough’s camera on two memorable occasions. The first was a cough and a spit (well, maybe just a cough) as footman to Lady Churchill (Anne Bancroft) in Young Winston where the prospect of welcoming Mrs Robinson home
During a recent visit to China I knew I was being watched. My family were also frequently photographed and videoed. But I don’t believe there was anything sinister about the surveillance – it was just that we were clearly behaving in a way seen as unusual or old fashioned withinmodern China. Rather than jumping on
Awkward, especially here, I know, but there you have it. But, look, if any other high-profile politician were suggesting the burden of proof in criminal trials should be switched from the accuser to the accused we’d be properly – in both senses – appalled. So we should be appalled that Boris suggests in his Telegraph column today
The Spectator, 29 August 1914: NO decent or self-respecting person will ever indulge in a word of recrimination even against those men who supported Germany and German aspirations till the beginning of the war, who deprecated any attempt to make adequate military provision for war in these islands, and who denounced as criminal, and even
The FTSE100 index stands precisely where it did in the first week of December 1999. Whichever way you look at it, shareholders — including pension funds — have had a rotten run on the economic rollercoaster of the past 15 years. So it’s reasonable to keep asking whether the rise in executive pay over that
James Foley’s family has begged people not to share images of him being beheaded. The Met has warned that watching and disseminating the film of the murder could constitute an offence under terrorism laws. The Spectator of 1886 would have approved of the ISIS media blackout hashtag. A General Order was issued last week to
The Spectator, 22 August 1914: WHEN so great a business as war comes upon England, the sports and games of the country fall into their proper places. Cricket has been packed into an obscure corner of the daily newspaper. Golf clubs have expended their activities largely in trenching vacant ground, and in forwarding subscription lists
The recent challenge to come up with misleading advice for British tourists travelling abroad produced a postbag that was infused with a spirit of sadistic mischief. As usual with comps of this kind there was an element of repetition. A fair few of you echoed Basil Ransome-Davies’s wise counsel about that ‘quaint British custom’ queueing.
Only one person sitting around the cabinet table truly understands how Islamism works – and David Cameron has silenced him. I’m referring to Michael Gove, who in addition to studying radical Islam for many years was waging war against it in British schools – often surreptitiously, in order not to alert the enemy. The defenestration
Philip Hammond this afternoon ruled out Britain working with President Assad in the fight against Isis, arguing that simply being aligned against a common enemy ‘doesn’t make us friends with someone’. It is nearly a year since the Commons rejected intervention in Syria against the Assad regime, and now figures such as Sir Malcolm Rifkind
The campaign against Speaker Bercow’s plan to appoint Carol Mills as Clerk of the House is growing on the Tory backbenches. Coffee House has today been contacted by a series of Conservative MPs keen to emphasise the rise in opposition among their number. They claim 10 Tories have joined the campaign this morning and that
Now and again, America puts its inequality on display to the world. We saw it after Hurricane Katrina and we have seen it again in the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. A white police offer shoots dead a black man, after having stopped him for jaywalking. Britain’s police don’t have guns, so these scenes are unthinkable
With the interventions of former Speaker Betty Boothroyd, ex-ministers — including Jack Straw, Malcolm Rifkind and Margaret Beckett — and the Clerk of the Australian Senate, Rosemary Laing, it is becoming increasingly hard for John Bercow to spin the fight over his choice for the replacement Commons clerk as a row with his ‘usual suspect’ critics. Yesterday’s Times leader
From The Spectator, 22 August 1914: THE Times of Wednesday published a piece of news in regard to the final interview between Sir Edward Goschen, our Ambassador at Berlin, and the German Imperial Chancellor, Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, which is of the highest significance. If the report is true—and we feel confident that the Times
Good news on housing: this government is building more homes. New figures from the Communities and Local Government department show housing starts in the second quarter of 2014 increased by 18 per cent on the same quarter a year earlier and now stand at 36,230. Housing starts are the best picture we can get of
There’s a curious aspect to the debate – or what passes for it – about Britain getting involved in military action against the Islamic State. Isabel Hardman put her finger on it in her piece in this week’s magazine, identifying the defeat of the PM’s bid to take action in Syria for his reluctance to
There are now thought to be more British-born members of Isis than there are Muslims in the British Army, leading lots of people to ask how they could hate us so much. After all, we did everything right: we imported low-skilled migrants from among the most clannish and socially conservative societies on earth to do badly-paid
Self-testing is now available to any individual wishing to rule out conditions such as diabetes, pregnancy and bowel cancer. Traditionally, however, screening for cervical cancer has required women to attend a GP surgery in order to have a small sample of cells scraped from the surface of their cervix by a doctor or a nurse. The sample
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_21_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Britain’s jihad, the Pope vs the Vatican, and the existence of ‘The One'” fullwidth=”yes”] The View from 22 podcast [/audioplayer]The murder of James Foley by an Isis fighter ‘with a London accent’ has been treated with understandable revulsion. But we shouldn’t be surprised, says Douglas Murray in his cover piece this week. On
PG Wodehouse, who was only the twentieth century’s greatest English-language novelist, once remarked that there existed just two ways to write: “One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn.” I feel something similar about theatre.
From The Spectator, 22 August 1914: Pope Pius X. died at twenty minutes past one on Thursday morning. In a moment of lucidity, just before his death, his Holiness is reported to have said: “Now I begin to think the end is approaching. The Almighty in His in- exhaustible goodness wishes to spare me the
Satan-worshippers are planning to hold a Black Mass in Oklahoma next month. My usual reaction to this news would be: go right ahead. On your own head be it. Those camp Anton LaVey rituals are so 1970s. But there’s a twist – one that truly deserves the adjective ‘satanic’. The nutjobs organising the ceremony on
It’s going to be the battle of the Georges in Bradford West at next year’s general election – and Mr S reckons it could be a worth keeping an eye on George Grant, the Tory candidate selected for the seat on Saturday. After helping to launch the Libya Herald, the country’s first post-Gaddafi English language newspaper, Grant was