All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
A banker of my acquaintance went to Switzerland skiing this winter. A luxury he normally could not afford, but he’d just remortgaged thanks to George Osborne’s Funding For Lending scheme and saved a packet. To his amazement, he was being bailed out by the Chancellor – he didn’t need the money but thought he’d take
When Lord Howell described parts of the North East of England as ‘desolate’ (or did he mean the North West?), he was talking about shale gas exploitation, but he could have more accurately applied the term to the map of Tory support in the region. The urban north hasn’t supported the party since the late
When you hear the words ‘English art’, there are very few people who would immediately think of embroidery. As Dan Jones said when he was asked if he would like to present a programme about ‘the golden age’ of English embroidery, ‘Embroidery? What, like sewing?’ But accept the offer he did, and found that there’s
‘L’Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers,’ said Napoleon, and now our greatest grocer’s daughter will be remembered with the highest honour this land can bestow: a shop. The Tories will open “Maggie’s Shop” at their conference and online. Think t-shirts and posters rather than milk and coal.
Is Iran serious? That is the question everybody has been asking for the last 24 hours since the new Iranian President went to the UN in New York and gave an interview to CNN. A colossal outbreak of wilful optimism has followed from policy makers, ex-policy makers and media. This has been based largely on the
One of the most important things about British politics right now is that the left is united and the right is divided. The combination of the Liberal Democrats going into coalition with the Tories and Ed Miliband’s leadership of the Labour party has seen left-wingers who moved from Labour to the Liberal Democrats during the
Is Ed Miliband a lefty, or isn’t he? That’s the big question occupying anyone who isn’t trying to sleep off Labour conference before the next political brouhaha begins in Manchester on Sunday. But since the Labour leader appeared to abandon the centre ground and back his own instincts, little has been written about the effect
Brown’s boot boys had a reputation for political assassination, karaoke, and curry and lager. But if Damian McBride is to be believed, they’re really just a gaggle of gossiping girls. ‘How much of an appetite for gossip does Ed Miliband have then?’ Fraser Nelson asked of McBride for this week’s Spectator podcast. ‘He’s a bit
When the Damian McBride scandal blew up, Ed Balls was quick to distance himself from his former colleague saying he spoke to ‘Mr McBride’ once or twice and had dealings with him when they worked in Treasury but had not had much contact since. I remember Ben Brogan (then at the Mail) blogging: ‘Liar, liar,
How well did Damian McBride know Ed Balls ? Is he surprised at the scale of interest and hostility towards his book? How strong was his relationship with Ed Miliband? Did journalists ever suspect he was feeding them untruths? Fraser Nelson puts all these questions to the former Labour spin doctor on this week’s View from
No doubt it will happen, because the Tories will not dare oppose it, but is there any conceivable good reason why 16-year-olds should have the vote, as first Alex Salmond, then the Liberals, and this week Ed Miliband have promised? The argument is that giving people the vote makes them feel empowered. But the sad
As someone with two adopted brothers, I know how important it is to get the adoption system right. Since coming to office, the Government has sought to ensure more children are given the love and support of an adoptive family more quickly. We’ve simplified the adoption process for those looking to adopt and made it
Andy Murray may have crashed out of the US Open; but last time I checked he was still a hero in this land after 12 months of triumph. All of which makes the recent travails of Conservative MP David Amess rather odd. A complaint to the PPC shows that his local paper, The Southend Echo, made an erroneous claim
Peter Mandelson’s criticisms of Ed Miliband’s energy policy are probably quite useful for the Labour leadership. They certainly seem to think so. Caroline Flint was dispatched this morning to remind anyone watching BBC News that Labour are the only party standing up for the consumer, while the Tories and naughty Labourites like Mandelson are busy
It’s a curious fact that the recession has increased sales of the more expensive wines. Merchants put this down to people being unwilling to pay for restaurant meals — and for restaurant wines, which can be three or four times the retail price. So they cook at home, and make the meal special with a
If you’re looking for two phrases to summarise this year’s Labour conference, they’d be ‘Britain can do better than this’ (in case you missed its fleeting reference in Ed Miliband’s speech) and ‘bring it on’. Ed Miliband has decided that even though he doesn’t poll above his party like Cameron, or have a history of
Damian McBride has written the Diary for this week’s edition of the Spectator. It’s a masterpiece in mischief. Mr Steerpike spluttered his coffee when he read Mad Dog’s thoughts on Bad Al Campbell’s reaction to the publication of Power Trip: Campbell hit the airwaves and bombarded McBride online, casting himself as some sort moral paragon
The Labour party held a briefing this morning for party campaigners on how they can follow up Ed’s speech on the doorstep. Activists had arrived at conference hoping for a simple message that they can sell to a voter in a dressing gown with their arms crossed and a sceptical expression on their face, and
The next election is going to be the big, post-crash debate that the country didn’t have in 2010. Ed Miliband, as his speech yesterday demonstrated, believes that radical state intervention is needed to deal with the ‘living standards crisis’. His answer to the fact that there’s no money left is to get companies to pick
That wrenching sound you can hear is the noise of the Tory columnists slamming their gears into reverse. Until yesterday, they had assured their readers that Ed Miliband was a useless, limp-wristed bleeding heart without the machismo to hack it as prime minister. He was weak. He was hopeless. He was toast. But that was
Following the announcement of his plan to tackle rising energy prices — and the accompanying backlash — Ed Miliband has fired a warning shot at energy providers this morning, suggesting unless they get on board with his proposals, they will be seen as part of the problem, not the solution, by their customers. Here is
Every morning throughout party conference season, we’ll be providing our pick of the fringe events on Coffee House. It’s the last day of Labour’s conference (but don’t worry, gabfest-fans, only four days to go until the Tories’ starts off in Manchester). You know the drill by now: here’s the definitive list of the day’s can’t-miss
Should people who comment under YouTube videos be deciding the fate of our country? That’s the frightening scenario proposed by Ed Miliband, who wants to give 16-year-olds the vote because, as he put it, it will make them ‘part of our democracy’. Or, in other words, the electorate’s opinion is no more important than a
Mr Steerpike was tucking into half a dozen oysters in the Grand Hotel in Brighton when none other than Lord Kinnock tottered by. What did the old socialist firebrand make of his ideological son’s big speech? ‘I thought it was magnificent,’ the former leader turned EU millionaire peer gushed. ‘Practical patriotism, practical patriotism!’ Like father,
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s decision to begin a hunger strike in protest against the conditions she and her fellow prisoners endure inside Russia’s modern gulag will, doubtless, be met with a measure of scorn or lack of sympathy by some. After all, there were plenty of people who thought Pussy Riot – the Russian band of which
In his Guardian column tomorrow, Jonathan Freedland writes that Ed Miliband reckons he’ll “get a kicking from the Daily Telegraph” for his lurch to the left, but his ‘gamble’ is that he’ll survive it. The Times and the Daily Mail have not given his remarkable speech much of a better reception (above). All three newspapers can
The Labour party recently reached a stage where the only person in the entire country not giving Ed Miliband advice about how to lead was Ed Miliband himself. That has died down now, especially after another crowd-pleasing conference speech. But this evening Tessa Jowell offered a little bit more in the way of help. She
When Margaret Thatcher passed away and the broadcasters, newspapers, and casual drinkers in pubs picked over what her legacy really was, one of the key policies mentioned – and praised – time and time again by those from all sides of the political spectrum was the Right to Buy. It was an iconic housing policy
The first copies of Damian McBride’s book dropped in Brighton today, and the former spinner has been explaining not just his actions in government but why on earth he decided to write about them. Here are the highlights of his confessions: Nearly everything the former spin doctor has said so far suggests he is quite
It may have happened last night, but Damian McBride’s interview on Newsnight was responsible for a lot of talk today, not least because it led Jeremy Paxman to say ‘McPrickface’ live on air. listen to ‘Damian McBride defends his memoirs on Newsnight’ on Audioboo
Ronald Reagan once quipped that “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” As was so often the case the Great Communicator was only half-joking. He knew government had important jobs to do, jobs only government could do. What was needed was a rebalancing.
Today we saw why Ed Miliband ran for the Labour leadership. This was not a speech that his brother could have delivered. It was the most left-wing speech I’ve heard from the leader of a British political party. It was, without a doubt, authentic Miliband and delivered with passion. Politically, I suspect the speech now
If Ed Miliband wanted to use this speech – rather than the one he gave two weeks ago to the Trades Union Congress – to set up a confrontation with the trade union barons, then he’s got a funny way of doing confrontation. His section on party reform, which he rather built up by joking
For three years, though we’ve been told all about who Ed Miliband is, we’ve often wondered whether we’re getting his real thoughts when he speaks. The Labour leader has often given the impression that he doesn’t trust his instincts, that he thinks that he should be speaking from the centre ground rather than as ‘Red