All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Pasted between adverts for chewing gum and the latest Hollywood blockbuster, a series of adverts on the tube are currently flogging ‘fertility for the over-40s’. They come at a time when Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England, has recently commented on Britain’s attitude to fertility. Davies said she was concerned about the
As Rod pointed out the other day, Arthur Scargill’s purchase of his council flat illustrated the triumph of Thatcherism over its opponents; like any winning ideology it created the conditions for its followers to flourish and increase in number, and so securing the revolution. That’s one of many things that Tony Blair had in common
As part of Ed Miliband’s modestly-titled plan to ‘rebuild the middle class’, shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt this week set out Labour’s new policy for raising standards of teaching. A Labour Government elected in 2015, he announced, would introduce a system of licensing for teachers, requiring them to ‘undertake regular professional development throughout their careers
Ed Miliband has spent the past few months celebrating the success of his conference pledge to freeze energy prices. He was so pleased with the disruption that this caused that he referenced it in his speech on banking reform today. He is right to be pleased with that pledge. It was a hit. It’s just
listen to ‘Ed Miliband’s ‘One Nation Economy’ banking reform speech’ on Audioboo Today I want to tell you what the next election is about for Labour. It is about those families who work all the hours that God sends and don’t feel they get anything back. It is about the people who go to bed
Even though Labour is quite clearly rather peeved by George Osborne’s minimum wage announcement, it is, in one way, a compliment to Ed Miliband that the Chancellor felt it strategically important to try to sabotage the Labour leader’s speech on banking, which he will deliver shortly. The Conservatives are aware that even if Miliband has
The Chancellor’s announcement that he’s recommending an above average increase in the minimum wage is very welcome news. It’s something Renewal has been campaigning for since our launch in July. Wages have fallen behind prices for almost a decade now. The prosperity of Blair’s boom didn’t reach the low paid and it was the working
George Osborne’s decision to back an above inflation increase in the national minimum wage is his most politically significant decision since his decision to cut the 50p rate. It also makes that decision far less harmful politically. Reducing the top rate of tax might have been the right thing to do economically but it hurt
What an odd coincidence that on the eve of what’s being billed as a major economic speech by Ed Miliband, George Osborne sticks up his periscope and makes a big fat announcement on the minimum wage. The Chancellor and his colleagues have been mulling this increase for months, and have been making confusing but supportive
On Tuesday morning, Turkish police in the border cities of Kilis and Gaziantep arrested 25 people on suspicion of aiding Jihadi fighters in neighbouring Syria, including two said to be high ranking Al Qaeda operatives. Seven Conservative MPs had flown out of Gaziantep less than twenty-four hours previously. I was with them, meeting with Syrian
Bruce Springsteen spent years ignoring his self-proclaimed biggest fan Chris Christie, but relations thawed between the two beasts of New Jersey last year in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. The Republican governor and the staunchly Democratic legend ‘hugged it out’ backstage at a fundraising concert for storm relief, which Christie failed to remain cool about: ‘When we
Alistair Webster QC has decided that the threshold for disciplining Lord Rennard for sexually inappropriate behaviour could not be met, and that the allegations could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt. Webster’s statement can be read on Lib Dem Voice, as can a statement from Lord Rennard. It is the stomach turning arrogance with which
Evan Harris, the former Lib Dem MP turned Hacked Off campaigner, told the Daily Politics that he was ‘quite happy’ to serve on party policy committees with panjandrum Lord Rennard. Harris was camped next to Bridget Harris, a former Special Advisor to Nick Clegg and one of the women at the centre of the scandal.
I try to avoid mentioning Owen Jones because he already gets so much attention from people on the Right, including quite a lot of abuse on t’internet; the poor man’s probably blocked more people than have followed me. But his letter to Ukip voters in today’s Independent interested me as a study in what Jonathan
The Conservative party has never come third in a nationwide election. But as today’s YouGov poll in The Sun shows, they are on course to be beaten into third place by Ukip in the European elections: Now, European elections are normally an after-thought in British politics. As even David Cameron admits, most of us can’t
Last night I went to hear Chris Mould of the Trussell Trust speak at my local church. The scene appeared to confirm every myth Tories tell about themselves. Though it does not make a great noise about it, the Trust represents the Anglican conscience at its active best. On their own, without state support or
As we approach next week’s Geneva II Conference, the desire of the majority of Syrians, the moderate majority, for a just and sustainable resolution to the conflict in Syria must be addressed. At Sunday’s meeting of the ‘Friends of Syria’ Foreign Secretary William Hague, Secretary of State John Kerry, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and representatives
Labour’s minimum wage debate in the Commons last night was designed mainly to humiliate the Conservatives about their past opposition to it and to remind voters that only the Labour party cares about those on low wages. But it failed on two counts. The first was that Rachel Reeves fell into the easy trap of
Late on Tuesday afternoon, and within minutes of each other, two separate hearings in the Palace of Westminster examined the prospects for shale gas in the UK. In the upper house, the Economic Affairs Committee was taking evidence from Chris Wright, the straight-talking boss of an American shale gas company. Wright, a boyish forty-something, gave
With Ukip widely expected to win big in May’s elections, 2014 may well be the year of the populist party. Not easily categorised as left or right wing, populist parties across Europe pit the good, honest, ordinary voter against the out of touch, liberal, mainstream political elite. The populists claim to represent the former against
Has Benefits Street exposed Britain’s dirty secret? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Fraser Nelson debates the Labour MP Frank Field on the left’s reaction to the Channel 4 programme, why successive governments have failed to tackle the problem of welfare dependency and whether Iain Duncan Smith’s reforms will finally crack the problem. Professor
I’m honoured — and nervous — to be following in Simon Hoggart’s colossal footsteps in these pages. Simon, God rest his soul, was not just one of our greatest political journalists; he was one of our best wine writers and his Life’s Too Short to Drink Bad Wine is a classic. I know that this column,
There’s a case for saying that the Thatcher government’s sale of council houses was the biggest redistribution of wealth this country has ever seen. I’m not so sure. I am pretty convinced it was a contributory factor in the vaulting property greed which has been with us ever since, and the propensity of people to
Truce ditched. Peace deal scrapped. The parties agreed to revive Punch and Judy at PMQs today. Ed Miliband opened with bankers’ pay. RBS is seeking to give top traders bonuses of 100 per cent. This requires government approval. listen to ‘PMQs: ‘A bonus of £1 million should be enough’’ on Audioboo
There was a lovely little ultrasound picture of a foetus to illustrate the Independent’s splash today about the incidence of sex-selective abortions in Britain. According to the paper’s analysis of ONS statistics, the incidence of second daughters among immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh and possibly those from other countries such as India isn’t quite the
Today’s PMQs has left Ed Miliband with a strategic headache. Miliband’s new less-Punch and Judy approach to PMQs isn’t working. In large part, this is because Cameron — who thinks he wins more of these sessions than he loses and that the facts on the ground now favour him — isn’t interested in cooperating. So
George Osborne’s speech to the Open Europe conference this morning was billed as the Chancellor taking a tough guy stance with European leaders, demanding that they reform or see their project crumble. It sounded, from the overnight briefings, as though Osborne was trying to cheer up his backbenchers during their current round of banging on
For a long time now, the case for the United Kingdom has been made in a tiresomely negative sense. That is, Unionists have spent more time pointing out the practical and procedural difficulties that are an unavoidable consequence of Scottish independence. This is fine as far as it goes. The problem is that, however justified
If I was going to measure possible reasons to desert the Tories at the next election, and I can think of a couple, plans to concrete over the countryside would score pretty highly. As a theoretical idea about something happening miles away from my home it almost makes me want to write letters to the Telegraph;
President Hollande’s private life continues to fascinate the whole world (other than the French press pack, obviously); but it is worth noting that the embattled president signalled a major shift in economic policy yesterday. France is a couple of years late to the austerity party; but it will experience €50 billion worth of cuts in
Once upon a time there was a horse whose job was to run as fast as he could. There was just one problem. Mad Moose didn’t always fancy running. It wasn’t a matter of ability – it’s just that most of the time, he didn’t really feel like it. When he was on form, he could
What does a Tory eurosceptic look like? Loud chalk-stripe, a flash of red braces and the faintest whiff of a lunch-time gander at the Members’ wine list. Right? Wrong. The economic trauma of the crash of 2008 is demanding that just as Conservative modernisation needs to be rebooted to suit the new Age of Austerity
David Cameron addressed the parliamentary Conservative party last night. He took an opportunity to tell MPs to stop writing him public letters, and instead that they should approach him privately and that his ‘door is always open’. That opportunity was raised by Brighton Kemptown MP Simon Kirby, who complained about colleagues ‘banging on about Europe’
The Prime Minister was on to something when as Leader of the Opposition he said that lobbying was ‘the next big scandal waiting to happen.’ But the Lobbying Bill’s methods are suspect. It would silence grass roots campaigners while allowing politicians to dictate the terms of debate. It would limit the activity of civil society