All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
David Cameron says he wants the case that he makes for the Union and against Scottish independence to be ‘unremittingly positive’. Is it? In an interview with BBC News, the Prime Minister said: ‘That’s my whole argument, which is go back to the big picture, and I think this family of nations is better off
Perhaps it’s premature to say this now that the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, has sounded off about Russian citizens in Ukraine being in danger, but it strikes me that Russia has behaved in the current crisis with a certain commendable restraint. Judging from most pundits in most British papers, there is no redeeming element to
Russia has been presented as one of the bad guys in the coverage of the turmoil in Ukraine. But today, Sir Menzies Campbell told the Commons that the one thing that linked the three countries mentioned in William Hague’s urgent statement on Ukraine, Syria and Iran was that ‘progress, however limited, was made as a
One of the regular duties of a Work and Pensions minister is to defend his or her programme of reform against criticisms from all sides about how it is administered. At today’s Work and Pensions questions in the Commons, Mike Penning didn’t try all that hard, though, to defend Atos Healthcare and its contract to
At Lib Dem conference last autumn, the Liberal Democrats couldn’t tell you often enough how they had saved the quango Natural England from the Tory axe. Both Nick Clegg and Ed Davey made a big deal out of it in their conference speeches, portraying the Tory desire to abolish it as evidence of their coalition
Today’s Cabinet meeting in Aberdeen, now underway, has given ministers plenty of opportunity to stare earnestly at Scottish things while trying to make the case for the Union. Here are some of Mr Steerpike’s favourites. All captions gratefully received in the comments…
News of J. Edgar Hoover’s interest in Sir David Frost resurfaced in yesterday’s Sunday Times. In an FBI memo, which Mr S has seen, Hoover wrote, ‘Check with our legal attaché in London. Frost shows every indication of being a hippie’. A cable instructing the London office to conduct an ‘extremely discreet check re-Frost’ is
You know how it is. You’re finishing off Friday prayers, wondering what to do with your evening. You notice some women in a cattle truck and decide to engage in a spot of ritual humiliation, bunging the women into burkas and forcing them to distribute petals in front of your feet. Critiques of Islam don’t
When it involves metropolitan left-wingers, says the Daily Mail. For a week, it has been exposing how Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt – or “Hat and Pat” as the London left of the early 1980s knew them – committed the National Council for Civil Liberties to the cause of helping the Paedophile Information Exchange. The
Would you buy a used car from the disc jockey Chris Moyles? I’m fairly gullible but even I’d have second thoughts if the gobby lardmountain approached me with a 2004 Nissan Micra, one careful owner mate, sound as a pound. This is what Moyles told the Inland Revenue he did for a living so that
You will recall that, according to the greatest account of England’s history, every time the English thought they had solved the Irish Question, the Irish changed the Question. Something similar afflicts David Cameron’s grapplings with the Scottish Question. The poor man is damned if he does and equally damned if he doesn’t. The other week
There’s not much the Cabinet can do about accusations by the SNP that today’s visit to Aberdeen is a typical Westminster attempt to bully Scots by flying up to make yet another tranche of negative announcements about the consequences of independence, focusing this time on North Sea oil. If Cabinet ministers didn’t make this trip,
Colin Freeman, the Telegraph’s fine chief foreign correspondent, made a remarkable claim the other day that merits wider attention. What, he asked, was Britain’s view on the crisis in Ukraine? The answer was revealing for many reasons, not the least of which being the extent to which eurosceptic myopia has, according to Freeman, caused Britain to
The government’s legislative programme is pretty light at present. But the Bill that is going to spark the most interest this week is destined to go nowhere at all. It’s a Ten Minute Rule Bill, introduced by Tory MP Ben Gummer this Tuesday, and calls for National Insurance to be renamed the ‘Earnings Tax’. What’s
A rite of passage for any Opposition leader these days is to promise to make politics more decent and connected to people’s lives. One recent Opposition leader said this, for example: ‘And we need to change, and we will change, the way we behave. I’m fed up with the Punch and Judy politics of Westminster,
After two decades in the economic basket, Russia is decisively back as an ideological force in the world — this time as a champion of conservative values. In his annual state of the nation speech to Russia’s parliament in December, Vladimir Putin assured conservatives around the world that Russia was ready and willing to stand
I was robbed! News has just come in that despite making the shortlist I failed to win ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ in any of the categories. Proving once again that Ayatollah Khomeini was a big fat liar when he said there are ‘no jokes’ in Islam, the Khomeinist ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission’ last night named President
‘Kool-Aid conservationists’ are on the rise, and they’re part of the reason why Britain is still covered in water. So says Melissa Kite in this week’s Spectator, as she highlights all of the weird and wonderful creatures whose existence prevented the Environment Agency from improving flood defences. As Melissa puts it: ‘The river Thames was
What will happen to the much-maligned contractor that carries out the government’s work capability assessments which determine whether a sick or disabled person is fit for work or needs long-term disability benefit? Atos Healthcare is reported to be seeking an early end to its contract with the Work and Pensions department, which certainly won’t dismay
I wrote a piece about the Fixed Odds Betting Terminals uproar in the magazine this week, and it has prompted some angry responses by email and over social media. I’m told that I didn’t treat problem gambling with sufficient seriousness. I’m not sorry about that, I’m afraid: I think it’s silly to be too serious about the vices of others.
Angela Merkel is getting the full red carpet treatment when she visits next week. In a 24 hour visit, she’ll address both Houses of Parliament and meet the Queen. These honours are being heaped on her because she is Cameron’s indispensable ally. Merkel is so vital to Cameron because as the most important person in
Spectator literary competition No. 2838 The latest competition asked for profiles for an online dating website for well-known politicians, living or dead. Gallic ladykiller François Hollande loomed large in the entry, as did Gorgeous George Galloway, Ann Widdecombe and Adolf Hitler. And while John Samson’s somewhat unlikely lothario Oliver Cromwell might appeal to those who
Today’s borrowing figures are, on the surface, not good for the Tories. The surplus on the public finances in January 2014 was lower than for the same month in 2013, at £4.7 billion compared to last year’s £6.0 billion figure (although it’s worth pointing out that the difference could get even smaller with subsequent revisions).
Was the church right to intervene in the debate about food banks and benefit cuts? I argue in my Telegraph column today that it was – but that the way the 27 bishops (more have since spoken out to support the letter to the Mirror – and Justin Welby has agreed with their argument that
Today I have a piece in the Times (£ obviously, you know that) about the power of the Christian Left, following the Anglican bishops’ letter in the Daily Mirror; the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman goes into detail in the Telegraph about how her congregation did a better job of caring for the poor than the state
What is the Chancellor describing here during an event in Sydney? Or perhaps this is a new hand gesture to deploy against Ed Balls at Treasury Questions?
Ask any election strategist and they’ll tell you that momentum is everything. For the past 18 months, the No campaign has had all the momentum in the referendum debate. The Yes camp were becalmed, the No side had everything going for it and (let’s be honest) there was more than a hint of complacency on the
He asked… and Nigel said yes. The Ukip leader and his party colleagues had whipped Westminster into a state of great suspense in the 24 hours between Nick Clegg’s phone-in on LBC and Nigel Farage’s own appearance on the station. And Farage took his time to say ‘yes’ to the Lib Dem leader’s challenge to
When the idea of a modern Olympic Games began to be discussed, Spectator writers couldn’t really see the point. ‘Beyond a certain waste of money, there will be no harm in the new whim,’ the magazine ruled in 1894, but the notion that the competition would bind nations together didn’t seem very convincing: Why? Is
Has the UK been doing enough to respond to the dreadful situation in Ukraine? A peace deal is on the table, but it’s clear this morning that nothing has been agreed, with Polish PM Donald Tusk sounding a note of caution that there’s an end in sight to this crisis. But there are suggestions this
I can see one now. (They’re hard to miss.) Face the colour of mayonnaise, Gameboy dangling from one ear, gerbils for shoes, an alpaca for a hat, glasses the size of a window frame. It’s what we call in the profession an arse. Don’t mock him. Hold that snigger. He may be an arse, but
I wonder if we should start our own Spectator Blog NekNominations? Open to bloggers and readers. I nominate Daniel Maris to drink a small glass of Pinot Noir while watching the early evening news. And Alex Massie to drink a flagon of Teachers while standing on the up line somewhere between Edinburgh and Alnmouth. Maybe
Litigants in person – individuals representing themselves, rather than relying on a lawyer – have always been a feature in courts, and are the source of the aphorism ‘a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client’. While the profusion of courts means there are no easily available statistics as to their numbers,
Lamentations spread across Westminster when rumour had it that the Red Lion on Whitehall was to be reborn as trendy metropolitan wine bar. The old boozer was the scene of many a knifing (of the political variety) and much happy plotting, being a regular haunt for the bag carrying and spinning classes. Well, Mr S