All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
‘I’ve kept my counsel up to now,’ said Chris Smith, loftily, when he appeared on the Today programme. Perhaps by the end of the interview, in which he managed to distance himself from previous policy pronouncements while defending his staff to the hilt, he wished he’d kept his counsel too. Those opening words suggested that
How many FTSE 100 chief executives support Labour? How many FTSE 250 chief execs back Ed Miliband? Difficult questions for Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, in his outing on the BBC’s Sunday Politics today. Labour’s plan to jack up the top rate of income tax to 52 per cent (up from 47 per cent) has
It’s a week since Harriet Harman claimed it was ‘raining men’ in the Tory party, and yet the debate still rages about whether the Conservatives have a ‘women problem’. Tory backbencher Tracey Crouch has written a forceful piece for the Mail on Sunday on why she felt Ed Miliband’s intervention at Prime Minister’s Questions on
David Cameron seems to be prepared to speak out on certain subjects that many other politicians avoid. This is very welcome. I think it’s about time he took a dig at the Turner Prize. I am unconvinced by the banal installations and grainy videos that consistently win that particular prize. The Prime Minister needs to
Compare and contrast. We have Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, whose shortcomings can now be seen covering 23,000 acres of Somerset. And yet, when visiting yesterday, he did not say sorry (the word he used instead was ‘proud’). He says he sees no reason for him to resign, even when it is clear
Immigration Minister Mark Harper has resigned after being informed that his cleaner was working illegally in this country. Here is the exchange of letters between Harper and David Cameron: Letter from Mark Harper to the Prime Minister 7 February 2014 Dear Prime Minister In April 2007 I took on a cleaner for my London flat.
Ukip’s campaigning team has been working so hard to make it into second place in Wythenshawe and Sale East that when I arrived at their very purple shop in Sale town centre yesterday, the big panic was not so much a shortage of leaflets as a shortage of clean pants. One of the staffers has
Should Britain’s foreign aid budget be raided to help homes hit by the flood? There are plenty calls for this today, making the splash of the Daily Mail (below). A local MP, Ian Liddell-Grainger, says:- “We send money all over the world now we need to give people down here the hope that they will
Spectator literary competition No. 2836 This week you are invited to come up with suitable collective nouns for the following: tweeters; hackers; hoodies; WAGs; environmentalists; bankers; MPs; contrarians. Entries to be emailed, please, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 19 February. The recent call for extracts from the adolescent diary of a well-known public figure, living
Now look, as Tony Blair would say, homophobia is bad. Very bad. But does that mean we have to turn the Sochi Winter Olympics into a sort of global gay pride event, simply because Russia has passed a not very pleasant law against teaching children about homosexuality? Apparently it does. Every right-thinking hack on earth, it
Downing Street comms supremo Craig Oliver texted ‘could this be the start of a beautiful new relationship?’ to a Telegraph executive when Tony Gallagher departed as editor of the once staunchly Tory broadsheet. It seems that Michael Gove did not get the memo, though. Gove dropped by Telegraph towers on Buckingham Palace Road yesterday to
I got a text from a mischievous friend in London this morning. ‘David Cameron has asked me to ask you not to leave the UK. We would miss you all awfully if you did and the Olympics were jolly fun with you on board,’ it said. I don’t think this was quite what the Prime
David Cameron’s speech on the union this morning prompted many questions. Why was he in London? Why were there so many empty seats in the Olympic velodrome? Etc, etc, etc. But Mr Steerpike wants to know why the speech was peppered with song lyrics. ‘We don’t walk on by,’ said Dave – unlike Dionne Warwick.
I have my criticisms of the Obama administration, but it does seem to have the right idea about the European Union’s diplomatic efficacy. His top diplomat for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, has been taking a lot of stick after she was caught on tape (or hacked, as we Brits would call it) discussing the
At the Lee Valley Velopark today, David Cameron gave a speech where he called on people across the UK to speak out for the UK and against Scottish independence. Here’s what he said:- listen to ‘David Cameron’s speech on the importance of Scotland to the UK’ on Audioboo I want to thank Glasgow Caledonian for
David Cameron will tell Scots this morning that the UK wants Scotland to stay a part of the Union. That he’s giving this speech at all is being read in some quarters as a sign that he’s at least underwhelmed by the show put on so far by Better Together leader Alistair Darling. The PM’s
Whether it wants to or not, Washington has a role to play in the UK’s EU debate. Eurosceptics and Europhiles constantly wrangle over what the US position is on Brexit, splitting hairs interpreting State Department officials’ carefully worded remarks in order to claim victory for their side. The latest episode in this running saga sees
Danny Alexander offers his ‘dead body’ to stop a non-existent tax cut. David Laws accuses Michael Gove of thwarting some imagined plan on school inspectors. Each day seems to bring a fresh attempt at Liberal Democrats finding a new reason to thwack the Conservatives – while the Tories cheerfully take it. Britain’s government is starting
There has been a lot of comment about a recent Michelle Goldberg piece in the Nation on feminism in social media and how incredibly unpleasant feminists are to each other. That is not entirely surprising, in one sense. All political ideologies are wracked by internal struggle, especially those that reach an impasse in their goals.
When it emerged that there was horsemeat in cheap burgers, some people thought it might spark a revolution in the British meat industry. Now that the public are more aware of the ins and outs of it all – the complicated and murky supply chains, the potential drug contamination, the images of badly-wrapped frozen meat
I’m in Wythenshawe and Sale East today with Ukip’s by-election candidate John Bickley. I’ll have a full report of the party’s exploits later, but for the meantime, here’s a chat I had with Bickley about the campaign. listen to ‘John Bickley: ‘If there was an Olympic medal for hypocrisy, Labour would win gold’’ on Audioboo
Talking to Barbara Taylor about her new madness memoir this week, it’s clear that Britain does not have a glorious history when it comes to dealing with mad people. But The Spectator has always stood up for them, arguing in 1844, for example, that ‘the custody of lunatics ought to be like that of children
Mr S has been keeping a beady eye on the Home Affairs Select Committee, after tensions between Chairman Vaz and Tory committeeman Michael Ellis boiled over at the end of last year. Readers may recall that, in the wake of a public disagreement with Ellis, Vaz told Mr S that his colleague ‘just needs more sex’.
What are the Coalition parties going to do for the next few months in the run-up to the general election? Judging by the way the Liberal Democrats have behaved this week, they’re going to spend a great deal of time talking about Michael Gove, which isn’t encouraging for anyone who got a little bored of
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_6_February_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Marcus Roberts discuss Labour’s election strategy” startat=702] Listen [/audioplayer]At the end of last year, there was an expectation that Labour’s internal reforms would be one of the big themes of the first quarter of the year. But this week, Labour’s National Executive Committee voted through the changes by the comfortable
Will Ukip make great gains in the Wythenshawe & Sale East by-election next week? According to the latest polling from Lord Ashcroft, the party has increased its vote share by 12 points since the last general election but are far off from winning. Labour is still very much on track to hold the seat, given
Earlier this week, George Osborne named Lord Lawson as one of the economic thinkers who had influenced him. But the Chancellor’s mentor isn’t quite so impressed with some of his policies. Here’s his letter from this week’s Spectator on the ‘anomalous aid policy’ that the government is pursuing: Sir: I was glad to see the
The accusation that the Tories have been installing their people in public appointments should evoke only a hollow laugh. They have been comatose on the subject. One of the greatest skills of New Labour was putting its allies in positions of control across the public sector. A great many are still there, and yet the
Have you ever harboured affection for Tony Blair’s arse? According to reports, you may not be alone. Wendi Deng, Rupert Murdoch’s former missus, apparently yearned for Tony’s piercing blue eyes, sexy legs and, indeed, ‘butt’. I assume that means his arse, rather than some device perhaps situated in his garden and utilised for the capture of
Despite the unionists’ polling lead, is the future of the United Kingdom in peril? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Alex Massie and Matthew Parris discuss why Alex Salmond is still on course to have his way in the upcoming Scottish independence referendum. Why would a no vote in September not be the final
The prime minister was waxing lyrical about ousted England slogger Kevin Pietersen when speaking to BBC Lancashire earlier today. The PM confessed that he is ‘an enormous fan of KP.’ And added: ‘Some of my most enjoyable times have been watching him tonking the ball all over the park.’ Some members of the media pack
[audioplayer src=’http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_6_February_2014_v4.mp3′ title=’Alex Massie and Matthew Parris discuss why the Union is in peril’ startat=55] Listen [/audioplayer]In the cover story for this week’s edition of the magazine (subscribe, by the way!) I write that “The battle for Britain is being conducted on a wavelength which unionist politicians in London struggle to pick up.” As if
This evening, Conservative MPs have been told that Aidan Burley, the MP for Cannock Chase who attended a Nazi-themed stag do is standing down in 2015. He said: ‘After a difficult time I have decided to announce I will stand down at the next general election. I will continue to work for the people of
Apparently there’s some sort of anniversary coming up to do with a war, you may have noticed. To commemorate this the British publishing industry has launched a ferocious selling offensive, no doubt aided by recent remarks from Michael Gove, Tristram Hunt and Boris Johnson. Like with any historical incident, our views of this conflict are