All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Europe, eh? Good for nothing, innit? That’s the prevailing narrative you hear these days. But, as so often, this is a matter of perspective. The chart above, plundered courtesy of Anne Applebaum’s twitter feed, shows the respective growths of GDP per capita in Poland and the Ukraine since the fall of the Iron Curtain and
Andrew Lansley will shortly announce the return of the Immigration Bill to the Commons. I hear from impeccable sources that its report stage will be next Thursday. As I wrote yesterday, the whips have failed to persuade Nigel Mills to withdraw his amendment on reintroducing transitional controls for Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. He has already
Now that the economic statistics are looking better, people are beginning to rediscover the once-fashionable thought that George Osborne is a great strategist. Things are coming together before the 2015 election in a way which makes life uncomfortable for Labour. I am not sure that ‘strategist’ is the right word, but I do think Mr
Robin Birley’s 5 Hertford Street, the eye-wateringly expensive club in Mayfair, has been given until March to sort out its kitchens or face serious consequences after receiving an abysmal one star rating for hygiene from the food inspectors of Westminster Council. This comes after the departure last summer, in apparently acrimonious circumstances, of the designer
The Work and Pensions Secretary was speaking to the Centre for Social Justice this morning. Introduction It is a pleasure to be hosted today by the Centre for Social Justice – setting out a vision for Britain’s welfare state alongside the organisation where, in a sense, it all started. Within their critique, the CSJ set
Is the Sunni-Shia conflict in the Middle East making a new great war ever more likely? On this week’s podcast, Douglas Murray discusses the battle involving Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arbia with Tom Tugendhat, a former solider and advisor to General David Richards. Why has the West failed to control the region? Can anything
Syria overshadowed PMQs today. The chamber was quiet and sombre. And both leaders were clearly about to do their world-statesman bit. Ed Miliband rose to his feet with an air of ineffable goodness. He looked like St Peter on his way to donate the dead Judas’s sandals to a charity shop. He asked about Britain’s
Mike Hancock has been suspended this afternoon as a Liberal Democrat councillor following the leak of the report into his conduct. The report, which was published in a redacted form, does not make comfortable reading at all, with some very unpleasant allegations from the constituent about his behaviour towards her, including that he forcibly kissed
Finally, Britain’s children will be equipped for the Internet age. In a speech to the BETT education conference today, Michael Gove announced the details of the new computing curriculum, which will take effect from this September. As well a new Computer Science GCSE and a beefed-up A-Level (hopefully more schools will offer it), the new
After those crisis talks in Downing Street that I reported yesterday, I hear that the government plans to bring the Immigration bill back to the Commons with amendments. Number 10 is insisting that nothing has yet been confirmed but suggestions that it could return on Tuesday may be incorrect. Doubtless those government amendments are designed
As predicted, Labour did make use of the Times’s story about Theresa May’s row with the Prime Minister over stop-and-search at PMQs today, using a backbench question from Steve Reed, who explicitly linked to Cameron’s ‘fear of Nigel Farage’. David Cameron gave a rather mollifying answer, telling the Commons that ‘stop-and-search does need reform’ and
Ed Miliband is still trying to keep his reasonable tone going at PMQs. He led on Syria, pushing David Cameron on the government’s refusal to join in a UN resettlement scheme. Cameron argued that given how many refugees the Syrian conflict had created, a resettlement scheme could only ever deal with a tiny part of
What is Ed Miliband going to ask David Cameron about at Prime Minister’s Questions today now that the latest employment figures show the biggest quarterly increase since records began, and the biggest quarterly fall in unemployment since 1997? Actually, there is quite a lot that he can talk about that means he can entirely avoid
Interesting, isn’t it, this rather worrying statement from the Muslim body, MQI UK on the Mohammed cartoon affair. That, you recall, began when a member of a BBC TV audience showed a cartoon image from a series called Jesus and Mo on his T-shirt depicting, er, Mohammed and Jesus. Nothing remotely offensive but a full-face depiction
16 and Pregnant is an MTV show – a show that, as the title suggests, follows the lives of American teenage girls who are ‘facing unplanned pregnancies’. The programme – and its spin off shows, Teen Mom (1,2 and 3) – is one of the channel’s most popular documentary series; but it has also been
We’re putting the new Spectator to press this morning, and we have an interesting reader’s letter from Charles Saatchi. It’s addressed to Taki, as opposed to the editor, and takes issue with his disobliging references last week. He has this to say: ‘Dear Ms Taki [sic], Although the Spectator is a lovely read, I always skip your
What has happened to the Immigration Bill? I asked this question last week, and as it still doesn’t have a date for the report stage, it’s worth asking the question again. Now I hear that Number 10 has been holding crisis talks to try to get the legislation, which has been derailed by Nigel Mills’
Could legalising the trade in rhino horn – and allowing sport hunting – be the solution to Africa’s rhino poaching problem? Legalisation, it is argued, will make it easier to control the trade in animal products and negate the black market. It’s a similar argument to one often used about the legalisation of marijuana –
Another day, another ‘victory’ in the name of feminism. Jezebel, the feminist blog aimed at women’s interests, last week offered $10,000 to anyone who could provide them with ‘unaltered’ images of Lena Dunham’s American Vogue cover story. Within two hours, they received six images from the Annie Leibovitz shoot, which they then published, complete with
Well done Lord Rennard for not saying sorry. I thought at first that he should, just to get the whole thing over with, to partially placate those monstrously transgressed women who may once have had their personal space ‘violated’ by the bloke. But that was wrong. Stick to your guns and tell them to get
How will Ukip play the Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election? As a Labour seat with a relatively large majority (Sebastian profiles the constituency here), it’s a perfect location for Nigel Farage’s party to underline its claim that it can steal discontented voters from Labour just as easily as it does from the Tories. Labour is
It’s by-election time once more. In just over three weeks, the voters of Wythenshawe and Sale East in Greater Manchester will head to the polls on the 13 February to decide who will replace Paul Goggins, the Labour MP who died suddenly earlier this month. By-elections are often thought to be a useful barometer of
It’s been a while since the Liberal Democrats commanded quite so much media attention or quite so much space on the front pages. If all publicity were good publicity, the volume of coverage that the party is receiving from the Rennard scandal would do wonders for its poll rating. But that’s not how it works,
Mr S was in the bath thinking ‘My word, isn’t nature wonderful?’ when he heard the pleasing sound of an email hitting his inbox. It contained the photograph above. The man in the picture is none other than Richard Royal, who is on the Conservatives’ candidates list for the 2015 general election. RR is what we euphemistically call a “political consultant”, and he is also a former
The good thing about economic forecasting is that it’s only right when it’s good news for your party. Today the IMF has upgraded its growth forecast for the UK in 2014 from 1.9% to 2.4%, which means that from a Coalition perspective the organisation – having had a rather rocky relationship with the Treasury over
Why has Jessica Lee become the fourth female MP from the 2010 intake to quit? The Erewash MP announced yesterday that she is standing down in 2015, saying ‘I have carefully considered by personal circumstances and responsibilities at this time, before taking this decision’. Friends of the popular Conservative say she is keen to return
Anyone who questions any aspect of the way the NHS performs – whether in Scotland or England and Wales – soon becomes accustomed to being accused of harbouring some kind of ideological resentment towards the dear old thing. Ideological, of course, is a Bad Thing. It is supposed to indicate a preference for an evidence-free approach that
Well, whatever about the French press, for British papers, the Hollande affair is the gift that keeps on giving. Apparently shored up in the presidential residence in Versailles, Valerie Trierweiler was, it seems, visited by the president on Thursday night, though the visit does not seem to have clarified her situation. It is said that
In an interview with The New Yorker, Barack Obama has hit back at European reaction to the Snowden revelations. He tells the magazine that “there are European governments that we know spy on us” and compares many of the European figures complaining about the allegations to the Vichy police officer in the film Casablanca. It’ll
The Tories have always denied rumours that they might give their coalition colleagues an easier ride at constituency level in the 2015 general election. But even though all three parties are very much on an election war footing now, the Conservatives have, strangely, yet to select candidates to fight two of their favourite ministers. The
I have this theory that the reason why the British public is so hugely in favour of cutting welfare to the bone, and the British media so hostile, is that many (maybe most) journalists still depend on financial support from their parents well into their 30s. Since most media folk come from the sort of
As the bell announcing the afternoon sittings in Parliament rang across Westminster, the Lib Dems announced that Lord Rennard will have his membership of the party suspended pending a new disciplinary procedure for failing to apologise to the women who he allegedly behaved inappropriately towards. A spokesman said: ‘Nick Clegg made clear last week, and
Is it useful to have Vladimir Putin on your side or not? One would have hoped anybody in the UK Government would have considered this question before, apparently, asking for the Russian President’s help in their battle with the Scottish nationalists over independence. Many people saw President Putin’s intervention in the Scottish independence debate on the Andrew
A change is in the air across Britain. A new divide is opening up: not between the rich and the poor, nor indeed the poor against the poor; but instead between those on both ends of the political spectrum who remain outraged at the depiction of the impoverished on ‘Benefits Street’, and the increasing millions