All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
What’s the future for British airports? Earlier this month, The Spectator hosted a lunchtime discussion sponsored by Gatwick Airport with MPs and policymakers who had come to test its thesis: that expanding London’s second airport is the most sensible way forward, as it would boost competition while causing a fraction of the noise pollution. The
If a Prime Minister uses a phrase as historically loaded as ‘mission accomplished’ to describe the situation in a country, it suggests that he’s pretty confident that things are – and will continue to be for a good chunk of time – all hunky dory there. Today David Cameron touched down in Camp Bastion and
Under the last Labour Government, house building fell to its lowest peacetime level since the 1920s. Labour’s top-down Regional Strategies and eco-towns built nothing but resentment. Advised by Ed Balls and Ed Miliband, Gordon Brown engineered an economic bubble that resulted in a speculative bust and the biggest budget deficit in our peacetime history. This
Ed Miliband’s housebuilding announcement today is rather a re-heated announcement of his conference pledges on housing. Eric Pickles has already set out on Coffee House his belief that these new ideas are ‘more of the same high-tax and top-down policies that led to their housing boom and bust’. The announcement certainly allows for a bit
David Davis is plainly right that the Tories are just testing the water to see how talk about capping child benefit to two children for people on the dole goes down with the punters. And the predictable result is that the water isn’t really all that cold. The suggestion has gone down nicely with quite
The campaigning backbench MP Robert Halfon was invited to say grace at the First Annual Margaret Thatcher Memorial Dinner at Churchill College, Cambridge on Saturday night. It’s not often you get table thumping after a prayer: ‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful for the free market that
‘A very good deal for Britain,’ is how Ed Davey described the contract with EDF and Chinese backers to build a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset, when it was signed back in October. Yesterday, it became clear just how wrong the energy secretary was when Ineos chief Jim Ratcliffe revealed on
Could Jeremy Paxman look any less enamoured with the new Newsnight setup? He stopped bothering to shave as soon as the new boss, Ian Katz, turned up, and an article in Prospect magazine examines the recent high-profile departures from the programme. It criticises Katz’s ‘Two Kims’ approach to broadcasting, which he pioneered at the Guardian,
Ministers don’t comment on leaked reports, as Theresa May said on the Today programme this morning, but they can jolly well make clear what they think of them, especially if those leaked reports are quite helpful to calming Conservative backbench grumbles. The Home Secretary didn’t distance herself from the leak in the Sunday Times that
I think this following quote, from the Romanian ambassador Ion Jinga, may go down as my favourite of the year: ‘In their overwhelming majority, Romanians in the UK are well integrated and, as Prime Minister David Cameron has acknowledged, ‘work hard, pay taxes and are valued by their employers.’ New figures just out from the
Number 10 was quick to pour cold water on Nadhim Zahawi’s suggestion in the Mail on Sunday that child-related welfare benefits should be restricted to two children per family (for new births only), with a source saying that ‘this is not government policy and is not supported by the Prime Minister’. But aside from whether
Now that the economy is recovering and George Osborne has overtaken Ed Balls in the polls for having the best economic policies, he may be forgiven for wondering if wider rehabilitation is next. The Chancellor’s allies have long seen him as the man who will succeed David Cameron, perhaps in 2018, and imagine that his
At last week’s Spectator energy conference Michael Fallon appeared to steer government policy away from green ideology and in a more business and consumer-friendly direction. But there was to be a nasty sting in the tail. Shortly afterwards Ed Davey’s Department for Energy and Climate Change changed the rules on something called Final
I spent much of Tuesday afternoon shivering outside the offices of Universities UK. I was there to protest their publication of guidelines which suggest segregated seating of men and women may be legally required where guest speakers demand it. It’s reassuring to learn that protest sometimes works: by Friday, the beleaguered body had shifted their
During this year of recovery, I have enjoyed the turn of the seasons more than ever before. This has been a spectacularly beautiful autumn, with brighter colours going on for longer. London is brimming with beauty and magic: there’s the new bridge by Thomas Heatherwick coming — a kind of Hanging Gardens of Battersea —
David Cameron’s declaration that prisoners “damn well shouldn’t” have the right to vote is a reminder that this issue hasn’t gone away. Cameron was emphatic that the final verdict on this question should rest with the British parliament not the European Court of Human Rights. But this is not the current situation as Cameron admitted
If I were to say that I admire Charles Moore tremendously you would know there must be a ‘but’ looming towards the end of the paragraph. Nevertheless I do admire Charles Moore an awful lot. His column is a weekly treat much enjoyed by all sensible folk. If you don’t do so already you should
On Monday Douglas Murray blogged that I personify the ‘craziness’ of the British immigration debate. By criticising the views of both a Ukip councillor and a Labour pollster I was apparently guilty of a doublethink, as if there were no political space between open borders and ‘send the lot back’. But there’s nothing contradictory about
Today’s announcement that migrants cannot claim benefits if their English is so bad that they are unemployable looks suspiciously like another attempt by ministers to reassure fears about the end of those transitional controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. And that is, in turn, an attempt to reassure Tory MPs that the government has done
Further to yesterday’s post on Britain’s apathy about Christian persecution, the main question people asked in response was: what can Britain do, without military means? Taking aside that our military power helped to bring about persecution in Iraq and almost certainly would have done in Syria had this government got its way, there are lots
When you look ahead to 2014, it is hard to escape the conclusion that two insurgent parties are making the political weather. The two big votes of the year are the European Elections, where Ukip may well top the poll, and the Scottish independence referendum, a product of the SNP’s Holyrood majority. The SNP and Ukip
That’s Duggy Dug, the latest champion of the campaign for Scottish independence. For some reason Brian Cox – the actor, not the physics professor – has decided to put his voice to this cringetastic calamity. Duggy Dug (even the name is grim) is not, mercifully, part of the official Yes campaign which, given his plainly
The huge rift in the Home Affairs Select Committee was laid bare last week when Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger appeared before the committee to defend his decision to publish state secrets and to challenge criticism that he had endangered national security by doing so. Committee chairman Keith Vaz always enjoys being in the limelight. He
We already knew that welfare would be a key dividing line for George Osborne at the next election. He set up the dividing lines in the emergency budget and comprehensive spending review in 2010, and they have largely stuck, which is a testament to the Chancellor’s skill as a strategist. But at today’s Treasury Select
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has released its final report on MPs’ pay today. It’s pretty much what was expected — a big salary bump, paid for by cutting back expenses and pensions, to start in the next Parliament. This is what you need to know: MPs’ pay will a take one-off hike to £74,000.
Much is prattled on about social mobility. Practically the whole emphasis, however, is put on schools. Yet by the time most children reach school, life’s race for many of us has been determined. The report I wrote for the Prime Minister published in December 2010, The Foundation Years: preventing poor children becoming poor adults, had
It’s a shame that Adam Afriyie now seems to be a busted flush when it comes to his leadership ambitions. The Tory MP had succeeded not just in designating his fantasy cabinet, but also the lower ministerial ranks. Mr Steerpike hears that at the height of his plotting, he sidled up to fellow Conservative James
When the Pollard Report into the BBC Jimmy Savile abuse affair was published in December 2012, BBC Trust Chairman Lord Patten confidently told a press conference: ‘As far as we’re concerned the report is an excellent account of what happened. We’re totally in support of the recommendations, and that as far as I am concerned
In Dublin, where I am writing this, people are watching the Scottish referendum campaign more closely than in London. Despite the polls, they almost expect a Yes vote, but most do not want one. People fear that Yes would weaken the UK and therefore make it a less useful ally for Ireland in the EU.
Spectator readers won’t have been particularly surprised by the FT’s story that Ed Miliband is dropping his opposition to a third runway at Heathrow: James reported that the Labour leader was softening his stance on aviation back in November: ‘Miliband is also determined to avoid a head-on collision with his shadow chancellor. Having put Balls
This is our positively final offer of the year, and the famed old St James merchants, Berry Bros. & Rudd, have come up with a stunning mixed case which would see you through a deliciously bibulous Christmas. Together we have selected five table wines (there are two bottles each in the case) plus single bottles
What would the exit negotiations look like if Britain voted to leave the EU? Well, Open Europe tried to give us an idea today hosting a war game sketching out what would happen next. (Seb wrote about their work on the renegotiation earlier). It left me with the view that there would be a second
After his suggestion of cross-party talks on MPs’ pay at PMQs today, Ed Miliband has just upped the stakes by suggesting that the three party leaders meet Sir Ian Kennedy of Ipsa tomorrow to set out their opposition to the pay rise. His letter, which you can read in full below, reminds Cameron that he
What will happen when Britain sits down to negotiate a new relationship with the European Union? The Open Europe think tank decided to find out with ‘war games’ in Westminster this morning. Expert negotiators representing the UK, EU Commission, Germany and France among others tried to figure out how a new Europe could be built