All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Last December, after one of the most brutal PMQs this Parliament has seen, David Cameron was walking through the corridors of the Palace of Westminster to address a 1922 Committee meeting. Ed Miliband had subjected the Prime Minister to a real savaging, and Labour backbenchers had loyally joined in, raising a constituent’s suicide and describing
Are those Home Office vans targeting illegal immigrants universally disliked? The outcry from when the vans first took to the streets — notably #racistvan on Twitter — would suggest so but new polling from YouGov shows a disconnect between what those in politics and media think and the rest of the country. Over half of
There is a glaring omission from the shortlist of Ukip’s approved MEP candidates. Neil Hamilton, the self-proclaimed ‘writer, actor, broadcaster and entertainer’, has had his application rejected, despite speculation that he would top the bill. But this is not the end for Hamilton. Mr Steerpike made some enquiries and received this enigmatic reply: ‘Although he
The Electoral Commission’s latest release on donations to political parties in the second quarter of 2013 are quite handy for the Tories. Firstly, there’s the caveat that no party really benefits from discussing funding because everyone ends up looking a little bit grubby, and because the only thing grubbier and more unattractive to voters would
Two months ago I walked into the railway station at Biarritz. Without thinking I headed to the ticket machine on the concourse, pressed the small Union Jack on the touchscreen, and thirty seconds later had my ticket in my hand. Very simple and stress free, which is unsurprising as modern ticket machines are beacons of
Even if Help to Buy is contributing to a bubble rather than the sensible restructuring of the economy that politicians promised before they started trying to scale that particular mountain, there are still reasons to be cheerful about the economy for the Tories this morning, on top of the delight offered yesterday by Chris Bryant’s
Is this the end of business attire? The slow degradation of the standard issue suit has reached the Institute of Directors — the Pall Mall-based bastion of all things business. Its website says that members should ‘make the decision on what they would normally wear to do business, as long as it is not deemed
Of all the qualities one hopes for in a Bank of England Governor – a brilliant mind, the courage to tell politicians they are wrong, supernatural foresight – coolness is not among them. I don’t mean coolness under pressure; clearly that helps. I mean the ability to project a hip image. The new Bank of
Thumping Australia is grand; thumping Australia without playing well almost feels like cheating. But in a good way. This is where England find themselves today. The Ashes are safe for another few months and England have not had to be very good to keep them. Which is just as well, frankly, since even though they
Following this morning’s car crash radio interview, this is how Chris Bryant tried to win over the audience at the start of his speech on immigration to the IPPR… Come back Les Dawson, all is forgiven. PS: The full speech is here. The Telegraph’s Matt Holehouse has compared the pre-briefing and the delivered speech. As
Listen to Chris Bryant’s disastrous interview on Today earlier today: listen to ‘Chris Bryant on immigration and employment’ on Audioboo
The ONS have published its list of popular names, and so it’s time for that annual ritual of debating whether Mohammed, if you include all eight spellings, is really the most popular name in Britain. It depends; if you include spelling variations in a name, do you also include diminutives, in which case Oliver and
When Argentina appears in British public discourse, it is normally in relation to one of the two ‘f’s – football or the Falklands. The behaviour of President Cristina Kirchner’s regime towards the islanders is nothing short of disgraceful, and it is very encouraging to see the British government supporting the islanders in the strongest terms.
One of the things we know about Labour’s policies is that the Adonis Growth Review is meant to produce a fair few of them. Launched by Ed Miliband last month, the former head of Tony Blair’s Policy Unit’s review is meant to publicly report in spring 2014. When Miliband announced this review, he praised Adonis’s
Former Apprentice contestant Katie Hopkins, who has become a ‘disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’-style rent-a-quote in middle age, was never going to applaud the appearance of names like Riley, Isla and Mia in the top ten popular baby names of last year. In high dudgeon, she interrupted elevenses to hit the airwaves: ‘These are the sort
With the recent anniversary of the Beveridge report, TV channels have been packed with an array of documentaries on our welfare system. Most of these have been fairly hopeless, trying to make their points with extreme cases. Channel 4’s ‘How to get a council house’ was a notable exception. With devastating clarity it showed how our social
Let’s hear it for Nigeria, which has just joined the space race. The country plans to launch a rocket by 2028, although nobody has explained where the rocket will be heading. It is a legal requirement, I suspect, for all countries which receive vast amounts of aid from Britain to start pinging rockets around the
Labour’s failure to fill the summer news vacuum has now become a news story in itself. Ed Miliband comes back from holiday to find the Sunday papers full of stories about Labour grumbling, shadow Cabinet reshuffles and the like. But there’ll be no dramatic return by Miliband. There are no plans for big set piece
Jeremy Hunt’s quiet demeanour is deceptive. The Health Secretary has a bit of what my late grandfather called ‘iron in the soul’ – a measure of self-confidence, calculation and the determination not to let the bastards get you down. ‘Iron in the soul’ came in handy during the Burma campaign in the Second World War.
The CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos has said ‘the physical book and bookstores are dead’. This week competitors are invited to celebrate this endangered species and submit a poem (of up to 16 lines) in praise of bookshops. Please email entries to lucy @ spectator.co.uk by midday on 21 August and mark them Competition 2812.
As the Gibraltar situation rumbles on, those familiar with the situation blame the Spanish Foreign Minister José García-Margallo for Spain’s bully-boy tactics. I’m told that he’s far more gung-ho on the matter than Prime Minister Rajoy on the matter. What makes the Foreign Minister’s behaviour particularly galling is that he began his career as the
Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, has given an interview to the Guardian which has excited the Tories. Tory chairman Grant Shapps has said: ‘This shows that even senior members of Labour’s top team think Ed Miliband doesn’t have what it takes to stand up for hardworking people.’ It’s a familiar refrain; but for once the
Would Labour destabilise Britain’s fragile economic recovery? The Tories are keen to convince the nation that Labour would, ahead of Miliband’s expected offensive on the state of the economy and the cost of living. Positive growth forecasts, increasing construction and export figures all add to the perception that the economy is on the up; but,
The ‘routine’ deployment of HMS Illustrious and two bustling frigates to Gibraltar, en route to the Gulf of Aden, has excited the morning papers. And the evacuation of the American consulate in Lahore gets lots of attention, following the closure of consulates and embassies across the Middle East last weekend. Neither story is the most interesting defence news
Tom Watson might be preparing to fly half round the world to continue his fight against Rupert Murdoch. But Ed Miliband has still not named a replacement for Watson as Labour’s campaign coordinator. It was thought that the contest for this role was between Michael Dugher, who was part of Watson’s team and is the
If only he’d read the job description a little bit more closely, we might have avoided all these rows. Unfortunately for John Bercow, the man who loves the sound of his own voice more than anything else, the role of Speaker really doesn’t do what it says on the tin. Traditionally, the Speaker has taken
When the history books tell the story of peace in the Middle East, the name of Lord Stone of Blackheath, managing director of Marks & Spencer and a Labour peer, will be up there in lights. For he is a soothsayer with unique insights on the region. At least, that is the impression given by his ‘out of office’ email
William Shawcross’s comments earlier in the week, following the disclosure that the number of staff at foreign aid charities earning salaries greater than £100,000 a year has grown from 19 to 30 since 2010, caused consternation. The leading article in this week’s Spectator makes two points on the subject. 1). The expansion of the DfID budget has coincided with the growth
As symbolism goes, it borders on cliché. Running out of time to gain any serious traction, Germany’s Social Democrats last week unveiled their new campaign posters, and they promptly disintegrated on first contact with rain. The seven images neatly chronicle – or will do once they’re replaced – the profound failure of the main challengers
Scottish teenagers received their exam results this week and, for the seventh consecutive year, the pass-rate for Highers increased. So did the pass-rates for all other exams: the Advanced Highers success rate marched past 82 per cent while a scarcely credible 98.9 per cent of all Standard Grade exams were passed. Cue the annual debate over grade
You can’t keep a good pervert down. Every time the Dominique Strauss-Kahn saga – l’affaire DSK, to give it its nom propre – threatens to fade from view, it rears its dirty head again. The latest is that DSK was, according to a leaked document written by the magistrates investigating his case, a ‘pimp party king’
What have the Churchill £5 note, the Home Office ‘racist vans’ and the ‘Bedroom Tax’ got in common? All were alleged breaches of section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, which provides that public authorities are under a duty to have ‘due regard’ to preventing discrimination and advancing equality. Dropping Elizabeth Fry from banknotes was
It is beginning to dawn on Westminster just how much shale Britain has. The Bowland Basin — which runs from Nottingham and Scarborough in the east to Wrexham and Blackpool in the west — will deliver, on a cautious estimate of how much of it can be recovered, the equivalent of 90 years of North
I have the impression that David Miliband’s valedictory essay in the latest issue of the New Statesman contains some really corking ideas; but I can’t see them through the words. David Miliband’s tragedy is not that he lost to his brother. It’s that he can’t express himself in plain English. He has five things to work on in
