All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Those pushing for reform of the civil service have been heartened still further today by the number of interventions from politicians of other parties on the need for change. Yesterday they saw Tony Blair’s quotes in the Times about the problems with the service as a game-changer, and they are also pleased that former Labour
What did the Governor of the Bank of England think of Goldman Sachs’ plan to wait until the 50p rate is cut in April to pay bonuses? At this morning’s Treasury Select Committee, Mervyn King declined Teresa Pearce’s invitation to label it ‘morally repugnant’ but did declare it ‘depressing’, ‘clumsy’ and ‘lacking in care and
Personally, I don’t wear a cross, on the basis that I’m not much of an advertisement for Christianity and I’d risk diminishing the brand. But for Eric Pickles, Communities Secretary, and Nadia Eweida, the former British Airways employee who has just won her appeal about cross-wearing at work at the European Court of Human Rights, it’s a
How many people presently lamenting the demise of HMV (at least in its current incarnation) actually spent any money there these past, say, five years? Not too many, I suspect. And for good reason: HMV was not, by its end, very good. If it had been wiser or less complacent, it might have been better
I’ll confess to receiving the news of HMV going into administration with a heavy heart. Along with Woolworths, JJB Sports, Clinton Cards, Game, and Borders, it’s clear that most of the shops from my childhood are disappearing from the High Street. Some of these structural changes have been caused by the economic downturn and benign
Tragedy has struck Vogue House this morning as the sad news emerges that Tatler’s famous in house dachshund, Alan TBH Plumptre, is dead. Details are sketchy at the moment and Condé Nast are refusing to comment beyond saying that there was an ‘accident’, but Mr Steerpike can reveal London’s most glamorous puppy was killed by the
There certainly seems to be something to be said for keeping an effective minister in the same post. After two years and eight months in the job, Steve Webb is by far the longest-serving Pensions Minister since the post was created in 1998. And, as last week’s mid-term review showed, pensions is one area where
For the last six months or so, officials on both sides of the US/Mexico border have had their fingers crossed that the appalling violence perpetrated by Mexico’s warring drug gangs might be dying down. The new president, Peña Nieto, has a new, more conciliatory approach so, you know, maybe everyone will start playing nice… No
The perfect news to greet a freezing Britain today — energy bills are set to take another hike thanks to a series of dodgy wind energy contracts. According to today’s Telegraph, a ‘shocking series of errors’ has resulted in deals worth £17 billion stacked in the favour of turbine manufacturers. As well as wasting taxpayers’
The date of David Cameron’s Europe speech has been moved yet again. But this time it has been pulled forward, to this Friday. Downing Street realised that they weren’t going to be able to talk about anything else until the speech was done. The mood in the party ahead of the speech is not good.
Peers will vote shortly on an amendment to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill which could kill the boundary changes. Coffee House understands that there is no government whip on the issue, and the Lib Dems are being told to support the amendment from Labour’s Lord Hart which will delay the changes until 2018. A
Round two of the row over rises in benefit payments is on the way, with Lib Dems and opposition parties tabling a series of amendments to the government’s legislation. I have learned that Lib Dem Andrew George has already laid his proposals for changing the welfare uprating bill, which will return to the House of
This is unfortunate, not least because the Prime Minister is a greater realist than many of his erstwhile supporters. They, too often, seem to be another bunch of Bourbons. They helped destroy the last Conservative Prime Minister and they seem determined to help vanquish this one too. The country is not nearly so obsessed with
David Cameron told journalists before Christmas that he had a ‘tantric’ approach to his European policy speech: that it would be all the better when it eventually came. So today he decided to continue tantalising his party and the media by popping up on the Today programme a whole week before he’s due to give
‘The relationship between my civil servants and me is summed up by trust and understanding. I don’t trust them and they don’t understand me,’ one Secretary of State likes to joke. The quip sums up the current, tense mood in Whitehall. Today’s Times has done a superb job chronicling just how bad things have got. Many
The ladies of the London chatterati are at each other’s throats. Left-wing identity politics has been eating itself since the New Year, when the leading feminists of Fleet Street went into battle over who is the better feminist. The great titan-esses are actually secret subversives determined to surrender their cause to subconscious patriarchy. Well, that’s
The popularity of the armed forces as an icon of British pride among young people shows the value of seeing members of the military out and about in our regular lives. In a poll for British Future, 16-24 year olds picked the military as the institution that makes them proudest to be British. They rated it
Today’s pensions announcement contains an attempt by strategists to reassure those who worry that the government is abandoning the family. One of the gripes from the Tory backbenches about the mid-term review was that it provided precious little confidence that the tax break for married couples that they hope for will be forthcoming, with simply
Eric Pickles says he’s waiting for figures on how many Romanians and Bulgarians are expected to come to the UK when transitional controls on their freedom of movement expire on 31 December 2013. The problem is that the Home Office isn’t producing those figures, arguing that such an estimate would be impossible. I’ve spoken to
Anyone remember Mary Fitzpatrick? She was the BBC’s ‘Diversity Czar’ back in the middle of the last decade, paid £90,000 p.a by the licence payer to spout egregious pc bollocks. From a quick Google she now appears to be coining it for doing precisely the same job for the UK Film Council. Nice work, etc.
An interesting if depressing edition of Any Questions on Friday. Interesting because of Sir Malcolm Rifkind and occasionally because of Simon Hughes. Depressing because of one person: Harriet Harman. There is a theory that the Republicans lost the recent US election in part because the wind they thought they had behind them — the economy
The Europe debate is raging in the Sunday papers ahead of Cameron’s speech on the matter. There’s mounting concern among Tory Cabinet Ministers that the speech will not go far enough and will simply inflame the situation. One told me, ‘It would be better to make no speech than to disappoint.’ But I suspect that
Refusing to publish your 2015 manifesto at the start of 2013 is, obviously, a sensible one. However uncomfortable Labour frontbenchers have felt over the past two and a half years about not being able to respond to the jeers of ‘well, what would you do then?’ from ministers at departmental questions, writing another one of
For a man cutting the military budget so much, David Cameron does seem to like using the Armed Forces. His personal conviction to act in Libya played a major part in deposing Col Gadaffi – after Afghanistan, his second war. And tonight, it looks like there may be a third. He has just offered the
David Cameron has today confirmed that UK troops will offer logistical “assistance” to those of France now fighting Islamic insurgents in northern Mali. The below briefing outlines developments there so far. 1) The Basics · Mali is a landlocked West African former colony of France, with a population of 14.5 million, half of whom live below
If you didn’t like New Labour much, then you have something in common with Ed Miliband — who appears to have loathed it. He’s just given his first speech of the year to the Fabian Society, the torch-bearers of an older type of socialism, and his audience was left in no doubt that if elected,
Ed Miliband’s speech to the Fabians is being rather over-shadowed today by Lord Heseltine’s attack on David Cameron’s EU policy; the political media like nothing more than a ‘Tories split on Europe’ story. I suspect, though, that Labour won’t mind this too much. Heseltine’s criticisms make the Tories look divided and allow Labour to claim
A very good article indeed by Charles Moore in today’s Torygraph, regarding Operation Yewtree and the astonishing news that Jimmy Savile nonced the entire country. You can read it here. There is a middle way, surely, between not believing anyone who says that they were sexually abused 40 years ago by Savile and believing, utterly, everyone who makes such an allegation. As Charles
David Cameron started his times as Prime Minister by saying that ‘the days of big government are over’. But he is still missing a major trick with the internet. The Times has highlighted(£) some of the ludicrous policy consultations undertaken by the coalition, many of which have received no responses at all: ‘Another consultation into Cornish
Strong words in the Lords today about the media and the government’s stance on Leveson, but what are the discussions like between the three parties behind the scenes? Though they started off with some similarly stern words, the cross-party talks on the response to the Leveson report have, all sides agree, been progressing well. Far
Only in politics could you get someone appointed to a top job with zero experience. Quite often, you hear laments about how the UK has a defence secretary who has never fought, a Chancellor who has never run anything bigger than a raffle, a health secretary who has only ever been a user of the
Peers are spending today debating the Leveson report. They’ve been at it for an hour and a half, and will continue debating until 5pm, but the first few speeches have yielded some interesting points to chew on. Labour’s Baroness Jones of Whitchurch devoted a great deal of her speech to the damage that the ‘dark
Bearing in mind that the mid-term review was originally conceived as means of boosting Coalition morale after the collapse of Lords reform, it hasn’t done enormously well. With two more very awkward stories stemming from the review hitting the papers today, the exercise has left Downing Street in reactive mode, rather than functioning as the
News of 800 job losses at Honda’s Swindon factory are making the headlines — factory closures always do. They can leave scars that never quite heal, and for those affected it will be no comfort at all to know that there are today more people working in the UK economy than ever before. But it’s