All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Everybody knows that the price of motoring fuel is too expensive. Often, this is blamed on the taxman: at nearly 60 per cent of the cost of fuel, it is a toxic tax that affects the price of everything. Of course, we should recognise that fuel duty is 13p cheaper in tax terms thanks to
In this increasingly secular age, you would expect the Archbishop of Canterbury to be a figure of diminishing importance. But Justin Welby is fast becoming the most politically influential Archbishop since the war. Part of Welby’s influence stems from the fact that both the Conservatives and Labour think that he is, secretly, one of them.
I chaired the Steering Committee of Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying (HPAD). This group was co-founded by an immensely brave and visionary general practitioner, Ann McPherson, when she was seriously ill with pancreatic cancer. She was outraged that the so-called representative bodies of the medical profession such as the BMA and the Royal College of
I am taken to task by the Guardian’s Ally Fogg for my Telegraph column on the growing underachievement of boys. It’s a thoughtful and spunky piece, which I thought worth replying to here. The phenomenon of male underperformance causes much angst on the left, demanding a choice between feminism and equality. For anyone born after Perry
Twelve years ago, Andrew Rawnsley put a bomb under Westminster with his book on the Blair first term Servants of the People: the Inside Story of New Labour. Impeccably-informed and brilliantly-connected, Rawnsley used all his access to lift the curtain on what the New Labour lot were really up to. As Peter Oborne said in
Should Labour support private schools joining the state sector? Yes, is probably your immediate response but in reality, Labour’s position is unfathomable. A case in point is the battle for The King’s School, which I’ve written about in this week’s Spectator. The King’s School is due to move into the state sector this September and
Heathrow wants to expand. Originally this was to be done by building a third or even fourth runway north of, and parallel to, the existing runways. The fourth runway would be fitted in by reducing slightly the horizontal separation between runways. The separation at Heathrow is generous, or very generous compared to Los Angeles or
Sarah Wollaston is angry. Again. This time it’s about plain packaging on cigarettes. She told the World at One that the decision to stall introducing plain packaging was ‘pandering to election strategists’ and that this was a ‘very sad day for public health’. You can listen to the full interview below:- Now, this is obviously
When I was at secondary school my lunch usually consisted of a packet of Space Raiders and a Toffee Crisp, washed down with a healthy can of Dr Pepper, at least until I started spending the lunch money on fags. And look at me now – a strapping hulk of a man with teeth like
Another summer, another reminder of the consequences of our drug laws: A man has been arrested in connection with the death of an 18-year-old who had taken fake ecstasy tablets. The woman died in Alexandria, West Dunbartonshire, on Tuesday. She and three friends had taken green tablets with a Rolex Crown logo on them. Similar
Andrew Mitchell was forced to resign as the Tory Chief Whip last autumn because he called policemen at the Downing Street gates ‘plebs’. Then it turned out, as I suggested at the time, that he had not done so. It emerged that there was a conspiracy — quite how deep has not yet been made
There’s just a week left of the Parliamentary term to go before MPs go back to their constituencies to mull that awkward pay rise over the summer. But one thing that’s keeping Tory MPs from relaxing is the possibility of a ministerial reshuffle next week. The word from reliable sources is that it will take
If a shark stops moving it dies. In the Prime Minister and deputy Prime Minister’s office, they believe that the same applies to the coalition. Their view is that if it is going to make it to 2015, it needs to be doing things right up until parliament is dissolved and the election called. To
‘Iain Duncan Smith must now ask himself if he is fit for purpose.’ That’s what Liam Byrne thinks of the Work and Pensions Secretary’s admission that the roll-out of Universal Credit is being delayed. The original plan was for all new claims for out-of-work support to go into the universal credit rather than the current
One great advance for the environment is shale gas, though for some reason Greens do not see it that way. It will make us — and has already made America — far less dependent on high carbon-emitting sources of energy. It is lucky for those trying to extract it in this country that it is
Today’s recommendations from IPSA on MPs pay have been with met the condemnation we’ve come to expect regarding our politicians — snouts in troughs, out of touch political class, etc. But it’s not simply MPs giving themselves more money. Here are the key five points of what the independent recommendations are actually proposing: 1. Overall cost of
Steerpike is back in this week’s edition of The Spectator. With union barons in the news, it’s the perfect time to reveal their expensive tastes: The wine waiters at Claridges are taking a keen interest in the investigation into malpractice in Falkirk. And they’re hoping that Unite will be fully exonerated. Len McCluskey likes to
This all looks terribly good fun, don’t you think? Spectacular towers which will make wonderful bonfires: it must have taken them ages. My only caveat is that they are all in Northern Ireland. Is there no enterprising alliance over here which might do something similar to celebrate the glorious military success of King William of
Today’s Daily Mirror has exposed half a scandal: that the tax changes under this government have hit the poor harder that the rich. That’s what you get when you jack up VAT: it hits everyone, but will hit the poor proportionally harder. But this year, the lower-paid half of British workers will be asked for
Why has the Met Office become so inaccurate at predicting weather in the UK? On the latest View from 22 podcast, author Rupert Darwall explains why out of the last 13 years of weather predictions by the Met, 12 have been incorrect. How does the Met Office go about predicting weather? Are these inaccuracies down
It has often been said that there is no perfect time for an increase in MPs’ pay. If that is true then surely now would be the most imperfect time. All MPs who are doing their job to any percentage of excellence know that our constituents are feeling very concerned for the future. Any spare
It’s the peak of the summer party season. Half a dozen events competed for the Westminster crowd last night. The bookies at Ladbrokes made themselves outsiders by holding their booze-up on a boat that cast off a tad too early in the evening. The Adam Smith Institute hosted a bash on the Thames, while a stuffy parliament
One of David Cameron’s better lines at Prime Minister’s Questions was that the trade unions ‘buy the candidates, they buy the policies and they buy the leader’. In his final response to Ed Miliband, he said: ‘What is Labour’s policy on Royal Mail? It is determined by the Communication Workers Union. What is its policy
Andy Murray’s joy is now complete. Yes, he won Wimbledon and all that, but his crowning glory came today when he was mentioned at the start of PMQs. Cameron apparently has no idea how goofy and devious he looked last Sunday when he half-opened the door of Downing Street and stepped out to greet Murray
That was as loud as the Prime Minister’s Questions that immediately preceded the last election. The Labour benches were clearly determined to ensure that there was no repeat of last week’s mauling of Ed Miliband. They barracked David Cameron from the off, even chanting ‘weak, weak, weak’ during his answers and almost every Labour question
Imagine that you’re a passenger in a car driving down a country road at 20mph. All of a sudden the driver hits the accelerator and you’re now zinging away at 60mph. If asked what speed you were going at, what would you say? I’d imagine probably something like 80mph, at least until you became accustomed
Walk down a corridor in the Palace of Westminster today and you’ll likely be taken aside by a Tory backbencher who wants to vent their frustration about Britain opting back into the European Arrest Warrant. At the moment, the mood is of concern rather than rebellion — a reflection of the fact that Tory MPs
The Conservatives are a happy bunch at the moment. But for how much longer? They might be riding on the crest of a wave after the second reading of James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill for an EU referendum. But already forces are at work to disrupt the happy harmony. Labour MP Mike Gapes has this
One of the promises from the last round of ‘new politics’ pledges when the Tories were in opposition was a cut in the number of special advisers in a government, on the grounds that SpAds are evil beasts who cost a lot of money. Like many ‘new politics’ pledges, though, this sounded superbly pious in
Mr Steerpike is still a boy at heart: I feel giddy with anticipation on the first morning of an Ashes series. England versus Australia. 5 Test matches. A golden summer in the offing. There’s nothing like this rivalry in sport, at least to those for whom it matters. And perhaps it matters most to those
The warm reception to Ed Miliband’s speech yesterday was so eerily positive that it could never have lasted. Today we get the first taste of the real battle to come, with the GMB warning that they’d be ‘lucky if 10% of our current affiliation levels say yes, they want to be members of the Labour
MPs held a debate in Westminster Hall today about zero hours contracts. Actually, to be specific, Labour MPs held a Westminster Hall debate today, which Jo Swinson replied to as the employment minister. Adjournment debates aren’t often that newsworthy, but what made this debate noteworthy was that it marks another example of the Conservatives failing
Ed Miliband got it right. Faced with a fiasco in Falkirk, where the trade union, Unite, attempted to fix the Parliamentary selection process, the Labour leader has come out on the right side of the argument about political reform. In our eagerness to attack him, we Conservatives are in danger of putting itself on the
Ed Miliband struggled to reach ‘the journalistic community’ at his big speech and press conference today. ‘Where’s Sky, ah there, Mark isn’t it?’, asked Ed. ‘Alistair’ came the reply. Not content with this faux pas, Miliband failed to recognize the BBC’s Nick Robinson and managed to slight Channel Four’s pompous political editor Gary Gibbon. And