All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Given all the coalition tensions over Clegg supposedly reneging on his promise to back childcare reform, it is surprising how confident Number 10 is that he’ll stay the course on the curbs on the trade unions in the lobbying bill. When I asked one senior figure there why they were so sure that the Lib
As the Same Sex Marriage result shows, the doctrine of Equality now carries all — family, religion, tradition, freedom — before it. Lots of Conservatives prate in favour of it without realising that Equality is the most essentially left-wing of all doctrines and will do for them in the end. Watching the Derby on television on
Ed Miliband argued this morning that the Labour party ought to be more focused on people working. ‘The clue’s in the name,’ he said. The irony is that Labour gave up on working people some time ago, and used the boom to keep five million Brits on out-of-work benefit while foreign-born workers accounted for 99.9%
Peter Oborne is back in his David-Cameron-is-not-Disraeli-he’s-mad mode this week. He accuses the Prime Minister of losing the plot over Syria. As always, the ghosts of Iraq stalk this debate even though the two problems are scarcely comparable. For that matter, I’m not sure it is fair on Cameron to suggest that, after Libya, the
It is not an enormous surprise that Nick Clegg has confirmed that he will block the government’s plans to relax ratios for childcare providers. The Tories working on the plans seemed entirely resigned to losing them a month ago. But what is interesting is that this row is becoming the new boundary reforms for the
Shakespeare once wrote ‘kill all the lawyers’, and as Harry Mount describes in this week’s Spectator cover feature, you could be forgiven for thinking Chris Grayling has made a similar suggestion. As a former barrister himself, Mount argues the Justice Secretary is right to reform legal aid, and his changes don’t even go far enough.
Fifty years ago, John Profumo resigned as Secretary of State for War following revelations of an affair with Christine Keeler — who was allegedly also involved with a Soviet spy. At the time, the affair was seen to represent the pinnacle of sleaze and contempt for the British establishment, and turned out to be hugely damaging to
I was lucky enough to attend the 650th anniversary dinner for the Vintners’ Company last month. Some of the greatest winemakers in the world (Edouard Moueix, Aubert de Villaine of Romanée-Conti, Patrice Noyelle of Pol Roger — wow!), the most distinguished merchants, the most feted wine writers. As the silly phrase has it, I felt
There is some shock in Fleet Street tonight, following news that Pippa Middleton is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. The magazine was the last of the late Christopher Hitchens’ haunts; that’s a very long way for a bottom to have wiggled in such a short space of time. On hearing the news, a friend of mine put down his
What will it take before the UK decides to supply the Syrian rebels with arms? Many are cautious about whether this measure would really make the conflict any better, but William Hague has made it clear that he believes there is a strong case for at least threatening to do so. Further evidence of chemical
Tonight, the ‘cross-party’ Better Together referendum campaign will have their London launch. At an event in the heart of Westminster the begging bowl will go round, and a rallying call to protect the union will go up. But who will be missing? Their heart might be set on a very different referendum, but emails seen
Thwack! That was the sound of Ed Miliband being knocked for six at PMQs. He didn’t stand a chance. Even before he could get to his feet, David Cameron had put a question to him. Against the rules. But so what? Cameron wanted to know if the Labour leader would withdraw his constant attacks on
Mr Steerpike has checked his privilege, and he’s a radical feminist. Middle class, self-loathing and instinctively liberal, how could he not be? A devotee of feminist blogs, I was intrigued to read MadamJ-Mo saying that she felt ‘cheated’ by Laurie Penny’s Meat Market, a pamphlet published in 2011. And MadamJ-Mo has a point. Compare this passage
Today must count as one of the most encouraging days for the centre right in British politics in recent times. Labour’s apparent abandonment of universal child benefit is a massive blow to the 1945 settlement. It is akin in significance to when Labour began to accept the privatisations of the Thatcher era. Now, there’s no
listen to ‘PMQs: David Cameron’s attack on Miliband’s U-turns’ on Audioboo
Until now, television coverage of Scotland’s independence referendum has largely been confined to news bulletins and specialist, late night, political programmes unwatched by most of the general public. In that sense, then, the campaign has hardly actually begun. It has not yet found a mass audience. But it will and moving the campaign to prime-time
That Labour wouldn’t scrap the Coalition’s cuts to child benefit for higher earners isn’t a surprise. It is just one of the many admissions that the party will need to make in the next few years about policies it has bitterly opposed. This week’s admissions that the party couldn’t safeguard winter fuel payment and that
So peers have backed the second reading of the marriage (same sex couples) bill, and against an amendment from Lord Dear calling for the legislation to be dropped. Dear’s attempt to kill the bill was defeated 390 votes to 148, and the second reading passed without a vote. I’ve blogged before that the House of
On this very day 60 years ago Queen Elizabeth II was crowned and she is still Queen. She is unique and so we are uniquely fortunate. It has become almost a truism to say that the Queen has presided over astonishing change in this kingdom and has been the still small voice of calm at the
In April’s local elections, only one in three of those eligible to vote actually did so. What proportion of those voters were women? It’s difficult to get an exact percentage, but in most UK elections, women account for just under half of the turnout. In general elections, female turnout is just over 60 percent. Bearing
The latest figures for NewBuy, one of George Osborne’s prop-up-the-housing-market schemes, have been published. Mercifully, perhaps, they continue to be underwhelming. To recap: inspired by the American success story of providing mortgages to those that can’t afford them, the scheme provides a guarantee backed by the government and house-builders (who commit 5.5 and 3.5 per
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is correct to say that there was a ‘dramatic fall in confidence’ in alternatives to Accident & Emergency units. He says that this has built up steadily since GP contract changes in 2004. He is right of course, and who can blame him for making the obvious political point that Labour
There’s something about taking on a government role that makes even the most sensible man fancy himself as a vicar. It’s easy to get confused: you find yourself lurking around Parliament, which looks a bit like a church, you can give speeches that drone on a bit like sermons, and in the Commons, prayers are
The ‘fake-sheik’ has pulled off another classic sting operation, worthy of his time at the News of the World. Mazher Mahmood can add Tulisa Contostavlos, the ‘musician’ turned X-Factor judge, to his hit list today after she was arrested ‘by appointment’ earlier this afternoon following allegations of drug dealing made in The Sun on Sunday. Tulisa and
Mike Hancock last night resigned the Lib Dem whip to fight a court case that includes serious allegations about his conduct. He resigned after a meeting with the chief whip and the party’s deputy leader Simon Hughes about the claims, which he strenuously denies. A party spokesman said last night: ‘Mike Hancock strenuously denies the allegations
The Met’s finest have been left baffled by the discovery of an Ivor Novello statuette, found during a raid on the lair of some scrap metal thieves in Croydon. Officers have ‘carried out extensive enquiries’, but are still clueless about the identity of the rightful owner of the prestigious prize. After the case of the missing Bafta, which I reported on last
You just can’t keep Michael Gove down. After beating a very public retreat by u-turning on plans to replace GCSEs earlier this year, he’s announced today the all-new I-level qualifications. I-Levels will be graded 1-8 — with a current A* roughly equal to a 7 — and will take on much of his English Baccalaureate
The NHS reform debate remains fixated with money. Budgets, we are led to believe, are directly related to the quality of treatment a patient receives. But in too many areas the same spending in comparable areas is producing widely differing results. Most patients remain in the dark, thinking that if a treatment is available locally,
Today’s row about Accident and Emergency has little to do with the issue itself, and far more about one party trying to prove a point about the other. Those rows are the most vitriolic, the most hard-fought, and to the outside world, the most pointless. The King’s Fund today finds waiting times are at their
Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock has resigned from the party to fight ‘very serious allegations’ about his conduct. He took the decision to do so after a meeting with the chief whip. The party this evening released a statement saying: ‘Mike Hancock has chosen to resign the party whip while he defends himself against very
So, just so we’re clear about this: people pretending to be lobbyists appear to be able to persuade parliamentarians to do their bidding (for cash, natch) and this therefore justifies introducing a statutory register of lobbyists. You need no diploma in cynicism to perceive that this is aimed at protecting stupid and greedy politicians rather
David Cameron’s Commons statement today contained two blunt warnings. In a significant escalation of the argument over communications data, he warned that ‘we will suffer’ if we don’t make progress on the matter. He also declared that not intervening in Syria could boost extremism and mean that the situation there becomes a ‘tragedy for us
This morning, the government’s plans for a register of lobbyists were ‘ongoing’. This afternoon, they’re well on their way to becoming law. Number 10 has announced that it will be bringing forward a lobbying bill after all, and before the summer recess. Next time we hear the word ‘ongoing’, perhaps we won’t all be so
Ed Balls’s speech today is significant for two reasons. First, it implied that a Labour government in 2015 would not spend more on current spending. But, rather, it would borrow more to fund higher capital spending—what Gordon Brown used to calling ‘borrowing to invest’. This, I take it, means that a 2015 Labour government wouldn’t