All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Do you recall The Politician’s Wife by Paula Milne? It was a TV drama that aired in the dying days of the Major government. Milne recognised that Major’s government was more Basic Instinct than ‘Back to Basics’, emphasising the toxicity, hypocrisy and general sordidness of the era. It was tremendous stuff. So praise the Lord: Milne
The other interesting thing about Ed Miliband’s personnel ‘lurch to the left’ last week was that he appointed Tristram Hunt to Labour’s shadow education team to replace Karen Buck. If CCHQ was excited about Buck becoming the Labour leader’s PPS, then Tory MPs were just as energised today by Hunt’s presence on the frontbench at
It’s not a surprise that since the eurozone crisis began, support for eurosceptic parties has risen across the European Union. But behind the noise from leaders such as Nigel Farage and Beppe Grillo, how much of an impact will they have, particularly on next year’s European elections? The party that stole the headlines in the
MPs will debate the government’s preparations for more Bulgarian and Romanian migrants in Westminster Hall today, as another survey suggests that there’s no need to get unduly worried about the lifting of transitional controls. Ministers have in recent weeks managed to calm Tory backbenchers down by making announcements regarding restricted access to benefits and housing,
What is Sir Jeremy Heywood up to? Last week he jointly wrote an article praising Margaret Thatcher which led to a Labour MP accusing him of having ‘prostituted his high office’. This week he’s revealed to be discussing the behind-the-scenes wranglings in the Cabinet on economic policy. The Times’ Sam Coates reports this morning that
There are times, I confess, when I wonder about politicians. They are a rum breed and it still seems possible to rise to quite elevated heights without possessing very much of an idea about anything. Consider the cabinet minister quoted in this Telegraph article: Mr Cameron won the leadership promising to modernise the party, but
It’s not unusual for a trade union representing its members to resist change, and today the Royal College of Nursing is sticking well and truly to form. Not only has Peter Carter, its chief executive, called the government’s plan to put nurses through a year of work as healthcare assistants ‘stupid’, he has also penned
In the latest instalment of WWTD? Boris Johnson has called for ‘Thatcherite zeal’ from the government in standing up to militant trade unions. According to the Sun on Sunday, the Mayor of London wants a turnout threshold of 50 per cent before a strike is legitimate. A group of Tory MPs – including those quoted
I always thought there was something a little bit sinister about that Jake The Peg character. With what he refers to as his ‘extra leg’, m’lud. And then, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I would draw your attention to the follow up hit which was entitled, signally, ‘Two Little Boys’………… So, now it’s Rolf
The political mood has shifted these past few weeks. There’s now, as the Sunday papers demonstrate, far more focus on Labour than there was a couple of months back, something which pleases Number 10 which is confident that Labour is ill-equipped to deal with much scrutiny. Ed Miliband is coming under pressure to be far
Guests at The Spectator’s schools conference on Thursday arrived via the stunning grounds of Westminster School (above), one of the best not just in the country but the world. It was fitting setting. The great irony about the British schools debate is that while our state schools may languish at 25th place in the global rankings,
With the manhunt for the alleged perpetrators of the Boston bombings – Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev – now over, a complex and confusing picture is emerging of the two men involved. Here’s what we know so far. 1. The older brother, Tamerlan, expressed concerns about the American lifestyle. Featured in a photojournalism essay about his
Thatchermania has died down now, and I’ve personally stayed out of it. The quality of commentary from people around at the time has been outstanding, not least The Spectator’s own Charles Moore. The Thatcher drama is one where I can’t even claim to have been a spectator. I was not into politics when I was
Mike Denness, who died yesterday, could credibly claim to be the finest Scots-reared cricketer of the past 50 years. That is not, at least not quite, as small a claim as you may think. Cricket in Scotland is a game of perseverance played on the edge of possibility. Even the most devoted flanneled-fool sometimes wonders
After a day-long man hunt, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the second named suspect in the Boston marathon bombing, has been taken into custody. He was found hiding in a boat that was parked behind a house just outside the search area. He has, we are informed, various gun-shot wounds and is in a critical condition. His capture
Reports that two young Chechen men, Dzokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, were responsible for Monday’s bombings in Boston and the subsequent murder of an MIT campus police officer have probably left many Americans more than a little confused. Most Americans may vaguely remember the Chechen wars of the 1990s and early 2000s, but most also
Ed Miliband’s speech to the Scottish Labour conference is another illustration that he intends to depict ‘One Nation Labour’ as the answer to so-called Tory divisiveness. Miliband told the conference: ‘As leader of the Labour Party [I] will never seek to divide our country and say to young person in Inverness or the older worker
Fitch has today followed Moody’s in downgrading Britain from AAA to AA+. The reason? George Osborne is borrowing far too much. In its verdict, it said that gross debt “will peak at 101% of GDP in 2015-16…and will only gradually decline from 2017-18.” The Chancellor, of course, had once set a rule to “ensure that debt
Fitch’s announcement that it is downgrading the UK’s credit rating to AA+ isn’t as politically explosive as the downgrade from Moody’s in February, as it was inevitable that once one major ratings agency dropped the AAA, the others would follow like dominoes. The bigger story will be when all agencies have dropped the rating. Fitch
Unless you bet your life savings on gold some time in the past three years — after its price had passed on the way up the level to which it has now fallen back — there’s no need to be distressed by headlines about a ‘gold rout’, nor even the prospect of a ‘bear embrace’.
Should Michael Gove lengthen the school day? The question itself is wrong, of course, as what he wants to do is give schools the opportunity to change hours as they wish, rather than telling them what do to. This isn’t a case of ‘here is your freedom, and this is how you must use it’,
I couldn’t get Richard Dawkins to reply to Theo Hobson’s excellent article on ‘the new new atheists’. Probably, he didn’t see my message. Or maybe he thought it beneath him. Or maybe like God he just doesn’t respond to all our entreaties. There’s no doubt, though, that Theo’s piece touched a nerve among the godless trolls of the web —
David Cameron’s local election kick-off speech today notably contained no reference to UKIP, but 12 mentions of Labour. The Conservative leader and his colleagues concerned with campaigns are on a damage-limitation exercise about the party’s chances in the local elections, and as well as taking the attack to Labour on the policy front – arguing
Over a year ago, the Government proposed to increase the available powers of surveillance – giving authorities the ability to monitor every British citizen’s internet activities. It is claimed that such powers are essential to keep pace with tackling crime and terrorism; even though such proposals were ditched by the last Government. Their plans faced
Will Michael Gove’s reforms outlast him? They are perhaps this government’s single greatest accomplishment. Within three years it has gone from legislation to a nascent industry, and much of it on display at yesterday’s Spectator education conference, which the Education Secretary addressed. But towards the end, he raised an important point: how much of this
It’s not looking good for the Snooping Bill. The legislation is currently being re-written after serious concerns were raised with the first draft, but I’ve got hold of a letter from privacy campaigners which accuses the government of failing to hold the public consultation that was one of the conditions laid down in the damning
9 per cent of Brits say the Public Affairs Act 1975 should be repealed, and 9 per cent say it shouldn’t, according to a new poll by YouGov. If you’re wondering ‘What on Earth is the Public Affairs Act 1975?’, that’s probably because it doesn’t exist. And yet 18 per cent were willing to offer
One interesting decision that Ed Miliband made this week was to appoint Karen Buck as his PPS, following the long-planned departure of John Denham. Tory MPs have told me they were very quickly given ‘lines to take’ on how this represented a big ‘lurch to the left’ on the Labour leader’s part. CCHQ is right
Today’s Ipsos MORI finding that voters can’t see Ed Miliband as Prime Minister underlines how much hard work the Labour leader really has to do. The poll for the Evening Standard found 66 per cent of those asked didn’t believe he was ready to rule the country, against 24 per cent who did. He is
Cometh the Gove, cometh the angry trade union representative. It was inevitable that the Education Secretary would have at least one exchange with someone from one of the two largest teaching unions when he took questions from the floor at today’s Spectator education conference. Gove spoke powerfully without notes on his vision for education, and
Were Margaret Thatcher’s relationships with foreign leaders as straightforward as they appeared to the public? In this week’s Spectator cover feature, Pavel Stroilov provides a special insight into one particular relationship — Mikhail Gorbachev. Stroilov reveals the official Kremlin records of what Thatcher said to Gorbachev behind closed doors. On our View from 22 podcast,
It was only last week that a Tory MP was warning Coffee House of the dangerous impact that high levels of public debt can have on growth. Today that theory is fighting for its life, with the authors of the Harvard paper that developed it in the first place in the firing line for an
Today was a moment in our island story. The longest serving Prime Minister of the 2oth century was laid to rest with due ceremony. Watching the coffin move down to St Paul’s and the service itself, I was struck by how right it was that it was a ceremonial funeral. A private affair would not
The number of people in work in December to February was 29.698 million — lower than last month’s 29.732 million and representing a very slight 2,000 quarter-on-quarter fall — according to today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics. Of course, 2,000 is just a 0.008 per cent drop, and since the margin of error