All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Though the government’s planning reforms will make it easier for developments supported by local communities to gain planning permission, one of the big blockages in the system is made up of developers themselves. The government is becoming increasingly aware of this, and one ministerial aide close to housing policy has come up with a solution.
Getting into arguments with people on the internet about selective quoting is generally a waste of time. But sometimes the intellectual dishonesty is such that one can’t help but respond. Political Scrapbook ran a post yesterday headlined ‘EX-CHAIRMAN OF POLICY EXCHANGE SAYS SAVILE SHOULD KEEP HIS KNIGHTHOOD’, though the headline now seems to have changed.
Today’s borrowing figures show that the government has borrowed £2.6 billion more so far this fiscal year than it did in the same six months last year*, allowing Labour to continue to claim that the deficit is rising. This is, of course, embarrassing to a Chancellor who defines himself by deficit reduction — but, all things considered,
The Treasury Select Committee has published a stinging report this morning on the failings of the Financial Services Authority’s oversight of RBS. The MPs on the committee was unimpressed, concluding that the FSA could and should have intervened in the bank’s takeover of ABN Amro. Its members believe the regulator should have stopped the takeover,
I have a piece in this week’s magazine on the fall of Barack Obama. I’m not saying he may not still win, just that even if he does he will be a diminished President. It’s available online here.
How hard can it be to tell the difference between a samurai sword and a white cane? Relatedly, how difficult is to be accepted as the kind of person qualified to serve as a member of the Lancashire police? The news that a 61-year old blind man was tasered by police searching for a “suspect”
The Daily Telegraph is the paper that broke the expenses scandal and its splash tomorrow threatens to become the latest chapter in this sorry saga. Holly Watt reports that ‘at least eight MPs are either letting properties to, or renting from, another MP’. Now, it is worth stressing that this is not against the rules.
David Cameron has arrived in Brussels for a meeting of the European Council, and has offered further helpful clarification of what exactly he means to do about energy bills. The Prime Minister said: ‘I want to be on the side of hard-pressed, hard-working families who often struggle to pay energy bills. That’s what I said
With two years to go, Alex Salmond’s campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote in the Scottish independence referendum is facing a big challenge to turn around public opinion. Ipsos MORI have a new poll out today, showing almost two-to-one opposition to independence, and support for Salmond’s cause has been declining all year. This matches the findings
Determined to keep the Andrew Mitchell story alive for as long as possible, Labour confirmed this morning that next week’s Opposition Day debate will follow the party’s call for Andrew Mitchell to receive a £1,000 fine for his outburst by the gates of Downing Street and debate police cuts. The idea is to highlight the
Mr Steerpike is delighted to appear in print this week, with several pieces of juicy gossip. First off, Team Miliband are serenading Westminster’s favourite left-wing Tory, ResPublica director Phillip Blond: ‘A new rumour suggests that Miliband’s wingman, Lord Wood, has been despatched to persuade the Conservative oddball to disappear into the changing room and re-emerge
The Conservatives are worried that voters are deserting them over the rising cost of living, yet their leader has managed to fluff an announcement designed to remedy that problem. Yesterday at Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron surprised the whole chamber and the department concerned by announcing a brand new energy policy. In response to a
Peter York, the ageing Sloane Ranger and style guru, ditched his popped collar and brogues this morning and took to the stage in a Gaddafi-style dictator’s outfit to present the Editorial Intelligence Commentariat the Year Awards. A wistful David Davis proclaimed that he would have ‘loved to be able get away with wearing that’. The
Coffee House was this morning named Best Online Comment Site at the Editorial Intelligence awards. We fought off stiff competition from three excellent rivals: the Guardian’s Comment is Free site, the New Statesman’s ever-improving blog and the Sunday Times’s own unmissable site. Our Coffee House editor Isabel Hardman collected the gong, but there was no speech. Which is just as well
Has Barack Obama rediscovered his magic powers just in time to take him back to the White House? In this week’s magazine cover, Harold Evans writes that the 2012 election has been disastrous for the Democratic Party but incumbent president has may have woken up just in time. On this week’s View from 22 podcast, two Spectator writers
Barack Obama won the second of the three Presidential debates last night but he did not beat Mitt Romney as thoroughly as he had been beaten by the challenger in their first encounter. If you were compiling an aggregate score for the debates so far the President would still be behind. I doubt Republicans will
This debate was never going to be easy for Mitt Romney. After his evisceration of Barack Obama in the first presidential debate, encapsulated by the New Yorker cover of Romney talking to an empty chair, it was certain that Obama would be rigorously schooled before the second debate. Obama’s performance 13 days ago was so
In normal circumstances, five Tory MPs questioning the chief whip’s position at the 1922 Committee would send Tory high command into a panic. But tonight there is relief that only five MPs spoke out against Andrew Mitchell and that more than a dozen spoke in his support. I understand that Bernard Jenkin’s intervention was particularly
Sometime in the next nine weeks David Cameron will announce that if re-elected, he would seek to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership and then put the results to the public. I understand that the current plan is to have a referendum offering a choice between the new terms and out. Cameron believes that
It was a question of when not if. Today’s PMQs was always going to turn into a kangaroo inquiry into Andrew Mitchell. The man who said ‘pleb’ was in full view on the front bench but he looked as if he were sitting in the Number One dock at the Old Bailey. Ed Miliband started
Is George Osborne’s plan working? You can see why his enemies are circling. If you take his own definition – his ‘fiscal rule’ that the debt/GDP ratio should be falling by the end of the Parliament – then no. But this is mainly because Osborne has been flexible – some would argue too flexible –
Andrew Mitchell isn’t going anywhere just yet, even if some of his ministerial colleagues are privately willing for him to face the high jump. But the story about him is still going somewhere because the chief whip apparently decided, quite unwisely, to intervene in the PMQs exchanges about him this lunchtime. But it’s not just
The first Prime Minister’s Questions after the conference season is more important than most: the House and the press gallery are looking to see who has come back with a spring in their step. But today’s session has an added element to it: the Andrew Mitchell factor. Labour attempted to have a go at the
It seems today’s good jobs figures — employment at a record high and the unemployment rate back below 8 per cent — are at least partly thanks to the Olympic Games. While the UK added 212,000 net jobs in June-August, London alone added 101,000 — accounting for 47 per cent of the total rise. And —
Coffee House isn’t always the greatest friend of the trade unions, but one union made a striking announcement today which demonstrated the good that these bodies can do in society. Unite plans to set up a nationwide network of credit unions to try to divert struggling families away from legal loan sharks. Credit unions make
The Steerpike column will appear in tomorrow’s new issue of the Spectator magazine. Here is a taste of what is inside: Is George Osborne about to be replaced as the Tories’ re-election chief? Lynton Crosby, the Australian spin-meister who helped steer Boris to two mayoral victories in London, has recently moved to the capital from
Much is being made of Dominic Grieve’s decision to ban publication of Prince Charles’ correspondence with ministers. Republic, a group which campaigns for the abolition of the monarchy, has been pressing for their release through freedom of information requests over the last seven years. Having successfully convinced three judges of the public interest in seeing
The basic question in my report for Policy Exchange on school chains, out today, is simple: we’ve got a big education problem in this country and what can we do about it? Here is the problem. We know that England is only a middling country when it comes to the international league tables. The cause
Recently, we’ve been used to the economic figures being either bad news or mixed news. So today’s employment stats come as a welcome surprise: it’s almost all good news. They show that total employment rose by 212,000 from March-May to June-August, and now stands at 29.59 million — a record high, 18,000 above the pre-recession peak
Good news from the City is something to cherish at the moment, and today RBS has confirmed that it will be withdrawing from the Asset Protection Scheme, through which the government gave the bank insurance cover against losses on its £282 billion toxic assets. Those assets have now fallen 63 per cent to £105 billion.
Obama edged this one, but I’d say it was a pretty low quality debate. The president’s performance would have done nothing to reassure voters who wanted to know more about what he’d do with four more years. He was eloquent but, at times, vacuous. Romney, for his part, started to ask questions of Obama directly.
Ahead of the second presidential debate tonight, it’s worth taking stock of the task facing each candidate in the last three weeks of the campaign. It is clear that Mitt Romney has received a sizeable bounce since the first debate, closing the gap to Barack Obama by probably around 4 points nationally. Nevertheless, it looks
See them there? That’s Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne rallying for Gary McKinnon before the last election. This alone should have been enough to persuade the Daily Mail to rethink its mighty campaign on behalf of Mr McKinnon. Apparently not, however, and so the Home Secretary today passed her responsibilities to Paul Dacre and bravely
Does George Osborne need to adopt a Plan B? This will be the topic for a Spectator debate a week on Monday. But the argument is pretty clear to everyone with even a passing interest in the trials of George Osborne. Let’s look at the story so far. His Plan A – accelerated fiscal consolidation