All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
In America, presidential candidates make films about serving in Vietnam. In Britain, Ed Miliband has made one about going to a comprehensive. If this really is the most exciting and appeal thing about him, then Labour is in some trouble. The intention of the video is clear enough: he wanted to say ‘I didn’t go
Ed Balls channelled the bad cop with the trade unions this morning, warning conference that ‘there will be difficult decisions in the future from which we will not flinch.’ This afternoon, Chuka Umunna was sent out to play the alternative good cop. The shadow business secretary spoke at a Unite fringe event this lunchtime, repeating
David Miliband blasted New Statesman columnist Mehdi Hasan’s updated Ed Miliband biography yesterday afternoon: ‘Judging by extracts about me in the Mail on Sunday, updates to Ed’s biography should be filed in the fiction section’. The former foreign secretary took umbrage at the suggestion that he had said his brother would ‘crash and burn’. And,
Jon Cruddas is frightened. Not of what he describes as the ‘bloody big’ task of leading his party’s policy review, but of the future direction of the Conservative party. Throughout his lunchtime interview with James Purnell at the Labour party conference, Cruddas brought up Britannia Unchained, the latest book from a group of Conservative MPs
Ed Balls’ speech was a wide-ranging affair. It started with a tribute to the Olympics and Tessa Jowell’s role in securing them, a make-nice gesture given how badly those two have got on over the years. It ended with a paean of praise to the Labour spirit of 1945. In between, it included attacks on
Labour delegates were clearly out late last night, as it took them quite a while to get going this morning. It was only when Unite general secretary Len McCluskey took to the stage in the conference hall that there was a resounding round of applause for the first time in several hours. He even garnered
It’s no secret that the Conservative party is in a bit of a pickle about Europe at the moment, and Douglas Alexander quite wisely chose to exploit the ravine that is ever growing between eurosceptic backbenchers and the Prime Minister in his speech this morning. But where does Labour stand? Well, that’s still not entirely
Ivan Lewis used his speaking slot this morning to launch a series of attacks on the attitude of many Conservatives towards international development spending. ‘Conference,’ he said. ‘It turns my stomach when I hear multi-millionaire Lord Ashcroft demanding that support for the world’s poorest should be slashed. The nasty party is back. It’s the same
Just finished reading a book by Kevin Marsh, the editor of the Today programme at the time of the whole Gilligan-Campbell-Kelly business which saw the director general of the BBC kicked out of the corporation. It hasn’t aroused very much interest, largely because it contains no new information which would either exonerate the programme or
Last week’s Lib Dem conference dealt with a promise Nick Clegg wished he had never made. This week’s Labour conference is in part about promises Ed Miliband and Ed Balls won’t make at all, or at least not for a few years. The Shadow Chancellor was cagey when he appeared on BBC Breakfast this morning,
Rumours are swirling at this Labour conference that the party leadership is considering offering a referendum on Britain’s relationship with the European Union. If the party did do as Jon Cruddas hinted it should over the weekend in the Telegraph, we at least know how Douglas Alexander would campaign. The shadow foreign secretary told an
Lovelorn lefties of the world can relax. There’s finally a solution to that age-old nightmare of discovering that the person you share a pillow with has deal-breakingly different views to you on taxation. I’ve just been handed this flyer for the Leftwing Dating website , ‘dedicated to uniting all singles passionate about creating a better
It seems that everyone is offering Ed Miliband advice. Jonathan Freedland wrote him an alternative leader’s speech. Matthew D’Ancona urged Miliband to answer his own fundamental question: “What is the point of a Left-of-centre Labour leader with an empty wallet?” And Owen Jones urges the Labour leader to find a vision. It would be understandable
It seems that yet another coalition growth scheme is falling flat on its face: this time, Sir Mervyn King’s ‘Funding for Lending’ brainwave. The theory was that the Bank of England would lend money at below-market rates to the financial institutions: sub-prime loans, in other words. Not without its risks: chiefly, what if the banks
Among the vast number of British people who are somewhat surprised to see the disgraced MP David Laws back in government is David’s own father, Tony Laws. Laws jnr was kicked out, if you remember, for having pocketed a very large amount of money in expenses as a consequence of lying through his teeth. David
The Blairite cuckoos so despised by the trade union bosses started singing this evening. After learning that Unite general secretary Len McCluskey wants to ‘kick the New Labour cuckoos out of our nest’, MPs at the Progress rally in Manchester went on the defensive. As the rally was in the Comedy Store, it was only
Iain McNicol’s speech to his party’s conference this afternoon picked up on one of Ed Miliband’s big themes from this morning’s Marr interview: the idea that Labour is an anti-politics political party. The party’s general secretary praised the work of Labour members on various social campaigns, and then added: ‘Politics is fractured and needs mending.
Damian McBride promised that he’d never write a memoir, which I imagine is a relief to Ed Balls who now pretends he had little to do with “Mr McBride”. But now and again, the artist formally known as McPoison uses his blog to reminisce. His posts usually full of honesty and insight and today’s post
On BBC1 Sunday Politics just now, Harriet Harman rowed back from what she told me for this week’s magazine: that Labour would not match Tory spending plans at the next election. The change in position is significant as it shows how Labour—and Ed Balls, in particular—want to keep this option open ahead of 2015. In
Ed Miliband’s main aim for this year’s Labour conference is to show people what makes him ‘tick’, bringing across his personality to voters. He was rather wooden when he appeared on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, and made it clear that this getting-to-know-you conference won’t be about a personality change, but emphasising his own
There’s a great temptation for an opposition leader to give answers praising motherhood and apple pie when taking part in a Q&A with members of the public. Especially when that session marks the start of your party’s conference season and your party has set out very few formal policies so far. But Ed Miliband today,
This conference season marks the half way point to the next election and we can see the political battle lines becoming clearer. The Tories, as their new poster campaign shows, intends to hammer Labour as the party that has learnt nothing from its mistakes. The argument of the coalition parties, which Nick Clegg previewed in
This is a splendid offer made by FromVineyardsDirect, always a favourite with Spectator readers. It’s a little more expensive than some recent offers, but each wine is such tremendous value that I have no hesitation in recommending them all, heartily. As we move into autumn and winter approaches I’ve picked three terrific reds and just
The results of stress tests on Spanish banks will be revealed at 5pm, and the rumour on the trading floor is that the country may also announce that it is asking for a bailout at the same time. Yesterday’s budget caused the markets to rally amid hopes that the country was preparing to ask for
Michael Gove is withdrawing his appeal against the Information Commissioner’s ruling that his private emails were searchable under the Freedom of Information Act, I understand. The Education Secretary has decided to do this because the Cabinet Office has concluded that anything that constitutes ‘information’ falls within the scope of the act which removes Gove’s ground
The announcement by Ed Balls today that Labour would conduct a zero-based spending review is a cute piece of political positioning by the shadow Chancellor. It allows him to sound tough—we’ll look at every piece of public spending and see if it delivers value for money, and is an olive branch to those Blairites who
Three months after it was sent, the Prime Minister has replied to a letter signed by over 100 backbench Conservative MPs calling for legislation in this parliament for an EU referendum in the next. John Baron, who co-ordinated the letter, is not releasing David Cameron’s response as the original message was private, too. But I’ve
Jon Cruddas reviews Britannia Unchained in the Guardian today. As you might expect he is not overly impressed by the manifesto penned by a fistful of the Tory party’s “rising stars”. But Cruddas is always worth paying attention to. Anyway, his article reminded me that I’d been meaning to write something about Isabel Hardman’s revealing
Should UKIP do some sort of electoral deal with the Conservative Party? This is being talked about at the moment: Cameron pledges himself to a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, Nigel Farage agrees not to field candidates against a bunch of Tory MPs somehow characterised as Eurosceptic. I can see how this would
I’ve written about the deceptive attraction of wealth tax in my Telegraph column today, and I wish I was wasting my time. Once, you could say it was an idea so flawed that it stood no chance of getting into government. In the coalition era, there is no such thing. Tory ministers will wave through
The coppers have fought back following Kelvin MacKenzie’s revelation, contained in this week’s Spectator, that his lawyers are seeking an apology from South Yorkshire Police over the Hillsborough scandal. South Yorkshire bill’s head honcho David Crompton says: ‘South Yorkshire Police have received a letter from Kelvin MacKenzie’s lawyers, which demands the force makes an apology
Martin Wheatley published his final report into Libor this morning, concluding that though the rate should stay for practical reasons, it needs someone to ‘press the reset button’. It would have sent a strong message out to scrap the rate and replace it with something new, but Wheatley feared that doing so would ‘pose an
Ed Miliband tells the Evening Standard today that Labour will give ‘wholehearted’ backing to gay marriage and says that churches and religious bodies should be allowed to conduct these ceremonies. At the same Labour has let it be known to the Standard that the party is ‘highly likely’ to impose a three-line whip on the
Last night David Cameron became the first British Prime Minister to appear on the David Letterman chat show whilst in office. Unfortunately for the PM, the most noteworthy thing to come out of the interview was Cameron’s inability to answer two questions on basic British history. You can listen to the interview below: listen to