All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
A very lively and enjoyable Any Questions last night from the beautiful town of Aldborough in North Yorkshire. The question which seemed to bring out perhaps the most passion from an already very passionate audience concerned the BBC’s coverage of the Jubilee celebrations. I didn’t envy Jonathan Dimbleby having to chair that one. No least
It’s a slow news day in the political world, as we wait for the Spanish government to take its cap to Brussels. There are, however, some brilliant opinion pieces in the papers today to keep you entertained. First, Spanish author Carlos Luis Zafron has penned a visceral attack (£) on the self-appointed elites who have
Matthew Parris has launched a critique on the charitable status of public schools in this morning’s Times. Matthew is not opposed to private education, just to the arrogance of the bastions of privilege that sell a lifestyle and connections as well as an education. Echoing the government’s social mobility Tsar, Alan Milburn, Matthew argues that
I know it’s wrong to take John Prescott seriously, but his attack on the government’s work experience programme epitomises a sneering attitude that is quite widespread. It was most egregiously displayed by the BBC Today Programme in its flagship 8.10am report about those who volunteered to steward the Jubilee celebrations — except the BBC report
I thought Spectator readers may like to know that I will be one of the panellists on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Any Questions’ tonight at 20.00. The programme is coming from Aldborough, North Yorkshire and my fellow panellists are Alan Johnson (Labour), David Davis (Conservative) and Salma Yaqoob (Respect).
Gordon Brown, Sir John Major, Ed Miliband, Harriet Harman, Alex Salmond, Nick Clegg, George Osborne and David Cameron will appear before the Leveson Inquiry next week, for what will be the inquiry’s last week of evidence. All eyes, of course, will be on Cameron, who is due to appear on Thursday. He will be embarrassed
I hear that legendary British producer Jeremy Thomas (of The Last Emperor, Sexy Beast and Crash fame) is working on a script about the tumultuous affair between Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Before fans of France’s great intellectual exports become overly excited, it seems that Thomas wants to concentrate on the pair’s Nazi sympathies
The internet is democratising and enriching the world, right? It’s happening now in the Middle East, isn’t it? No it isn’t, says Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion, not as such. The Spectator has an interview with him over at the books blog (spectator.co.uk/blogs/books). He spoke to us about those liberal westerners, many of whom are close to
The police were long known as the last unreformed public service. Police reform was regarded as just too difficult by politicians of all parties. Even Margaret Thatcher flinched from it, giving the boys in blue an inflation-busting pay increase after winning the 1979 election. But Theresa May and Nick Herbert appear determined to follow through
Want to know how this year’s race for the White House will end? Then head over to the New York Times’s FiveThirtyEight page, where expert psephologist Nate Silver has just released his model’s forecast. What makes Silver’s analysis stand out from the rest is that it doesn’t just take into account the polls, but also
One of the justifications for Britain’s large, and rapidly growing, international development budget is that it promotes our national interests. Politicians are wary of appealing to a public sceptical of the benefits of aid purely on the basis that it will help where it is spent. The idea is that by supporting poorer countries we
At times of economic crisis, successful governments need vision as well as competence. Recent events have called the coalition’s competence into question. What about its vision? As I argue in a new report, ministers have yet to present anything in the way of a novel philosophy. Coalition policies are sold in Labour language, and tested
It all seemed innocent enough. I even found myself in the rain at Somerset House watching the river pageant (for the kids, you understand). The street party in my road meant I met neighbours I had never spoken to. And the high-kitsch of the Diamond Jubilee concert seemed to give the world a lesson in
‘No’ used to be the French prerogative in matters of European integration. Charles de Gaulle made a late career out of it. But perhaps the title is passing to Britain. David Cameron indicated yesterday that he would veto any EU banking treaty that did not safeguard the City, as James said he would. Meanwhile, George
I hope that CoffeeHousers, regardless of political affiliation, will welcome a speech by a Labour leader that is explicitly patriotic, about England as well as the United Kingdom. As Ed Miliband said today, Labour has too often seemed either uninterested in Englishness or embarrassed by it, when there is nothing in its history and values
There has been much speculation that Labour might insist on a referendum on Europe. This has been fuelled by numerous factors: the parlous state of the Eurozone, the increasingly likelihood of a 2-speed Europe and, above all, the fact that David Cameron doesn’t want the Tories to ‘bang on about Europe’, especially when in coalition
The Diamond Jubilee — a historic occasion when British people from a variety of races, religions and cultures united to thank the queen for her sixty years of service and to celebrate her reign. This was a truly national event, which is why I disagree with the view, expressed by some, that black and ethnic
There is some consternation with the defence secretary today, who has indicated, in as much detail as he can at this stage, how the regular army will be reduced from a permanent establishment of 102,000 men to 82,000 men by 2020. You get a flavour of the disquiet on the Army’s anonymous message board service,
Before David Cameron’s trip to Berlin later today, George Osborne appeared on the Today Programme to emphasise that in the event of a Eurozone banking union, Britain would require safeguards. Given the importance of finance to this country, Cameron and Osborne can’t accept anything that creates a two-tier single market for financial services. The
Two bits of interesting news yesterday: 1. France – while the eurozone is in financial meltdown – is allowing some of its workers to retire early; 2. China – while the eurozone is in financial meltdown – is on a shopping spree, buying European assets on the cheap. Perhaps there we have, in a nutshell,
The debate over the Union provides Ed Miliband with a political opportunity. He is the only one of the three major party leaders whose party plays in both England and Scotland. The Tories only have one seat north of the border and the Lib Dems fear that they might lose all of their seats in
More than a week on from the massacre at Houla, another hundred or so men, women and children have been slaughtered in Hama, Syria. They were apparently stabbed to death and some of their bodies then burned. David Cameron has responded to this by describing the killings as ‘brutal and sickening’. William Hague had previously
There is an intriguing intervention from Lord Owen in this morning’s Times (£) — and he has also written a book on the subject, Europe Restructured?. He writes: ‘The [likely response to the] eurozone crisis [greater integration] now presents us with a clear choice: do we want to be part of a country called Europe?
Ed Miliband laid out his vision for Scotland today, which didn’t quite set the heather alight. But word reaches me about what David Cameron is planning. He has already said that if Scotland votes ‘No’ they’d get a special something as a thank-you. But he did not specify what that something was. A bluff, says
To those of you who are discovering our new website: welcome. The aim is for it to be leaner and faster, but in the rejig we have had to drop some items that we’ll miss. One I will particularly miss is Night & Day, the Spectator Arts Blog, which was brilliantly run by Simon Mason
We’re all familiar with the eurozone boom-bust news cycle by now. First, there are reports of more European banks in trouble, then news of governments seeking bailouts, closely followed by speculation over the future of the euro. Then, as if to crown it all, there will be news that global political leaders and finance ministers
When David Cameron reshuffles his top team, one of the questions he’ll have to answer is what relationship he wants between the Conservative party and the coalition government. The Liberal Democrats have a deputy leader in Simon Hughes and a party president in Tim Farron who are quite often used by their leadership to try
Whitehall sits and waits. Normal politics is continuing, squalls over whether the apprentice stewards at the Jubilee were taken advantage of and the next stage in the Warsi saga have dominated today, but everyone knows that the big story is unfolding — albeit, at an unpredictable pace — on the continent. There are, at the
David Cameron finds himself in the same boat as Dr Frankenstein. Baroness Warsi, a political creation designed to bring Toryism to sceptical ethnic minorities in which Cameron has invested heavily, may have to be neutralised as she is engulfed by two inquiries. Paul Goodman writes of Cameron and Warsi’s awkward relationship in today’s Telegraph, and he
Can George Osborne recover? Much depends on how the Chancellor confronts the twin crises he faces: the lack of economic growth (or any prospect of it) and his personal reputation for competence after his shambolic Budget. Today, we have alarming news. The Independent says that Osborne is offering ‘growth bonds’. These appear to be a
The European melodrama continues. The European Commission is to publish draft legislation to insulate taxpayers from bailing-out Europe’s sclerotic banks in the future. The plan is to give governments the power to reduce the claims of shareholders and bondholders so that any losses are born by creditors not taxpayers. These changes, if enacted, would ease
One of my objections to monarchy is that it is a vulgar institution that encourages verbosity, prurience, sycophancy and banality. I was not therefore surprised that the BBC’s jubilee coverage was vulgar, verbose, prurient, sycophantic and banal. Others were, however, and the papers are full of condemnations of the corporation. You should always remember that
It was beautiful and a bit strange this morning, sitting in St Paul’s Cathedral with the rest of the congregation, waiting for the Queen to make her entrance for the national thanksgiving service. We were hushed and awed — I was up in the press gallery — under the great dome of the stupendous cathedral.
Martin Amis is not appearing at Hay until next week, but his new novel was already getting the intelligentsia chattering this weekend. ‘Lionel Asbo: State of Britain’, a grim tale of a violent lottery winning criminal, is under strict embargo until it’s release on Thursday and the Telegraph has paid an undisclosed fortune for the