All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
There is a quiet revolution taking place at the Foreign Office under William Hague’s stewardship. This morning’s headlines focus on the announcement of ‘greatly increased’ support for Syrian rebels including £5 million ‘of non-lethal practical assistance’ for the Free Syrian Army. In straightforward terms this means communications equipment, medical supplies, and body armour. Critics have
The next big event of the US presidential election will be Mitt Romney’s announcement of his Vice Presidential nominee. For the past few weeks, the two clear favourites have been Ohio Senator — and Budget Office director under George W Bush — Rob Portman and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. Both certainly fit the description
Now that David Cameron has jumped on board the Treasury bandwagon in wanting to revise the National Planning Policy Framework, it’s looking like the Communities and Local Government department is going to be pitched into battle with the National Trust and other anti-development campaigners yet again. It’s not just that CLG ministers might be wary
The Prime Minister today criticised schools for filling their compulsory two hours of weekly sport with ‘sort of Indian dancing classes’. He said: ‘Now, I’ve got nothing against Indian dancing classes but that’s not really sport.’ Now, dancing isn’t really sport, is it? It’s dance. But it gets the heart rate going like the clappers,
It’s actually happening. Leaked rehearsal snaps (via Twitter) confirm the very worst suspicions about the Olympic closing ceremony. Yes, that’s right – The Spice Girls are reforming and will take to the stage atop five black cabs. What have we done to deserve this? Wasn’t dancing NHS nurses and ‘sick’ children bouncing on trampoline beds
Rick Muir, an associate director of the IPPR, published a paper this week called ‘Not For Profit: the role of the private sector in England’s schools’ in which he argues against allowing commercial companies to play a greater role in the delivery of taxpayer-funded education. As a contributor to a recent book published by the
The Financial Services Authority’s Martin Wheatley will take one of the first steps to cleaning up the banking industry’s reputation after the Libor scandal today when he publishes an initial discussion paper on his review of Libor. Wheatley is likely to confirm what it appears Sir Mervyn King, his deputy Paul Tucker and Angela Knight
Holding a vote on the European Union in the middle of the summer holidays and while the Olympics are in full swing seemed to rather stack the odds against the People’s Pledge campaign. But when the results of the two votes in Hazel Grove and Cheadle came through this evening, the turnout in these two
Boris Johnson has just reminded us how potent he can be at undermining the government right here, right now. At a press conference today on the Olympic legacy, the Mayor of London said: ‘The government totally understands people’s appetite for this: they can see the benefits of sport and what it does for young people.
A drop of 8.8 per cent in the number of students applying for university is surprisingly small, actually, when you consider the size of the hike in tuition fees. Still, the figures released today by Independent Commission on Fees prompted an angry response from Labour’s Shabana Mahmood, who said: ‘The Tory-led Government’s decision to treble
Are Francis Maude’s £5.5bn savings in central government spending a significant step forward in his battle to shrink the public sector? In today’s Telegraph, the Cabinet Office minister explains the beneficiaries and sources of the latest cutbacks: Today I can announce that in 2011-12 we saved £5.5 billion. This is the equivalent of around £500 for each working
Here’s an interesting statistic from YouGov: more voters think the Conservatives have broken the coalition agreement than think the Lib Dems have failed to stick to it. When asked whether the Tories have ‘mostly kept to their side of the deal they made in the coalition agreement’, 51 per cent said no. For the Lib Dems,
One adviser told me recently that he found James Forsyth’s political column more useful for finding out what’s coming down the line than the meetings Number 10 holds for aides. As ever, James’ column in today’s Spectator is packed full of scoops, one of which has already been followed up by the Daily Mail. He
Have Alex Salmond’s hopes for Scottish independence died, thanks to the Olympics? In this week’s cover feature, Iain Martin writes that the national pride and spiritual unification emanating from the 2012 games have finished off the SNP’s hopes of a break from the union. On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Iain recounts when he first
Boris Johnson is the Spectator’s diarist this week, and as you’d expect, his piece in tomorrow’s magazine is full of wonderful Borisisms including cyclists who ‘wave their bottoms at each other like courting pigeons’ and ‘luscious gold doubloon’. But the Mayor of London also launches an attack on America and the way ‘some New York
Based on past performance, one wouldn’t want to put one’s mortgage on Mervyn King’s forecasts. One thing, though, that King is right about is that the crisis in the Eurozone makes forecasting extremely difficult. The Euro crisis reaching its crescendo has been one of the most predicted events of recent times. To date, the Eurozone
The campaign to draft James Delingpole into Parliament, revealed here yesterday, is gathering pace. Delingpole himself has broken cover to declare that he was already moving to Northamptonshire – the scene of the upcoming by-election. ‘I’m torn, I must say… though I can’t claim to have taken quite as many drugs as Louise Mensch apparently
Last week when it first transpired that David Cameron had given up on Lords reform, Conservative backbenchers were thrilled. Conor Burns, who resigned as a PPS to vote against the legislation at second reading, told Coffee House that this was a ‘symbol of [Cameron’s] determination to try to foster improved and friendly relations within the
When challenged on the Bank of England’s poor record of economic forecasting by Ed Conway of Sky News this morning, Mervyn King said: ‘This isn’t a spot the ball contest where you’re trying to hit one point on the picture. This is a question of assessing the balance of risks… We don’t pretend to have
Sir Mervyn King’s sporting jokes are almost as bad as the Bank of England’s ability to publish accurate economic forecasts. As he unveiled the August Inflation Report this morning, the Governor said: ‘Unlike the Olympians who have thrilled us over the past fortnight, our economy has not yet reached full fitness, but it is slowly
David Cameron made a spirited defence of school sport this morning when he appeared on LBC radio. Waving a sheet of paper triumphantly, the Prime Minister argued that the 20 school playing field sales that Michael Gove had signed off were actually schools that had closed, surplus fields and ‘surplus marginal school land’. He also
How do you solve a problem like Kevin Pietersen? England’s most talented and most infuriating batsman faces another crisis and, yet again, it is a crisis of his own making. Pietersen’s dispute with the ECB (the cricket authorities, not the European Central Bank) shows every sign of ending his Test Match career. The man himself
Word reaches me that the St. Stephen’s Club in Westminster is set to close at the end of the year due to falling membership and lack of revenue. This fine old Tory Club was formed by Benjamin Disraeli in 1870 and was originally housed where Portcullis House now stands, before moving to its current location
George Osborne might not be feeling particularly comfortable with today’s August Inflation Report from the Bank of England, as Sir Mervyn King is expected to slash the Bank’s growth forecast for the British economy in 2012 from the 0.8 per cent it predicted in May to close to zero. This morning’s announcement will also include
He’s the main beneficiary of the failure of the boundary reforms, and he’s also leading the most popular party, according to the latest poll from YouGov. Things are looking rosy for Labour leader Ed Miliband, with his party holding a 10-point lead over the Conservatives. Labour is also the party of choice on the NHS,
The biggest winner of the coalition spat over Lords reform and boundaries is, undoubtedly, Ed Miliband. The electoral hill he has to climb to be Prime Minister has just been reduced in size significantly by the fact that the next election is likely to be fought on the existing boundaries. A lead over the Tories
Few books have had a greater effect on me than Robert Hughes’ Culture of Complaint. The clarity of Hughes’ style in his dissection of the discontents of the 1980s was enough to make me love him. In his political writing, histories and art criticism he never descended into theory or jargon, but imitated his heroes,
It’s an open secret in Eurosceptic circles that Nigel Farage has asked James Delingpole to consider standing for UKIP at the 2014 European elections. The prospect of Delingpole sitting on EU environmental committees is enough to chill the spine of even the most devoted pen pusher in Brussels. However, could we see his foray into
Has Nick Clegg handed Ed Miliband the keys to Downing Street? Most political commentators believe that killing off the proposed boundary changes, which would have handed the Conservatives anywhere between five and seven additional seats at the next election, will result in David Cameron being a one-term Prime Minister. One of the reasons the Tories
David Cameron has confirmed this lunchtime that the boundary reforms will be pressed to a vote. Describing the plans that the Lib Dems are now set to reject as ‘sensible’, he said that they would be ‘put forward’ to MPs. As James reported yesterday, Conservative sources are not yet conceding defeat on this, hoping that
It’s becoming difficult to predict just when the period of remorse and apology for bankers really will be over. Bob Diamond claimed that it had finished in January 2011, and found to his cost this summer that this was not true. The Libor scandal that cost the Barclays boss his job wasn’t the only unpleasant
Proponents of multiculturalism are crowing after golden Saturday when Team GB won a slew of Olympic medals. Somali Muslim immigrant Mo Farah and mixed race Jessica Ennis were among those securing gold. ‘Today intolerant right-wingers question the motives of non-indigenous sportspeople and are furious they have been chosen to represent the UK,’ Yasmin Alibhai-Brown wrote
Back from holiday and it seems just about the only “controversy” at these splendid* Olympic Games lies in Danny Boyle’s exhuberant opening ceremony. According to its critics it was multi-cultural crap or pap or something. And, of course, in one sense it was a hymn to multi-cultural Britain. Why else would Boyle have begun with
Nick Clegg’s decision to scupper boundary reviews in retaliation for the failure of his Lords reform programme is the very opposite of ‘mature’ government. It is the politics of the sand pit: you have annoyed me, so I’m going to kick your sandcastle down. It’s his way of putting a horse’s head in Cameron’s bed,