All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The death of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted for their part in the Lockerbie Bombing, is a matter of some relief. It marks the end of one part of an affair from which few of the protagonists graduate with credit. As this is Lockerbie, however, you can expect the conspiracy fires to burn
The publication of the Beecroft report on Thursday is a big moment for the coalition. The Lib Dems have long been dismissive of it but it is now a crucial part of any coalition grand bargain on growth. In recent days, those close to David Cameron and Nick Clegg have been talking about a more
The report which Fraser mentioned last week, from the 2020 Tax Commission, has just been published – you can download the summary here and full report here. Allister Heath, chairman of the commission and a contributing editor of The Spectator, says more here:- It is time for Britain to make a vital choice. Our economy is stagnant,
Heathrow Airport’s passport control already offers a notorious welcome to Britain, but Gatwick is now offering hot competition. Gatwick Express, the rail artery connecting the airport to London, installed new ticket gates at the airport a few months ago ending the old system where you could buy a ticket on the train. But they failed
For all their cosmetic bluster about bonuses, our national politicians have never really stood up to the banks: it takes a bloody minded local politician to do that — and win. So some sort of award is surely due to Nader Fekri, the mayor of Calderdale. He attempted to withdraw cash from a NatWest ATM
Have you noticed the weird hold that François Hollande has over our politics? If you haven’t, then let me tell you: his name has been almost inescapable in Westminster over the past couple of weeks. Even in PMQs this week, David Cameron and Ed Miliband couldn’t resist of spot of Hollandery. Behind-the-scenes, too, there is
The Eurozone is a kind of lunacy if you look at it as an economic project. But this isn’t about economics, or rationality — it’s about emotion, as the leader in today’s Telegraph says. The Brits and Americans often fail to understand this fully because we judge a currency union in terms of its economic
I suspect that ‘Weekend secrets of the “chillaxing” Prime Minister’ (£) is one of the last headlines that Number 10 wanted to see this Saturday. It is acutely sensitive about the idea that Cameron doesn’t work hard enough, a charge that it thinks is as unfair as it is damaging. But perhaps more interesting than
There was a small but important piece in the Independent this week by my former boss John Kampfner. He’s not my boss any more, so I don’t have to be nice to him. But it really was rather good. John simply pointed out that political journalism goes in cycles of hype and condemnation. Thus, just
In my Telegraph column yesterday, I quoted a senior adviser to the Prime Minister saying that he ‘spends a crazy, scary amount of time playing Fruit Ninja’ on his iPad. It seems No.10 has been denying it — telling The Times (£) that ‘the real culprit’ is ‘his six-year-old son’. Now, all fathers will immediately
A young British lady called Rebecca Black is facing charges in Dubai of having ‘naked sex’ in the back of a local taxi cab, with some Irish bloke. Rebecca, for her part, vehemently denies the charges. It’s a tough one to call: on the one hand, this is Dubai, so ‘naked sex’ may well mean
Here is a selection of articles and discussions from this week on Spectator.co.uk… Fraser Nelson writes why choice matters more than tuck shops and says this is no time to tinker. James Forsyth says Boris is continuing to charm his party, reports on the battle for the 1922 committee and thinks Miliband’s shuffle might not neccessarily be
Next week, the Institute of Directors and the Taxpayers’ Alliance will release what I humbly suggest will be the most powerful summary of the case for radical supply-side reform in a generation. The report of the 2020 Tax Commission runs to 417 pages, choc full of academic literature showing how big government chokes growth, and
I doubt that Angela Merkel is looking forward to the G8 summit very much. It will mostly consist of the other world leaders telling her to give ground on austerity. But I suspect that Merkel won’t budge much, if at all. She clearly believes that the Greeks can be whipped into line by telling them
The 2012 London mayoral election may barely have finished, but already there’s speculation as to who might run — and win — in 2016. The current favourite is Boris — despite suggestions that he’ll be back in Parliament with his sights set on the Tory leadership by then. And the second favourite? It was David
The Prime Minister will be jetting off to Camp David today for the G8 summit — and his first meeting with new French President Francois Hollande. But before going, he’s been popping up on the morning show sofas to promote the government’s new initiatives to help parents. A new digital service will allow parents to
Oh dear, seems that the one of the union officials behind that presentation I posted earlier isn’t happy that it made its way on to Coffee House. Here’s an email exchange — leaked to me by a different Department for Education source — that starts off with one from that union official, Brian Lightman, to
Even in the most economically tumultuous of times, there are people who stand to make money — some of them literally. British money printer De La Rue has told Reuters it’s made contingency plans to print drachma notes, in case Greece makes a euro exit. If Greece leaves the common-currency zone, there’d be such a
ATL ASCL Presentation to Edu Forum 16May12 Now here’s a peek behind the Westminster curtain that you’ll find either amusing or dispiriting, depending on your mood. It’s a presentation delivered by a union delegation at the Department for Education this week, which Coffee House has got its hands on. You can read the whole thing
Even as our attention is gripped by a crumbling eurozone, another huge economic entity is emerging in the marketplace — Facebook, which has just upsized its number of IPO shares by a quarter before its $100 billion flotation tomorrow. Providing the crisis in Europe does not blow out into a huge political standoff (and just
The Cameroons have long taken comfort in their belief that Ed Miliband will never be Prime Minister. They have seen him as a firebreak between them and electoral defeat. Three things have driven their conviction that the Labour leader will never make it to Number 10. First, their belief that he fails the blink test:
As if Lords reform, communications surveillance powers and same-sex marriage weren’t enough, it looks like there’s another issue that’ll cause a good deal of friction between Liberal Democrat and Conservative MPs: plans for regional public sector pay bargaining. It’s something George Osborne is understandably keen on — James laid out the political and economic reasons behind
Joe Klein complains that the Republican nominee is being beastly to the press. Mitt Romney is clearly a candidate terrified by his own mouth. What other explanation for his campaign’s extreme efforts to prevent reporters from asking him questions? I know that there isn’t much public sympathy for journalistic whining – including my own occasional,
There are times when the SNP’s attempts to persuade us that there are no regrettable consequences to Scottish independence cross the line between worthy and absurd. The future of shipbuilding on the Clyde is one such case. According to the nationalists the suggestion that the Royal Navy (or what is left of it) might be less
David Cameron’s speech today is a sign of his frustration with the eurozone. Numbers 10 and 11 are increasingly irritated by how eurozone leaders are refusing to accept the logic of their project. What Downing Street is keen to avoid is another wasted year as Angela Merkel gears up for her reelection campaign. So, intriguingly,
The government is being petitioned to get rid of Section Five of the 1986 Public Order Act, which effectively makes it a crime to be rude to anyone. David Davis is one of the MPs who is fighting for a repeal; so too, from other quarters, the Peter Tatchell Foundation, the National Secular Society and
Writing here on Tuesday, I made two accusations regarding the government’s deficit reduction plan. First, I said that cuts so far had been minimal. Second, I argued that higher taxation, rather than cuts in spending, was being used to reduce the deficit. On this basis, I said, government and opposition alike are being mendacious when
The upcoming Greek elections will push the nation into a confrontation with the European authorities, reports Faisal Islam, the economics editor of Channel 4 News, in his cover feature for the latest issue of The Spectator. And in this week’s episode of The View from 22 podcast he provides an insight into the changing attitudes
The 1922 elections were not a clean sweep for the loyalist 301 Group slate, they missed out on one of the secretary position. But they have pretty much succeeded in purging the ’22 and the Backbench Business Committee of the so-called ‘wreckers’. Indeed, the only ‘wrecker’ who has survived is Bernard Jenkin who remains on
Today’s PMQs will be remembered for one thing, Cameron saying that the eurozone had to ‘make up or it is looking at a potential break-up’. This is a distinct hardening of the government’s line on the single currency. Cameron’s comment was particularly striking coming just days after George Osborne said that ‘open speculation’ about whether
<a href= “http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=b4764a0fc6” _fcksavedurl= “http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=b4764a0fc6”>PMQs 16 May</a>
Ed Miliband’s reshuffle turned out to be a rather small affair. The news out of it is that control over the policy review passes from Liam Byrne to Jon Cruddas, although Byrne continues to shadow Iain Duncan Smith. Given that Byrne is a Blairite who has been pushing for a tougher line on welfare, and
Mervyn King unfurled a mast of metaphors this morning. ‘We are navigating through turbulent waters, with the risk of a storm heading our way from the continent,’ he said. ‘We don’t know when the storm clouds will move away.’ The eurozone, he said, is ‘tearing itself apart’. So poetic was his language — a
Today’s jobs figures show a 105,000 rise in employment and a 45,000 fall in unemployment, from the final quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2012. Welcome news, although both figures are within the margin of error, meaning we can’t say with confidence that employment is indeed higher or that unemployment is lower. But