All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
We haven’t yet seen precisely who has been appointed as a PPS following the reshuffle. But I understand that Downing Street has decided that those who defied the whip on the EU referendum motion will be considered for the jobs. However, no one who rebelled on the House of Lords will receive preferment. I suspect
The modernising, Cameron agenda was conceived in times of plenty. It was underpinned by a belief that there would be healthy growth, the proceeds of which could be shared. Since the crash, the Cameroons have—with varying degrees of success—tried to come to terms with the new world around them, and what it means for their
These two stories are unlikely to make big news, but they should. Speaking in Amsterdam on Wednesday night, the Dutch Foreign Minister, Uri Rosenthal, urged fellow European Union members finally to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist entity. Rosenthal said ‘The Netherlands has made another appeal to European Union members to place Hezbollah on the EU
Roger Bootle is managing director of Capital Economics, and winner of the Wolfson Economics Prize. As the government launches another attempt at boosting UK growth, the economist, who describes himself as a ‘rare right-wing Keynesian’ shares his thoughts on ministers’ economic prowess with Coffee House readers. Do you think the government will be able to
I’m coming to the conclusion that the character of the Cameron government is the inversion of the Brown government. During the dying days of New Labour there was a snarling, socially dysfunctional Prime Minister whom most of the electorate found deeply unappealing. But around Gordon Brown was a group of Cabinet ministers who were really
Just when it seemed like Babar Ahmad had exhausted all his options to avoid extradition to the United States on terrorism charges, a new twist has emerged. Yesterday, a wealthy tycoon from Newcastle, Karl Watkin, said he would bring a private prosecution against Ahmad. In theory, anyone can bring a private prosecution if they can
Sometimes, when a minister is sacked, he or she goes to ground for a little while, licking their wounds and avoiding journalists keen for a comforting chat about their new backbench life. Not so Paul Burstow, who can barely have cleared his desk in the Health Department before launching an attack in the Evening Standard
My friend Kerry Howley heroically tried to find something nice to say about the conventions now mercifully past; I’m made of cheaper stuff and have written a piece for Foreign Policy that’s a little less enthused by all this cultish, hagiographical absurdity. Sadly the editors removed the line: “Perhaps every aborted fetus perishes for Jesus”
Nothing is certain at a Liberal Democrat conference other than plenty of discussion of benefits and taxes. The left-leaning wing of the party – the Social Liberal Forum – has released a series of potential amendments and emergency motions for the party’s autumn conference. The list is an interesting indication of what the grassroots (the SLF
As an ambitious young MP rewarded with promotion to Immigration Minister, Mark Harper could be forgiven for viewing the job with mixed emotions. Traditionally one of the most senior ministerial jobs outside Cabinet, it will certainly guarantee him plenty of exposure, but not always for the right reasons. His first and biggest problem is the
‘This isn’t staged, I promise,’ Gavin Barwell joked as an MP bounded up to our table in the Portcullis House atrium to demand why the Croydon Central MP hadn’t been given a job in the reshuffle. Had he turned something down, his colleague asked, throwing his hands up in the air in despair. Rather like
George Osborne gave a speech to a CBI dinner in Glasgow last night. It wasn’t the ideal day to do it: the OECD did downgrade its growth forecasts for Britain to minus 0.7 per cent, having previously predicted a 0.5 per cent rise. But the Chancellor remained upbeat, saying: ‘The economic outlook remains uncertain but
Given that Barack Obama is in a fair bit of trouble, you’d think he’d have given a better speech to last night’s Democratic National Convention. Instead, he just trotted out his greatest hits. “Forward, not back,” etc. Like Mitt Romney last week, he gave a workmanlike speech and like Romney was outshone by his wife.
I’ll have a fuller, more considered take on Barack Obama’s convention speech in tomorrow’s Scotsman but my initial impression was that this is not one of those Obama speeches people will remember. Doubtless it will be included in some edition of his selected speeches but that will be because of the occasion at which is
David Cameron and François Hollande met this evening. As you would expect, they discussed the situation in the eurozone, which is currently looking a little more cheery than usual after Mario Draghi announced those long-awaited ‘whatever it takes’ measures which he believes will save the eurozone. In summary, this Outright Monetary Transactions scheme involves the European
David Cameron swore the sacked ministers he was conferring honours on to secrecy before announcing the accolades last night at a dinner with the parliamentary party. If it was supposed to create some fanfare and fuss around the departing ministers, it backfired: senior Conservative MPs were unsettled and annoyed by the decision and its timing.
Cristina Odone begins her latest oh-woe-is-Britain post most amusingly: Around the world, people have long envied Britain’s two institutions: the BBC and Oxbridge. Britons, however, (or some of them) are determined to destroy both. They are going about it in a brutal and obvious way, by lowering standards for both Auntie and the great universities
Have Pakistani children been the unintended victims of last year’s mission by the United States to kill Osama bin Laden? It might seem a ridiculous question to pose, but it’s clear they are being made to bear the brunt of that decision by an increasingly paranoid official and clerical establishment. The latest manifestation of this
Barack Obama is a great orator – something of which we shall doubtless be reminded tonight – but Bill Clinton is the greater communicator. His speech to the Democratic convention in Charlotte last night was a masterclass. The old boy’s still got it. Of course, it helps to be speaking in his new role –
There is some understandable concern in Tory circles about David Laws becoming a minister for education. As Paul Goodman says today, there’s a worry that even this brightest orange Lib Dem could end up slowing down Michael Gove’s reform plans. These feelings are undoubtedly heightened by the fact that Nick Gibb, one of the most
The Government has announced that it will appoint a bureaucrat to spend three years writing a report on the desperate and urgent shortage of air transport capacity in the south east of England. Meanwhile, Heathrow will continue to operate at over 98 per cent of capacity with no spare runways to pick up the slack
Eric Pickles delivered his statement on housebuilding with the adoring gaze of new planning minister Nick Boles fixed on him throughout. Boles was leaning forward eagerly, drinking in every word the Communities Secretary had to say about today’s announcement. Sitting next to him on the front bench, Don Foster, who also joined the department this
Has David Cameron’s reshuffle been a move to the right, a rearrangement of chairs on a sinking ship or will it make no difference at all? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Fraser Nelson provides his take on what the reshuffle says about the future direction of Cameron’s premiership: ‘I think we’ve seen David Cameron
An article in an Iranian state-controlled newspaper has claimed that the Jews are spreading gays. According to Mashregh News the ‘Zionist regime’ (with the help of the US and UK) is deliberately spreading homosexuality to pursue Zionism’s real goal of world domination. Quite how you can dominate the world through gays, I don’t know. It’s
Mr Steerpike reported last week that the Tories’ shadowy donor-cum-puppetmaster, Lord Ashcroft was shunned in America. But it’s not all bad news for the man dubbed the sleaze of Belize. Last night Downing Street announced that he has been appointed to the Privy Council and made ‘Special Representative for Veterans’ Transition’. While the worthiness of
The cover story of the new Spectator is one of the most startling we have run for a while. Last year, Liza Mundy wrote a book called The Richer Sex showing how women would become the biggest earners in most American households within a generation. She has now studied the British data and found that
This morning’s big housebuilding announcement was aimed at unblocking obstacles in the planning system to get development of new homes and extensions going. But it hasn’t unblocked tensions within the government. The main controversy is over whether to relax the quotas for affordable housing within each new development, and The Times reports that Nick Clegg
What’s next in David Cameron’s intray? If he’s feeling butch and fancies a fight, he might want to consider bringing public sector pay and pensions into line with the private sector. Policy Exchange believes aligning public sector pay would save £6.3 billion in public spending and create up to 288,000 new jobs. Its report, Local
If you ever needed an indication of how the media spouts the propaganda of authoritarian regimes like loyalist apparatchiks faithfully repeating the party line then look no further than Iran. Coffee Housers will remember that last week I highlighted the damning speech given by Mohammed Mursi in Iran during the Non-Aligned Movement conference where he took the
Yesterday’s reshuffle isn’t the only story in town. Save the Children, a global charity, has today started to fundraise for children in Britain whom it says are affected by the government’s cuts. It is now run by Justin Forsyth, an ex-aide to Gordon Brown, who will have understood the political implications of the research: that
More bad news for Britain’s families: new research shows that the cost of bringing up a child is an eye-watering £143,000. This piles more pressure on a government that already knows it has to do better to show it’s on the side of families struggling to make ends meet. Based on what parents say is
Republicans like to say that Barack Obama’s 2008 slogan ‘Hope’ has been replaced by ‘Fear’. And they are right. If you listen to Obama and his campaign paladins, you might think that Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee is itching to take away your Medicare and break the sacred American promise of Social Security. Hell, a
David Cameron has always nurtured a deep dislike of reshuffles, and the last week won’t have helped. The result might strengthen the government; but the process was as ghastly as the Prime Minister expected. He sought to be gentlemanly about things, publicising the promoted while granting the demoted privacy. Even so, I understand, three ministers
One issue that the reshuffle makes no difference to at all is the Conservative party’s Europe problem. If the Prime Minister managed to forget about the pressure from his own party for an EU referendum over the summer, he’s about to be reminded of it. In late June, Tory MP John Baron handed a letter