All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
After several months on the back foot, Boris looks ready to sink Ken’s campaign for good. The cries of hypocrisy have been growing louder and louder since the revelation that Ken has been filtering his six-figure income through a limited company to avoid thousands in tax. Ken has waited two weeks for the story to
Nile Gardiner is always good for a laugh and his latest contribution to the Telegraph is no exception. Apparently David Cameron, visiting the US this week, will rue the day he “snubbed” American conservatives. It is a short-sighted approach with significant long-term risks. David Cameron’s visit to the United States this week is a lost opportunity.
The combination of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights is, I predict, going to give David Cameron an increasing number of headaches in the coming months. As Fraser wrote yesterday, Michael Pinto-Duschinsky’s principled resignation from the coalition’s Commission on the British Bill of Rights has revealed that this
Following his arrest for attacking fellow MPs in the Strangers’ Bar of the House of Commons, Eric Joyce has resigned from the Labour Party and made a personal statement in the House this afternoon:
There are few sights more pitiful, more vexing or more predictable than the sight of teaching unions on the whinge. This time it is the EIS and the other unions representing teachers in Scotland. They are unhappy that the new Curriculum for Excellence – of which, for what little it may be worth I have,
You’d think the American sub-prime crisis would have taught politicians the world over not to try to rig the housing market. But no, David Cameron is back on it today — about how to ‘unblock’ the system so the debt geyser starts to gush again. ‘The problem today is that you have lenders who aren’t
For years now, Afghanistan policy has been governed by a simple question: Do the unknown costs of leaving Afghanistan trump the known costs of staying in Afghanistan? Until now the answer, at least officially, has always been Yes. But this is not a static question. The known price of remaining in Afghanistan increases all the
Barack Obama’s re-election has been looking more and more likely in recent weeks. His approval rating has risen fairly steadily, economic forecasts have improved and he’s opened a nice lead in head-to-head polling against Mitt Romney, as the Republican primaries have taken their toll on his most likely opponent. But the latest polls show things
If you ever needed reminding that government is a series of swings and roundabouts ensuring that what you gain on one you lose on the other, consider the coalition’s plans for something called the NewBuy Guarantee. This project is designed to assist househunters by providing 95% mortgages for houses costing as much as £500,000. The
It’s lasted a lot longer than I had thought, this coalition. I gave it a year, assuming that either the AV referendum would do for it entirely or the Lib Dems would tire of playing grown-ups and revert to type. There is certainly plenty of evidence of the latter. Almost every time Lynne Featherstone opens
…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson says it’s no surprise that Clegg brilliantly outmanoeuvred Cameron on the ECHR. James Forsyth reports on Tory irritation with Vince Cable, and says Nick Clegg’s conference speech was a preview of his 2015 election pitch. Peter Hoskin analyses three main areas of coalition
A week devoted to Mervyn King and his eight-year reign at the Bank of England sounds like pretty turgid stuff. But, already, the series that has started in the Times (£) this morning — building up to an interview with the man himself — is anything but. Here, for instance, is a snippet from one
News that Nick Clegg has brilliantly outmanoeuvred Cameron over the British Bill of Rights will come as no surprise to CoffeeHousers — we told you so last March. The panel was stuffed full of ECHR enthusiasts, balanced by Tories most of whose competence lay in other legal areas. Perhaps Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, the most clued-up of
Nick Clegg’s speech today was a preview of what the Liberal Democrat argument will be in 2015: coalitions work and we’re the ‘one nation’ party who will ensure that the government is fiscally credible but fair. This strategy is the leadership’s best hope for the next election. But it is reliant on coalition government being
Have you noticed, CoffeeHousers, that our politicians are talking more and more about what they’d do after the next election? This has been happening, really, since last November, when George Osborne extended the forecasting horizon of his Budget to 2017. That had a hint of chicanery about it, ensuring that Osborne continued to meet his
I’ve been to West Sussex a number of times and on each occasion have been struck by how stupid the local people are. I don’t mean this unkindly — it’s just how it is. Everywhere you go there are small puddles of drool where the local citizens have stood, wreathed in puzzlement over the simplest
The motion passed by Liberal Democrat conference this morning means that the party is neither supporting nor opposing the Health Bill. The rebels having lost the vote on whether or not to debate their ‘Drop the Bill’ motion, but managed to amend the so-called Shirley Williams’ motion to remove the line calling on their peers
There is a certain poetry to the leaking of Vince Cable’s ‘vision thing’ memo and the departure from Downing Street of Steve Hilton, the very man who is supposed to have been providing the government’s vision all this time. Cable’s message to David Cameron and Nick Clegg was nothing if not forthright: ‘There is still
Ever since Chris Huhne’s departure from government, Vince Cable has become a more and more aggressive coalition figure. His deliberately provocative interview with The Guardian in which this Keynesian, corporatist lambasts the idea that deregulation is key to growth as “ridiculous and bizarre” has drawn a heated Tory reaction. One source told me earlier that
Lib Dem Spring conference is turning out as the leadership would have wished. The support of Shirley Williams for the Health Bill seems to have been enough to reassure delegates that they should back the bill in its amended form; they’ve already voted to debate the leadership friendly motion tomorrow morning not the ‘Drop the
A military flavour this week, as Patrick Mercer, the Conservative MP for Newark, tells us what’s on his shelves — and on his mind. It should come as no surprise that a former colonel in the Worcester and Sherwood Foresters would rescue the regimental history from the burning British Library. He is also a historical
JEET. That, according to Andrew Grice in the Independent, is the new ‘buzzword’ circling around Libdemville (population: 57 MPs, and a few others). And it stands for the issues that they want to keep mentioning whenever they can: jobs, education, environment and tax. Fair enough. Although it is striking that only one of these issues
Recent reports have suggested that David Cameron is interested in swapping Cathy Ashton’s job as the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy for another commission post. But sources close to Number 10 tell me this ain’t happening. Supposedly, Cameron was interested in swapping Ashton’s current role for the post of commissioner for
Nick Clegg pushed his members to ‘stop lamenting what might have been and start celebrating what is’ in his rally speech to the Liberal Democrat spring conference. He told them ‘now is the time to move on, to stop justifying being in government and start advertising being in government’. The debate over the Health Bill,
Rahul Dravid’s retirement, announced with typical elegance today, is not just a sad business because it means we’ll never see the great technician again but because it is the beginning of the end of India’s greatest generation. I think it is possible to argue that Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman have been the finest
Here is a selection of articles and discussions from this week on Spectator.co.uk… Most read: Fraser Nelson praising Theresa May for her police revolution. Most discussed: Melanie McDonagh on the case against gay marriage. And the best of the rest… Fraser Nelson thinks Ed Miliband doesn’t get globalisation and David Cameron should listen to Mitt Romney. James
‘You can’t touch me, I’m an MP!’ said Eric Joyce while being hauled off to the clanger after a drunken brawl in the Palace of Westminster. It seems he was right. Following an appearance in court today, Joyce has evaded jail with a £3,000 fine, community service order and three-month pub ban while retaining his
At the end of last year, Ed Balls suggested that Labour would be ‘taking a tougher approach to conditionality [for benefit claimants]. If people can work, they should work.’ Now the party are starting to outline what that means. As the Independent puts it today, summarising a speech that Liam Byrne has given in Birmingham,
Lib Dem spring conference is, perhaps, the most potent reminder of the cultural differences between the two coalition partners. In the Tory party pretty much the only thing that members get a real vote on is who the candidate in their constituency should be and who they want as party leader, even then that choice
If you didn’t know that it’s the Lib Dem spring conference this weekend, then you will after a quick rustle around the political pages. The yellow bird of liberty is splattered everywhere today — and in some instances it’s causing trouble for the coalition. Take Exhibit A, Tim Farron’s article for the Guardian. Farron is,
Cameron flies out to Washington on Tuesday, and when he gets there he’ll have no need to play the infatuated teenager. The days of Gordon Brown-style adulation are over, and Cameron has a more mature, less needy relationship with Obama. The truth is that there’s precious little he can learn from Obama, but there might
Oh look, Ed Balls has backed a mansion tax, saying in an interview with Nick Robinson that ‘If the chancellor wants to go down that road then we will support him… let’s work together.’ But, never fear, it’s not a completely non-partisan offer from the shadow chancellor. He does weave a divide with George Osborne,
The last three years have been one big transfer of wealth from savers to borrowers. Thanks to record low interest rates, savers have gained little from tucking their money away in bank accounts, whereas borrowers have reaped the benefits. According to data from the Bank of England, mortgage holders paid interest of £1328 billion in
This weekend’s Lib Dem spring conference is the next big political hurdle for the Health Bill. If the conference votes against the Bill, then it will create a huge political headache for the government and be a severe embarrassment to Nick Clegg. Talking to Liberal Democrats ahead of the vote on Sunday morning, I’ve been