All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
George Osborne and Ed Balls are now locked into something of a staring match over the Libor scandal, with one waiting for the other to flinch. After Paul Tucker’s evidence to the Treasury Select Committee yesterday cleared the Shadow Chancellor and his ministerial colleagues in the Labour government of leaning on the Bank of England,
The Lib Dem dove has been shot by a well-aimed Tory arrow tonight, and you can bet that more than a few of Nick Clegg’s allies will feel deeply betrayed. The Lib Dems walked on the coals of the tuition fee rises, and for what? The Tory leadership cannot really claim to be giving its
I’ve just received email notification of a debate I sadly missed at the East London Mosque entitled ‘Was Jesus a Muslim Prophet or a Christian God?’ The email came from a thoughtful chap called Abdullah Al Andalusi who informs me that the speakers tended towards the former, rather than latter proposition. Indeed, there was a
Are sanctions among the most pointless tools in contemporary diplomacy? That certainly seems to be the case in Syria where sanctions have been in place against the Assad regime ever since he launched a brutal crackdown against his own people 16 months ago. Last week, Wikileaks began releasing a massive tranche of emails from Assad’s
Charlotte Leslie becomes the latest star of the 2010 intake to come out against the coalition’s version of Lords reforms. Explaining her decision, she emphasised to The Spectator her concerns that while the new Lords would be elected ‘they would not carry the great benefit of democracy, accountability’. As Leslie points out, this means that
School and welfare reform are the signature missions of David Cameron’s government – but is welfare going wrong? Labour is crowing that today’s figures from the Work and Pensions department on welfare-to-work show it’s a failure. I’ve just come back from a DWP briefing with Chris Grayling, the minister responsible, and thought Coffee Housers would
When Ed Miliband gave his speech to Labour’s autumn conference last year, he rather tied himself in knots about how to end predatory capitalism. The Labour leader was trying to make it clear that he would stand up to vested interests, but the message was lost under a row about whether he was pro- or
Lords reform makes its way into the Commons today, but it’s hardly a relief for the whips that after weeks of threats from the rebel camp, the legislation is finally being debated. With tales circulating the House that there are 110 Tory MPs prepared to defy the whip on the programme motion, this could be
The discussion of Britain’s latest tennis nearly man has turned inevitably to the culture of a sport which, in this country at least, remains laughably exclusive. Asked on the Today programme why we fail to produce consistent numbers of good tennis players the tennis evangelist and comedian Tony Hawks (who knows a thing or two
There’s an interesting paper out from a number of members of the Conservative Free Enterprise Group this morning. The report, called Policy Bites: Seven Shots in the Arm of Britain, makes these seven recommendations for reforming the economy: 1. Over 65s still in work should continue to pay National Insurance contributions on their earned income
So Labour ministers did not ‘lean on’ the Bank of England to encourage lowballing of Libor rates, according to Paul Tucker. The Deputy Governor of the Bank told the Treasury Select Committee this afternoon that he had held conversations with officials about how able Barclays was to fund its operations. This is the exchange between
Mark Harper is touring the broadcast studios at the moment making the case for the coalition’s Lords reform bill. Being Nick Clegg’s Conservative deputy is not an easy job. But there is something particularly disingenuous about one of the arguments that Harper is using. Harper said On Sunday, as Conservative Home reported, that: ‘It’s
At the end of last week, Number 10 was optimistic that it and the whips were having some success in limiting the rebellion on the Lords. Some were even suggesting that the vote on the programme motion was winnable, after all. But that feeling has evaporated this morning. First, the weekend ring round by various
‘This doesn’t look good, Mr Tucker.’ Andrew Tyrie made this observation towards the end of his Treasury Select Committee’s evidence session with Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker. He was talking about the minutes of a meeting in 2007 which suggested Tucker was aware of the lowballing of Libor, but he might as well
Leafing through a pile of Economists I’ve just caught up on a Bagehot column from last month which inadvertently demonstrates exactly where UKIP’s opponents go wrong. The very final lines of the piece explain: ‘Mr Farage’s real dream is to reshape Britain, by pulling the Conservatives to the right and bouncing Mr Cameron into a
Nick Clegg was standing at the despatch box to move the second reading of the coalition’s Lords reform bill. But the reception he got was reminiscent of what used to happen to Lib Dem leaders at PMQs. He was barracked mercilessly by both Labour and Tory benches while his own benches remained oddly silent, only
Imbecilic leftie authoritarians are whining again about being called nasty names by people with less power than them. Exhibit A is the fabulously stupid Islamist Mehdi Hasan, once of the New Statesman and now of the Huffington PostUK, whatever that is. Here’s the emetic opening sentence of his article in today’s Guardian (under the headline
In my Observer column today I say that a judicial review into the banking scandal would have achieved little unless the judge could have persuaded the politicians to change the law. As if on cue, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls popped up to demonstrate that they have no desire to change banking law in any
One instructive way to think about Tuesday’s vote on Lords reform is, do you want to have proportional representation used to elect people to the Westminster parliament? I suspect that most people on the centre-right would answer no to that question, and with good reason. In the current British system, PR would work against the
A rather wonderful spat in the always mysterious and interesting democratic republic of homosexuals. On one side, the excellent lesbian writer Julie Bindel, on the other side, St Peter Tatchell. The point at dispute is London’s Gay Pride March: Peter likes it a lot and was there this year as usual. Julie thinks it’s become
Is parliament good for anything? This is, in effect, the question behind the coming Libor investigation. Ed Miliband’s assumption that to get any questions answered you need a judge-led inquiry fits a trend, and one that Rod Liddle examines in this week’s magazine. For my part, I’m uneasy about the deification of the judiciary and
After a brief hiatus, the Spectator’s Bookbenchers interview recommences this week. Over at the books blog, Douglas Alexander MP, the shadow foreign secretary, tells us what he plans to read his children over the summer, as well what he hopes to read for himself. He says: ‘My mother, who herself was born in China —
I’ve written an article for the Scotsman today arguing that Scotland needs many more immigrants. Aside from all the usual arguments in favour of this kind of blood transfusion I should also have said that increasing the number of non-Scots in Scotland is a useful hedge against being governed by, you know, Scots should we
I’d like to offer my own solution to the coalition problem that James referred to earlier. First, my theory of what went wrong. At first, the coalition worked well and was radical. Nick Clegg felt that he’d build up his party’s support over time, by proving it could work well in government. This didn’t work,
There’s long been a certain amount of speculation in Westminster about how long the coalition will last. This topic used to be the sole preserve of those who were sceptics of it; it was a question hoping for the answer not that long. Enthusiasts for coalition, took it as a given that it would last
The cutting of 17 army units by 2020 was never going to be popular. It is over-dramatic to suggest we now have a self-defence force rather than an army, but the loss of 20,000 regular soldiers will clearly have an effect on the UK’s ability to wage war. And yet the cutting is the easy
The Indian president lives in a Lutyens palace formerly occupied by the country’s viceroys, replete with ballroom, cinema, and Mughal gardens. I’ve been inside to interview the current incumbent, Pratibha Patil. With 360 rooms, it’s a big house for a small person and you can get lost – indeed recently, Patil reportedly did go missing
A pearl richer than all his tribe who, alas, loved batting not wisely but all too well. If tragedy seems too strong a term for Mark Ramprakash’s career there remains ample room for sadness when one considers the fate of the best batsman England has produced since Gooch and Gower announced themselves more than 30
West Midlands Police have just announced seven arrests as part of an investigation into alleged terrorist activity. This follows the detention of six individuals on similar charges across London yesterday. Together, they reveal just how active the Islamist network in the UK remains and the potency of its ongoing threat. One of those arrested in
That the Liberal Democrats might try to scupper the boundary reforms if they don’t get their way on Lords reform has been the talk of the tearooms in Westminster for months. But today the threat comes to the fore as Nick Clegg’s departing head of strategy Richard Reeves warns the Independent that there will be
The sticking plaster is peeling off again. Spanish bond yields have again breached 7 per cent this morning. That 10 year gilts are back over this level is yet another reminder that the piece-meal solutions the Eurozone is trying just won’t work. Indeed, they are unravelling at an ever quicker rate as the markets realise
‘What do you think David Cameron stands for?’ a Tory MP asked me recently. Unsure of his point, I burbled something about ‘responsibility’ and couple of other random abstract nouns. The MP shook his head grimly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what David Cameron stands for.’ I leant forward, intrigued. ‘David Cameron stands for
So what did George Osborne tell The Spectator? The words he used to James Forsyth became the centre of a Question Time bust up last night and one that had to be broken up by a Sex Pistol. Let’s start with Ed Balls’ version. He told the Commons that Osborne impugned his integrity by
Yesterday, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley reported to MPs on the state of the NHS. The state of the NHS, you’ll be relieved to know, is good, or at least it is in Mr Lansley’s estimation. Budgets are in surplus, waiting lists are down and, unless you are very unlucky, you won’t have to hang around
