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Previously, I’ve supported the government’s plans for High-Speed Rail, even though the “business case” for them has always struck me as being pretty weak*. On reflection, I’m not sure I was right. The case for HSR in Britain is weaker than I allowed. Not because HSR is undesirable (I still think it could be useful)
Most of the time the most lunatic examples of Drug War mania, at least in the English-speaking world, come from the United States. but not always! Today’s villains are Canadian. Chris Snowdon has the details of the murderous contempt police in British Columbia have for their citizens. It seems there is a batch of contaminated
Ed Miliband has just done a TV clip full of the kind of quotes that politicians love using. In an interview with Nick Robinson (above), the Labour leader declared that ‘I’m leading this party and making the difficult decisions. And if people don’t like it, I’m afraid it’s tough, because that is the way I’ve
McDonald Bailey was certainly among the most famous names in British sport when Britain last hosted the Olympics, in 1948. Yet today he has almost been forgotten. It’s not how it should have been. He should have been our Jesse Owens. Look at a photo of the British Olympic team of 1948 and Bailey stands
As revealed in Rachel Sylvester’s Times column (£) today: “Richard Reeves, Mr Clegg’s political adviser, draws a graph that plots ‘Government unity and strength’ against ‘Lib Dem identity’ as two lines, one going down and the other up, between 2010 and 2015. The lines cross in 2012. ‘Every minute of every day between now and
Are today’s inflation figures cause for celebration? The Consumer Price Index rose a mere 4.2 per cent in the year to December, down from 4.8 per cent in November. So, yes, a sharp drop — but only a statistical boffin could describe this as good news. Sure, a similar drop can be expected when the
Do you prefer the singer Beyonce when she is black or when she is white? Or could you not give a monkey’s either way? I think I prefer her, marginally, when she is white, although it’s a close call. If she were black and not singing, that would be pretty good. It would be better
The Labour leader Ed Miliband has been determined not to define himself by picking fights against his own side. He didn’t want to do a Blair or a Cameron and triangulate his way to power. Rather, his model was, in one respect, Thatcher. His team were struck by how she managed to move the political
Labour MPs didn’t pick Ed Miliband as Labour leader; they preferred his brother. Labour members didn’t pick Ed Miliband as Labour leader; they preferred his brother too. It was the union bloc that delivered the crown unto Ed — spearheaded by the votes, support and influence of the country’s largest trade union, Unite. Which is
It’s far from the first poll on Scottish independence in recent years, or even in recent days, but YouGov’s effort for Channel4 this evening contains some noteworthy findings nonetheless. What is does is replicate the conditions that — for the reasons that Peter Kellner explains in a very useful blog post here — Alex Salmond
Tom Harris lost his job as Labour’s ‘Twitter tsar’ today after uploading this Salmond-themed Downfall video onto YouTube. A pity it’s not even one of the funnier ones: And here is, erm, Ed Miliband responding to the news:
This morning’s Guardian scoop about Michael Gove’s suggestion that the nation should present the Queen with a new Royal yacht for the Jubilee is the talk of Westminster. But the full correspondence indicates that Gove was not proposing any taxpayer funding for a new Britannia. Gove refers to ‘David Willetts’s excellent suggestion for a
‘Another week, another speech about the evils of capitalism.’ So joked Nick Clegg at the start of his speech to Mansion House earlier, and there was some truth in this particular jest. All three parties are jostling to be seen as the harbingers of a new economy at the moment — one that doesn’t reward
Those photographs of North Koreans wailing, weeping and gnashing their teeth in grief over the death of Kim Jong-il have suddenly become a little more explicable. Apparently people not observed to be extremely distraught faced six months in a labour camp. Perhaps we could introduce a similar stricture for when the Scotch people vote to
The 301 Group is the nearest that David Cameron has to a loyalist backbench support group; it is named after the number of seats the Tories will need at the next election to win a majority. The Times today reports the group’s concerns that the Tories are in danger of forgetting the importance of a
Yet another day here in Westminster that’s all about the economy. Nick Clegg has just delivered a speech on the subject to Mansion House, focusing on ‘responsible capitalism’, which we’ll blog shortly. And two prominent forecasting groups, the Ernst & Young ITEM Club and the Centre for Economic and Business Research, have suggested that we’re
…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: James Forsyth reports on Ed Miliband’s defiant performance on the Marr show, and reports on Simon Hughes’ comments about the benefits cap. Jonathan Jones reckons that Ed Balls’ attempt at credibility fell short, and sees Miliband trump Miliband in the polls. Martin Bright says that
So Jon Huntsman is dropping out of the US Presidential race today. Apparently a battle with Rick Perry for fifth in South Carolina didn’t appeal. Even though he looked like the best bet to beat Obama, Huntsman was never likely to win the Republican nomination. When many Republicans were desperately searching for a more conservative
Ed Miliband’s poll ratings are going from bad to disastrous at the moment. Last week his YouGov approval rating dropped to its worst ever, with just 20 per cent of respondents saying he’s doing a good job, and 66 per cent saying he’s doing a bad one. And today they slip even further. Again 20
Speaking on the new Sunday Politics Show, Michael Gove said that it would take a decade for his reforms to change education in this country. Pressed by Andrew Neil on whether he would be able to reverse England’s fall in the PISA rankings, Gove remarked that it would take ten years before we can see
In the news bulletin after Ed Miliband’s interview on the Andrew Marr show, the headline was about Miliband saying he does listen to criticism of his leadership. It rather summed up Miliband’s problem at the moment: he can’t get beyond all the chatter about his leadership. In terms of the substance, Miliband’s explanation of Labour’s
Even as Ed Balls embraces the need for austerity today, he takes a very different position to the coalition on why it’s necessary. The government has always blamed the need for cuts on the ‘awful economic inheritance’ bequeathed it by Labour. Balls, on the other hand, puts the blame squarely at George Osborne’s door. In
In the Cameroon effort to redefine the politics of fairness, the benefit cap of £26,000 a year is key. When George Osborne announced it in his 2010 conference speech, he explained it – rightly – as a matter of fairness that ‘no family on out-of-work benefits will get more than the average family gets by
Robin Walker, the Conservative MP for Worcester, is this week’s bookbencher. He tells us about the influence that his father (Peter Walker) had on his reading, and his love of Elgar. Which book’s on your bedside table at the moment? When Christ and his Saints Slept, a historical novel about Stephen and Matilda by Sharon
This has been a terrible week for the Labour leader – truly, bone-crunchingly awful. Inevitable comparisons have been made with the IDS era of the Tory wilderness years, but this is different because it is Labour. Conservative leaders are trophies, symbols of the best or worst the party can aspire to at any given time.
‘I must be responsible and credible in what I say.’ No, it’s not Bart Simpson writing on the blackboard at the start of The Simpsons, although it may have been said with just as little enthusiasm. It’s Ed Balls on the Today programme this morning, explaining his decision to endorse George Osborne’s public sector pay
With Scottish independence very much the issue of the week, we thought you might enjoy this Spectator leader from 1979, arguing for a ‘No’ vote in that year’s referendum on Scottish devolution: To preserve the Union, 24 February 1979 ‘So, Sir, you laugh at schemes of political improvement?’ ‘Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement
Here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the past week: Fraser Nelson says the battle for Britain has begun, and explains why IDS’s welfare reforms are so important. James Forsyth looks at the battle lines being drawn over Scotland and wonders if Spain might prevent its independence. Peter Hoskin reports on Ed
The crisis in euroland continues unstaunched and, perhaps, irrevocably. Naturally, being self-obsessed sorts and this being the week it is, one is drawn to consider the impact this must have on Alex Salmond and the prospects for Scottish independence. Plainly, the currency question is a difficult one for the First Minister. While the euro seemed
A year ago, Tunisian strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia for Saudi Arabia, thus ushering in the Salafi Spring. No doubt now bored out of his mind, this once stubbornly secular leader is said to have caught religion of the deranged Wahhabi variety propagated by his oil-rich hosts. In turn, the Saudis
William Hague has an article in the Times today arguing against what he refers to as the ‘pessimism’ of those who have expressed concerns about the direction of the ‘Arab Spring’. As somebody who cannot see the virtue of either optimism or pessimism as policy, and preferring facts to moods, I think the Foreign Secretary’s central points
The word is that France will be downgraded by Standard and Poor’s tonight. AFP is reporting that French officials expect France to drop to a AA+ rating, losing its treasured AAA status and increasing how much it will have to pay to borrow money. 2012 has, so far, been relatively quiet on the euro front.
France is set to lose its AAA-rating with Standard & Poor’s later tonight, according to Reuters. We’ll have more on this soon.
Welfare wars are erupting again, with Iain Duncan Smith’s bill amended in the Lords and more showdowns ahead. Number 10 has been completely robust, threatening to use rarely-invoked powers to overrule the Lords. In my Telegraph column today, I say why it’s so important that David Cameron does not go wobbly – as his predecessors