All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
A rotten week for Richard Dawkins in his battle against God. He began it by being kebabed on the Today programme by the former Dean of St Paul’s, Giles Fraser and ended it skewered by Camilla Long in an interview (£) for The Sunday Times. Long cannily exposed his shrillness, his monumental arrogance, his tetchiness. It
Action over Scotland is certainly producing a reaction in England. It’s not what you’d call an ‘equal and opposite reaction’ yet, but it’s there — and it’s crystallised by Tim Montgomerie’s article for the Guardian this morning. I’d recommend that you read it in full, but Tim’s basic point is that David Cameron could score
A Daughter’s Tale is the memoir of Mary Soames, Winston Churchill’s youngest daughter. It is remarkable, uplifting, moving and utterly fascinating. Remarkable, because from 18 to 22 she was at her father and mother’s side at the Admiralty, Number 10 and Chequers, observing and sharing the horrors of war and the possibility of defeat. Uplifting,
The run-up to last year’s Budget was all about fuel duty. This year it’ll be all about direct taxes. The Lib Dems are determined to put their manifesto pledge of raising the income tax personal allowance to £10,000 front and centre. They already managed to turn this promise into government policy in the Coalition Agreement,
‘Balls urges tax cuts’, we’re told. Has he had a Damascene moment? Has the borrowed penny dropped? Nope, this is his longstanding and cynical campaign to cut VAT. Under the Labour years, when Balls was encouraging Brown to adopt a ‘scorched earth’ policy to the public finances, he urged against raising VAT to 20 per
Tomorrow’s Downing Street meeting on the implementation of the health reforms is meant to send the message that the bill is definitely going ahead. Number 10 is keen to shore up the bill ahead of Liberal Democrat Spring Conference following the uncertainty caused by Rachel Sylvester’s column and Conservative Home’s call for the bill to
I have warned on this blog before that the reforms of the welfare-to-work system risk embedding unpaid labour into the benefits system. This week’s story about Tesco advertising for night shift workers to be paid Job Seeker’s Allowance plus expenses has rightly caused outrage now it seems that large retailers and charities are pulling out
Bjorn Lomborg’s article on why Germany is cutting back on its support for solar power is well worth reading and has clear implication for this country’s debate about energy policy. As Lomborg argues: ‘there is a fundamental problem with subsidizing inefficient green technology: it is affordable only if it is done in tiny, tokenistic amounts.
If you want to hear a BBC discussion going hopelessly wrong, listen to the ‘debate’ between the Bishop of Lichfield, Jonathan Gledhill and Alan Beith on the Today programme this morning. Radio 4 meant it to be about the established church, and set the Anglican bishop against the Methodist Beith. But a freemasonry of the
Metropolitan police officers have been asked to write a poem celebrating the wonderful diversity of our capital. The winning entrant will get to have ‘elevenses’ with the Met’s Head of Diversity, a nice lady called Denise Milani. This is too entrancing a prospect to pass up. So, given that the poem will come from a policeman’s
This week’s Bookbencher is Sir Peter Bottomley, MP for Worthing West. Not only does he have a magnificent eye for detail but he’s given some truly original answers. He’s managed to ignore Shakespeare, Chaucer and the Magna Carta in favour of da Vinci, and has also revealed a certain predilection for unpopular opinions and Dorothy
William Hague has gazed into his Middle Eastern crystal ball and doesn’t like what he sees. In an interview in today’s Telegraph, he says of Iran: ‘It is a crisis coming down the tracks, because they are clearly continuing their nuclear weapons programme… If they obtain nuclear weapons capability, then I think other nations across
Here is a selection of articles and discussion from this week on Spectator.co.uk… Most popular: Fraser Nelson’s warning for George Osborne. Most discussed: Melanie McDonagh’s take on why Richard Dawkins is wrong. Most shared on social media: Peter Hoskin on why Labour would have cost us our AAA rating already. And the best of the
The British need to talk about religion. The trouble is, every time God rears His head in the public square — as we have seen this week with the row about prayers at council meetings and Baroness Warsi’s speech on ‘militant secularism’ — everybody starts speaking in platitudes. The debate follows a familiar pattern: an anti-religion spokesman, probably a
To mark David Cameron’s get-together with Nicolas Sarkozy today, we’ve dug up this essay from the Spectator archives by Lord Powell. As foreign policy advisor to Lady Thatcher and Sir John Major, Powell provides a first-hand insight into the incompatibilities that separate our two nations. A fundamental incompatibility?, Charles Powell, The Spectator, 3 September 1994
The news that Theresa May will fly to Jordan to continue talks about Abu Qatada shows how close the government thinks it is to a deal with the Jordanians that might satisfy the European Court of Human Rights and allow his deportation. One government source explained to me earlier that the problem is the Jordanians
There’s no wound that a press conference won’t heal, or at least that’s the impression that David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy created earlier. The pair played down the tensions and grudging handshakes of the past few months to talk up Britain and France’s ‘incredibly strong relationship based on shared interests’. And there was more than
Ah, there he is! With the coalition — and David Cameron — dominating the political news on every day of this half-term week, Ed Miliband has finally caused a ripple in the national consciousness. He’s appearing before nurses in Bolton today to make a pledge: ‘Before he became Prime Minister, David Cameron concealed his plans
Well, Pete, I’m not so sure that David Cameron done brilliant in Edinburgh yesterday. To put it mildly, he has complicated an already complex situation. How does the Prime Minister think Scotland should be governed? How much Home Rule does he think is enough Home Rule? What “further powers” does he mean? Neither his speech
The consensus opinion across most of today’s papers appears to be that Dave done good in Scotland yesterday. And now the Prime Minister’s cause has been helped that little bit more by the Lords Constitution Committee. ‘We are firmly of the view that any referendum that is held must be a straight choice between full
The Spectator’s figures are out today, and I’m delighted to say that they show sales growing at their fastest rate in ten years — driven by our new digital formats. The above chart shows how things are moving. I thought CoffeeHousers might like to know a bit more about how we in 22 Old Queen St see
Not many politicians would conjure up the spectre of Alec Douglas-Home to scare the Prime Minister, but that is exactly what Alex Salmond did today — to some effect. The Scottish First Minister was responding to David Cameron’s ‘jam tomorrow’ offer to the Scottish people. ‘Vote “no” in the independence referendum,’ Mr Cameron effectively told
David Cameron’s apparent willingness to contemplate greater devolution after an independence referendum (pithily summarised by one SNP MSP as: Vote no to cake today so I might give you some cake tomorrow) really is both sensible and startling. As recently as last month the official UK government position was, if I remember it correctly, independence
Contain your excitement, CoffeeHousers: the Lib Dems are debating whether to change their ‘constitution’ so that their members have a greater say over future coalition negotiations. The amendment has been put forward Tim Farron and Norman Lamb, and proposes that, in the event of coalition talks, the party’s ‘negotiating team’ should have to consult with
‘When the referendum on independence is over, I am open to looking at how the devolved settlement can be improved further. And yes, that means considering what further powers could be devolved.’ These words in David Cameron’s speech today, which follow on from what the Scottish Secretary Michael Moore said at the weekend, make clear
At this moment, I dare say industrious hacks are searching for politicians to condemn David Cameron for “selling the jerseys” on the question of further powers for the Scottish parliament after an independence referendum (assuming that Alex Salmond is defeated). Isn’t the Prime Minister in danger of conceding what Salmond really wants? Well, maybe. But
The Times has a fascinating interview (£) with former Soviet leader, Nobel Laureate and two-time Man of the Year Mikhail Gorbachev. He strikes an optimistic tone about the future of democracy in Russia, praising the ‘Moscow Spring’ protesters and saying ‘This is the right moment to start creating as part of this new situation a
Today’s Chat With Dave is all very well and good but Alex Salmond’s speech to the LSE last night was just as significant. Much of the wrangling about Scottish independence has, for respectable reasons, concentrated on matters of process leaving the substance of what an independent Scotland might actually be like for another day. This
With the political wrangling over another Greek bailout continuing today, we thought CoffeeHousers might care to read (or re-read) Faisal Islam’s cover piece for The Spectator from four months ago: In a theatre in central Athens, over a thousand tax inspectors have gathered to shout crossly about the latest cuts to their pay and pensions.
The free movement of labour and capital — don’t you just love it? Our unemployment rate is now 8.4 per cent, the worst in sixteen years. But, paradoxically, there isn’t an enormous problem with unemployment — or at least there shouldn’t be. Take the following two figures and you’ll see why: Last year’s total of
Who’s winning in the latest match between Vince Cable and the Conservatives? The Business Secretary did take an early lead, with the news that No.10 had grudgingly yielded to his demand to appoint Professor Les Ebdon to the role of ‘university admissions tsar’ — a man who has hardly been kind about the coalition’s universities
So Dave meets Eck at St Andrews House today. Earlier in the week there had been talk that their tea-time chat was nothing more than a “courtesy call” from the Prime Minister, popping in for a cuppa since, well, he was in the neighbourhood anyway. Perhaps. More importantly, this is the first meeting between the
On the other hand, Jonathan Chait makes an argument that, though “electability” is notionally Mitt Romney’s greatest strength, there’s reason to suppose he’s no more electable than Rick Santorum. It’s true that Santorum, as yet unpummelled on the national stage, can conceivably reach downscale voters for whom Romney’s Bain Capital background is a significant problem.
Having reclaimed the mantle of ‘Anti-Romney in Chief’, Rick Santorum is now surging in the polls. He’s moved into a narrow lead at the national level and – more importantly – looks likely to win two of the next big states on the primary calendar: Michigan and Ohio. Of course, that makes him the new target