All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Sarah Palin has provided us with a helpful distillation of what Newt Gingrich’s campaign is all about: At the weekend the ex-house speaker, Newt Gingrich had an endorsement from the former front-runner, Herman Cain, and the Florida Tea Party. But his biggest backing, and probably the most influential, has come from the 2008 V-P candidate,
There have been signs recently that ministers are slipping back into the policy-by-headline mindset that defined the last Labour government. We’re seeing the sorts of policies that lack evidence, are launched without any detail on timetables or implementation, and are usually geared around an initiative — if possible, a pilot or a local trial that is short-lived
‘We will insist that the EU institutions — the court, the commission — that they work for all 27 nations of the EU.’ So said David Cameron, back in December, suggesting that he’d block Europe’s ‘fiscal compact’ countries from using EU-wide institutions to enforce their, er, fiscal compact. But now this component of his ‘veto’
This is not a Question To Which the Answer Must Be No. I too saw the headline Now 51% Back Independence and thought, “Well, that’s interesting but implausible“. Then I noticed it was a Sunday Express splash and revised my appraisal to “That’s obviously cobblers”. And so it is, making it mildly foolish for SNP
The coalition’s tuition fee rise will put young people from poor backgrounds off applying to university — or so we were told by Labour and the National Union of Students. But now we can actually put that claim to the test. UCAS today revealed how many of that first year group to be affected by
Does anyone, anywhere, understand the Labour Party’s position on the government’s intention to cap welfare benefits? I ask as a member of the Labour Party who is, of course, anxious to spread the message far and wide but is worried by what seem to be certain, um, inconsistencies of approach. So, on Question Time last
Ed Miliband is a geek, a failure and a loser. All the press says so, so it must be true. Yet the apparent no-hoper retains the ability of the boy who confronted the naked emperor to change the terms of debate. Ever since Mrs Thatcher, the working assumption of the British elite has been that
Yesterday’s YouGov poll for the Sunday Times had a few interesting nuggets buried beneath the top line (Lab 40, Con 39, as it happens). Here are some of the most topical findings: 1) Clegg’s tax proposals are very popular. 83 per cent support the Lib Dems’ policy of increasing the personal allowance to £10,000. This
…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson finds the prospect of party political police commissioners depressing, and doubts that 51 per cent of Scots really back independence. James Forsyth notes that Douglas Alexander understands Labour’s problem, and comments on the party’s attempt to seize on Stephen Hester’s bonus. Peter Hoskin breaks down
How about this for a claim by Nicolas Sarkozy, made in a TV appearance yesterday? ‘Europe is no longer at the edge of the cliff.’ It’s quite some statement, so let’s hear it again: ‘Europe is no longer at the edge of the cliff.’ Of course, Sarkozy has reasons for saying it beyond mere pre-electoral
Stephen Hester’s decision to waive his bonus, revealed by Robert Peston just after 10 o’clock, will be a source of great relief to David Cameron and George Osborne. A story that could have dragged on for weeks, undermining their argument about fairness has just lost most of its potency. Ed Miliband, though, will be able
The issue of Stephen Hester’s bonus is going to carry on hurting the government. Labour has now announced that it will use an opposition day debate on 7 February to hold a parliamentary vote on the issue. The coalition will either have to lose, an admittedly non-binding vote, or whip its MPs to go through
‘A clear majority of people in Scotland now back independence, according to an exclusive poll for the Sunday Express. Using Alex Salmond’s preferred referendum question, the Vision Critical survey found 51 per cent would vote ‘yes’ with 39 per cent against. If such a dramatic result were repeated in the autumn of 2014, the First
First there was Fred Goodwin, now there’s Stephen Hester. The chief executive of RBS is fast becoming the bête noire of the British banking system, thanks to his roughly £1 million share bonus which, we learn in the Sunday Times (£) this morning, may be topped up with an extra £8 million over the next
The Syrian situation is worsening by the day. Now the Arab League has pulled back its monitors in recognition of their failure to ease the violence. Foreign Secretary William Hague has said he is ‘deeply concerned,’ while the Gulf states are pushing for the whole mater to be referred to the UN Security Council. But
This week’s bookbencher is Gloria De Piero, the Labour MP for Ashfield. She has a soft spot for Wuthering Heights and Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. Which book’s on your bedside table at the moment? Race of a Lifetime. I’m half way through it. It’s a behind the scenes tale of the last Presidential race. It
Douglas Alexander may sometimes hide the meaning of what he says under a layer of jargon but he remains one of the more interesting political strategists on the Labour side. Alexander, a Brown long-marcher turned Blairite, saw before many of his colleagues the need for Labour to level with the public on cuts. He privately
A-ha! Labour have hit on a line on the benefits cap, and Liam Byrne is peddling it in the Daily Telegraph this morning. ‘Now, there are some people who are against this idea altogether,’ he writes, ‘Neither I, nor Ed Miliband are among them.’ The way he sees it, he goes on to explain, is
I’m presenting Radio Four’s Week in Westminster this morning, on deficit wars, London wars, welfare wars, and another set of wars which no one has really discussed yet: the directly-elected police commissioners. There will be about 40 of them elected in November, and candidates are already emerging: Nick Ross (ex-Crimewatch), Colonel Tim Collins and London mayoral hopeful
Faisal Islam has a very interesting report from Davos on how at least one bank no longer believes that a euro from Ireland, say, is worth the same as one from Holland or Germany. He writes that: ‘A leading European bank has begun to account for euros differentially, by nation state. That is to say,
To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, here’s a piece Sam Schulman wrote for The Spectator 12 years ago, on his fear that ‘Holocaustology’ will create a new form of anti-Semitism. Did six million die for this?, Sam Schulman, 1 January 2000 The Holocaust dominated the moral imagination of the 20th century. Before the rise of Hitler,
Here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk during the past week: Fraser Nelson tells Tristram Hunt that capitalism is just what Britain does, and says Osborne owes Darling an apology. James Forsyth thinks the Tories will be delighted to see the battle over the benefit cap prolonged, and says Alex Salmond’s strategy is both subtle
Last year I travelled with the Holocaust Educational Trust to Auschwitz and the experience had a profound effect. I had been warned it would, but having been a voracious reader of Holocaust memoirs and literature, I thought I was prepared for what I would see. Others have written more eloquently on this subject. Mark Ferguson,
Thanks to his spectacular surge last week, culminating in a big win in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, Newt Gingrich looked like he was back in contention for the Republican presidential nomination. Immediately, he took a commanding lead in Florida – which will host the next primary on Tuesday. And though Mitt Romney remained
Created to remember one of the darkest chapters in mankind’s history, Holocaust Day is for many people an occasion for unadulterated discomfort. Most of my family perished in the Holocaust and those who survived either hid in occupied Poland, pretending to be Catholics, fled to Uzbekistan in the then-USSR or, like Marcel Rayman, fought the
When it comes to defending the free market, and making the case for fiscal sanity, there’s scarcely anyone better than David Cameron. He was on superb form in Davos yesterday, giving much-needed blunt advice to the continentals. ‘Eurozone countries must do everything possible to get to grips with their own debts,’ he said. And he’s right.
Condemnation’s coming from all sides for the £963,000 bonus awarded to RBS’s Stephen Hester, on top of his £1.2 million salary. The most prominent denunciation came from Lib Dem Foreign Office minister Jeremy Browne on last night’s Question Time: ‘I think there’s a sort of question of honour. Even if there is a contractual opportunity
Banker bashing has become something of a national pastime, and politicians have been quick to join in. But rather than devoting their energy to avenging past sins, our political leaders might be better off learning the lessons of Dan Ariely’s book, The Upside of Irrationality. In this valuable work, Ariely shows that the incentive of
Miliband Attacks Cameron Over Chocolate Oranges might win a prize for the headline that best summarises Ed Miliband’s stewardship of the Labour party. In case you still can’t believe this is the case, let me repeat it: Miliband Attacks Cameron Over Chocolate Oranges. It is so dire, so naff, so excruciatingly hilarious that I thought
Just seen this in the latest copy of Private Eye, from its Pseuds Corner column: ‘I woke up with my wife and baby of six months on the small island of Burano in Venice where we have a lighthouse. We took our breakfast on the terrace of one of the best restaurants in the world,
It has been quite a few days for transparency in Westminster. First, Ben Gummer’s ten minute rule bill for tax transparency — which would see every taxpayer in the country receive a statement detailing what they owe and what the money’s being spent on — earned itself a second reading in the House. And now, today,
There are many reasons why Newt Gingrich remains a preposterous candidate for the Republican party’s presidential nomination. Among them the fact that just about anyone who has ever had dealings with him – including a majority of his wives – hate him. Here’s Elliott Abrams dredging up some gems settling some scores from the 1980s
The rise of Qatar has been one of the most remarkable developments in the recent history of the Middle East. How this small, oil-rich Gulf state built Al Jazeera and parleyed the TV station’s influence into a diplomatic role across the region is an insufficiently explored issue. The list of the monarchy’s achievements is impressive,
Has Britain become a nation of immoral, lying, cheating, scumbags as the increasingly pious Peter Oborne seems to suggest in his latest article? Peter, who writes for such unblemished upholders of truth and decency as The Daily Mail, suggests that these days, if people found money lying about in the street, they wouldn’t hand it