All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Yesterday — as Pete pointed out earlier — the Obama administration filed criminal charges against two individuals, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, claiming that they worked with Mexican criminals and for the Iranian government on orders to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The plot has met with denials from Tehran, which “categorically
A flurry of news yesterday evening, among it Slovakia’s rejection of the euro bailout and even more ado about our Defence Secretary. But nothing nearly as striking as the alleged Iranian plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Drugs, money, geopolitics, potential mass slaughter — this is a web of the most tangled and
As a general rule complaints that the opposition are too beastly for words should not be taken too seriously. They reflect a sense of entitlement on the part of the governing party that, whenever it may be modestly frustrated, quickly becomes peevish, sour and silly. If this is true of parliamentarians it is even truer
Slovakia is a small country that most people might confuse for Slovenia at a Pub Quiz. It has been a member of the eurozone for less than three years and represents less than 0.5 per cent of Europe’s GDP. But it is now also one of the greatest problems for the euro, after the country’s
The Slovakian parliament has just voted against extending the eurozone bailout fund. More on this soon.
This morning, Fraser published a piece criticising the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ definition of poverty. Here is a counterpunch from Julia Unwin, Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which is the organisation that funds the IFS. This article is the latest post in our Right to Reply series. Do we really need another debate
So, who paid for Adam Werritty’s air miles? This is the question going around Westminster this afternoon. James blogged yesterday that No10 has set two tests: was Werritty being paid by defence companies, and did Fox know about it? From what I understand, the answers to both are “no”. Werritty was not paid by
It was only a matter of time before the Franco-German drive to reshape Europe’s “economic governance” met with a counter-proposal. In international politics, a powerful state or group of states tends to lead others to band together in or order to provide some form of balance. This is now happening in Europe. David Owen and
The Lords has been debating the Owen/Hennessy amendment to the NHS bill, which threatens to upset the coalition. Owen and Hennessy have called for the bill to be referred to an extraordinary committee, which would report by 19 December, and they insist that the secretary of state must remain ultimately responsible for services. Lord Howe
Today, Downing Street has announced that the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, will resign at the end of the year. Here is the letter he sent: Dear Colleagues I wanted to let you know that I am announcing my retirement today, after over six years as Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service. I
The ballots for the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party’s leadership election have been posted to members and few people, I think, have any real idea as to what the result will be. In general terms, as readers know, I’m sympathetic to Murdo Fraser’s analysis of the woes afflicting conservatism in Scotland and unpersuaded that Ruth
David Cameron is taking his woman trouble seriously. He will unveil plans to curb internet pornography at a meeting with the Mothers’ Union later today. The government will force internet users to opt in to view pornographic websites when they initially chose their internet providers. The government will also clamp down on sexualized advertising and
UPDATE: Strathclyde Police have responded to all this and their version of events is quite different. So much so, in fact, that they dispute every aspect of what’s related here. Hark at this terrorist threat! The photograph above was taken by Chris White at Braehead shopping centre near Glasgow last Friday. It may look an
Gus O’Donnell has just emailed colleagues to say that he is announcing his retirement today. He will be leaving the civil service at the end of this year. His successor as Cabinet Secretary will be Jeremy Heywood, the current permanent secretary at Number 10 who has managed to make himself indispensable to David Cameron. But
Since Liam Fox’s lawyers are busy, twitchy buggers I’ll make a point of saying I have no idea whether he’s guilty of much more than foolishness in this Adam Werrity business. Certainly, Fox does not lack for friends and he owes George Osborne a favour (to be cashed doubtless in the event of an Osborne
I don’t know what source you use for your news from the US. Some will trust the BBC or Fox, two sides of the same coin. The more achingly modern will go for blogs and stuff. I trust none of it and rely entirely upon No Name Gene, who I met in a bar in
‘400,000 children will fall into relative poverty by 2015, says IFS’ we read on The Guardian’s front page today — yes, one of the most pernicious ideas of recent years is back. It’s the definition of ‘poverty’ as being figures on a spreadsheet, households deemed to fall beneath an arbitrary threshold. It’s almost entirely meaningless,
Liam Fox demonstrated today why he’ll be staying in Cabinet. He’s a tough, eloquent and effective Commons performer who does not fall to pieces when the going gets tough. George Osborne and Michael Gove were both on the front bench with him. One MP told me he saw Eric Pickles in the corridors, giving Fox
One of France’s dullest politicians is now odds-on to take up residence in the Élysée Palace next year. François Hollande, the former leader of the French Socialists, has emerged on top in a competition to take on Nicolas Sarkozy for the presidency. Six contestants vied for the Socialist nomination, including Ségolène Royal, Hollande’s former partner
Here we go again. According to the surprisingly reliable Gudio Fawkes, the New Statesman has forced Dan Hodges, a lively young writer, whom you actually want to read, to resign for being a lively young writer, you actually want to read. Specifically, he had done what free journalists in a free society are meant to
To the joy of the Tory benches, Liam Fox has just come out swinging in the House of Commons. In his initial statement, Fox apologised to the House for allowing the lines between his personal and professional life to become blurred out of “personal loyalty to a friend.” He then conceded that Werritty had travelled
Here’s the latest in our Another Voice series of posts, which give prominence to viewpoints outside the normal Coffee House fold: You can’t help but notice that the UK economy isn’t doing too well. Part of this is down to international developments, sure. But part – as Mervyn King said in “http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetarypolicy/pdf/govletter111006.pdf”>his letterto George Osborne last
As far as I can tell Mitt Romney has been hoping that everyone will be fed up with health care reform by the time the primary season rolls around. That way perhaps people will forget that his Massachusetts bill – once much-praised by the Heritage Foundation and other conservatives – is not wholly dissimilar to
The furore surrounding the defence secretary is distracting attention from some stories that are threatening the coalition’s tranquillity. Benedict Brogan reports that the Health Bill is being amended out of existence by a cabal of Lib Dem peers, a campaigned that was mooted during the party conference season. The rebellion is apparently aggravating Number 10,
The euro and European stocks have risen modestly, but markets aren’t exactly full of enthusiasm about Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy’s announcement on the eurozone crisis yesterday. As usual, the German and French leaders were glaringly short on detail. Meanwhile, one of the few things they were clear about – doing “whatever is necessary for
Downing Street is busy stressing that the David Cameron doesn’t want to lose Liam Fox from the Cabinet. There is lots of talk of how the Prime Minister doesn’t want to pull the rug out from under anyone. I understand that to Number 10’s mind the crucial questions are whether Adam Werritty has made any
Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which — providing your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency — you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no
…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. The Fox Hunt has dominated headlines. Fraser Nelson evaluates the dispositions of the forces engaged in Fox versus Boulter, James Forsyth reacts to Liam Fox’s apology, Daniel Korski warns that the defence secretary may lead the anti-coalition Tories if he is sacked, and
The feeding frenzy over Liam Fox tells us a great deal more about what is wrong with the Conservative Party than it does about Dr. Fox. The Defence Secretary has been an ass. He admits that he allowed “distinctions to be blurred” between his “professional responsibilities and [his] personal loyalties to a friend”. But if
“I don’t believe that wrongdoing did occur”, said Liam Fox in his apology yesterday. With today’s front pages dripping with accusations, Fox has some work to do to substatiate that claim. The Guardian reveals that “Political lobbyists were paid thousands of pounds to help a Dubai-based businessman arrange a secretive meeting with Liam Fox”: “an
The Liam Fox imbroglio has just started to make more sense. The original story was broken by The Guardian (of whom more later) and the main source appears to have been one Harvey Boulter, an American mogul whom Fox fatally agreed to meet in June at the suggestion of his friend Adam Werrity. It was
A slightly belated happy birthday to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was 80 years old on Friday. I can’t think of many prominent figures from Africa to whom one would gladly wish a long and peaceful life, but Tutu is surely one. It is a moot point as to whether he is more of an irritant
In a bid to save his Cabinet career, Liam Fox has just issued a statement, which he also read to the cameras, apologising for allowing ‘distinctions to be blurred between my professional responsibilities and my personal loyalties to a friend’. The defence secretary goes on to accept that he should have ensured that officials were
I have apology to make. I wrote on Friday that I suspected Chris Huhne’s mistweet “fine, but I don’t want my fingerprints on the story” was the Climate Change Secretary briefing against a Cabinet colleague to a Sunday newspaper. This was a horrid allegation to make, suggesting that a member of Her Majesty’s Government would
