All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Nick Clegg should be congratulated for doing the right thing by reviving the Future Jobs Fund and the Young Person’s Guarantee, for that is what the Youth Contract is in all but name. This is, of course, another U-turn. As Chris Bryant tweeted rather brutally after Clegg’s announcement, if the government wanted to save young
There was a time when Nick Clegg was the most agile and persistent defender of the coalition’s deficit reduction programme. But now — although he’s still got it in him — he is more often wheeled out to announce some spending wheeze or other. A couple of weeks ago, it was the next instalment of
Earlier this year, the former head of the civil service, Lord Turnbull, wrote a pamphlet on climate change entitled The Really Inconvenient Truth or “It Ain’t Necessarily So”. It was praised by Nigel Lawson, writing its foreword, as a ‘dispassionate but devastating critique’ of global warming alarmism — and it is a critique that Chris
Edinburgh council – presently best known for spending £700m on half a tram system (and the wrong half at that) – has mercifully moved on to more important business: congratulating the Occupy Edinburgh “movement” on whatever it is they are doing camping in St Andrews’ Square beneath the disapproving (I’m sure) gaze of Henry Dundas,
That Italy is now paying around 7.8 per cent for two-year borrowing, compared to the 4.5 per cent it was paying just last month, is a reminder that the imposition of a technocratic government was far from a solution to the country’s problems. With €8 billion more debt to be sold on Tuesday, there’s little
Next week, millions of public sector workers will go on strike over proposed changes to their pensions. And yet, even after the reforms, those pensions will still be far more generous than most taxpayers working in the private sector — who will pick up the bill — can expect. It’s going to be hard to
If I’d said that an MP had accused the Church of England of being too obsessed with gay marriage and women priests — and not worried enough about how God can keep young boys out of harm’s way — you’d probably imagine that a Tory had gone nuts. But this is the David Lammy, Labour
Watching Roger Federer destory Rafael Nadal the other day and knowing how many people can recognise their brilliance while always holding a vehement, even visceral, preference for one of these superb athletes I wondered if there was a correlation with another bitterly divisive sporting divide. I mean, of course, David Gower vs Graham Gooch. That
As the cousins celebrate the most genial holiday of them all, there are many things one for which one should be thankful. Not having a vote in the leadership contest currently gripping the Scottish Labour party comes pretty near the top of the list. Nevertheless and unlike Ed Miliband I can at least name each
Tottenham is a very long way from Tuscany, in every sense. But they were briefly connected earlier this year as riots spread across London. The political class clung to their Tuscan sunbeds for a few more hours while Tottenham burned. David Lammy, Tottenham’s MP, was an exception. His immediate response to the unfolding enormity impressed observers. Now he
New immigration stats out today show that 2010 set a new record for net migration into the UK. The figure hit 252,000 – a 27 per cent increase on 2009 and 7,000 higher than the previous record in 2004: As this graph shows, the number of immigrants moving to the UK has actually been
Amol Rajan – author of the splendid Twirlymen – has an entertaining rant against lobbyists in the Independent today. Entertaining, of course, is code for less than mightily persuasive. Lobbying, Amol complains, is nothing but “legalised bribery”. This is the accepted view and just the sort of thing sensible folk are supposed to believe. Distasteful
Political debate is going to be dominated by the economy between now and the autumn statement. Ed Miliband is trying to use this moment to persuade the public that the Coalition’s economic policies have failed. By contrast, the Tories want to highlight how much deeper trouble the country would be in if it did not
A couple of weeks ago I tried to lay out what the future of Europe could look like, given that some member states want to create an ever-closer Union while others prefer to remain in a looser kind of club. I wrote that the EU might end up evolving into a much more asymmetric arrangement,
The Guardian has retracted one of the allegations it made about me in its strangely humour-free Pass Notes section on Monday. They said that I had described a footballer as a ‘spearchucking African’, whereas I was quoting what had allegedly been said about the footballer by somebody else and using that quote to justify the
Clarissa Tan made a number of fine points about the utility of the 50p rate of income tax yesterday. Tim Montgomerie makes some more at ConservativeHome today under the headline “Osborne is warned that Britain will lose its high earners if he doesn’t abolish 50p tax band.” Maybe, but he might lose the next election
In Brixton this morning, Nick Clegg delivered a speech on race equality. He said ‘There is another front in the war on race inequality that is too often neglected: economic opportunity… It simply cannot be right that that we still live in a society where, if you are from an ethnic minority, you face unfair hurdles
The Prime Minister has backed the proposal for a new independent service to sign workers’ long-term sicknotes, instead of GPs. The plan, which Pete wrote about at the weekend, is aimed at ensuring that people on sick pay or sickness-related benefits really are too ill to work. Cameron describes how it would work in today’s
To British ministers, the role that the International Criminal Court played over Libya was key – it made clear that Colonel Gaddafi’s actions were unacceptable and would be subject to international law. Tory MP Dominic Raab even wrote a piece in The Times about the need for Libyans to rely on the ICC in The
Britain will soon be a leaking ship – it’ll lose £1 billion per year by 2015, if George Osborne stubbornly sticks to the 50 per cent top tax rate. As other countries have moved to attract the wealthy, the UK has actually taken a step backwards, according to a new report. And there are losses
If Roman Abramovich owned the Labour party, Ed Miliband would be toast by now. The floundering opposition leader gave the sort of inept, predictable and ill-organised performance at PMQs that would get a manager sacked in the Premiership. It scarcely helps that Mr Miliband seems to prepare for these sessions like a deluded psychic. He
Joan McAlpine’s column in the Scotsman this week is uncharacteristically unpersuasive. Since she decided to defend the SNP’s plans for so-called anti-sectarian legislation she was backing a losing horse from the start. Still, it speaks well of her loyalty. Nevertheless, her piece is useful since, in large part, it outlines a kind of consensus that
The Evening Standard has the scoop: ‘Companies House filings show James Murdoch has stepped down from the boards of both News Group Newspapers Limited, publisher of The Sun, and Times Newspapers Limited, which operates The Times and Sunday Times.’ Of course, James Murdoch remains executive chairman of News International, of which both those companies are
Today’s PMQs was a preview of the debate we’ll be having after next week’s autumn statement. Miliband, struggling with a bit of a cold, tried to pin the economy’s problems on Cameron. The Prime Minister’s retort was ‘who would want to put the people responsible for the current mess back in charge’. It was a
The Leveson Inquiry has all the makings of an establishment disaster. In saying that, I am not defending the behaviour of the tabloids. I find it contemptible that no story in the ‘hackgate’ scandal can be justified on public interest grounds. Not once did James and Rupert Murdoch hirelings break the law to expose an
PMQs 23rd November
People sometimes ask me, about the stuff I write: ‘Do you ever think that you get it wrong?’ The answer of course is a fervent ‘Yes!’ And even when I don’t actually KNOW that I’ve got something wrong, I’m always plagued with doubt about it. One thing I got wrong recently was the riots. Or
It is an article of British faith that further liberalisation of Europe’s market is a worthwhile goal. But few people realise the boost the UK economy would actually get from the finalisation of the EU’s internal market – especially implementation of the Services Directive, creating an integrated market for energy, modernising public procurement rules and
Another lobbying scandal has hit the coalition. The Times is reporting that Carina Trimingham, Chris Huhne’s partner, boasted of having ‘excellent contacts… from Cabinet members to more junior ministers’ to a lobbying firm she was seeking work with. She also allegedly urged this firm to ‘make use of my skills and contacts.’ Trimingham has told
Yesterday, Fraser wrote that ‘reporting of European issues tends to ignore public opinion’. Today, Philip Stephens has neatly illustrated Fraser’s point in his Financial Times column. Musing on Britain’s possible exit from the European Union, Stephens writes: ‘I am not sure this is what the prime minister intends; nor, when it comes to it, that
Yesterday’s housing strategy offered a mortgage guarantee for first-time buyers of new properties, one of the few new announcements in a document largely consisting of re-hashed policy. At best, the mortgage guarantee helps to provide a boost to house builders and welcome relief for some credit-worthy borrowers who simply can’t build up a sufficient deposit.
Mitt Romney, the clear favourite to win the Republican presidential nomination, has released the first television ad of his 2012 campaign. Even though his immediate battle is against fellow Republicans – in the latest CNN poll, he trails Newt Gingrich by four points – here Romney’s attack is aimed squarely at Obama. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3a7FC0Jkv8 The Obama
Reading today’s newspapers, it seems that the biggest decision of Osborne’s mini-Budget has already been made. Evaporating growth means lower tax revenues, so the choice is between protecting his deficit reduction plan or keeping total spending cuts at less than 1 per cent a year. Increasing savings to, say, 1.3 per cent a year would
The recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s review into party funding are not going to happen. Both the Labour and Tory members of the review have issued notes of dissent to it. Nick Clegg has, on behalf of the government, issued a statement gently rolling the report into the long grass. Interestingly,