All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
I understand that following a meeting in Downing Street this morning, Eric Pickles, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, has been put in charge of dealing with Britain’s 120,000 “problem families”. In the aftermath of the riots, David Cameron promised to put all of these families through some a family-intervention programme by the time of
The times they change but the questions remain the same. It’s the Republican party that has changed. A candidate who talked about (illegal)immigration the way Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush did in this 1980 debate would receive pelters. Now, in part that reflects the fact that 30 years on the problem remains unsolved and
The striking thing about last night’s Republican Party debate was just how bad the leading GOP candidates are. Rick Perry, the new favourite, isn’t terribly bright. (“Perry is like Will Ferrell doing Bush, but on half-speed,” is how David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, put it.) Mitt Romney is an oily cheese merchant who keeps
So this was Rick Perry’s big debut on the national stage and, meh, he was only OK. Perhaps that’s being too kind. Sure, there were moments when he looked and sounded like a heavyweight contender but these were generally (though not exclusively) when he could talk about Texas. The Lone Star State is a mighty
A decade has passed since the attacks of 9/11 and so much water has flown under the proverbial bridge. Today, ordinary Americans don’t want to have a leadership role in the world, and Europeans aren’t too keen on it either. And having dithered over what to do about Guantanamo Bay, most people in the US
The Vickers’ report into banks will land on the Prime Minister’s desk tomorrow. It goes to the banks very early on Monday morning before being published later that day. The thing to watch for is how politicians react to it. We know that the report will propose some kind of ring fence. But what we
Tonight, the Republican primary race gets serious with a debate at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in California. This is the first debate that Rick Perry, the governor of Texas and the current frontrunner, has taken part in. The Republican nomination is now a far more attractive prize than many expected it to be. 53
Social mobility has become something of a hot topic for the coalition. February’s Social Mobility White Paper made it the government’s number one social policy goal. Yet arguments over tuition fees have rather drowned out much of what they have to say on the topic, particularly when it comes to education and skills. So it
The anti-abortion lobby is unfortunate to have been lumped this week with Nadine Dorries as its unofficial spokesperson. Nadine is actually PRO-abortion, for starters, as she never seems to tire of pointing out. She does, however, possess many of the unpleasant characteristics associated with pro-lifers: she’s preachy, brimming with self-righteous zeal, and incapable of seeing
So where were these 20 economists when Gordon Brown first set the 50p trap for George Osborne? Then, Brown’s gamble was that the Shadow Chancellor was a political strategist with little interest or expertise in economics, so he’d be unlikely to work out just how much the 50p tax would lose the Exchequer, or guess
The first PMQs of the new parliamentary term was a bit of a damp squib. Ed Miliband avoided the issue of the economy, presumably because he feared being hit by a slew of quotes from the Darling book. So instead we had a series of fairly unenlightening exchanges on police commissioners and the NHS. Labour
Like most sensible folk I have a grand opinion of Alan Cochrane and, this being the case, alert readers will know that this is by way of a throat-clearing before we move on to the business of suggesting that his latest Daily Telegraph column is a little less persuasive than the Sage of Angus would
Few things irritate the Prime Minister’s circle more than the insinuation that David Cameron is lazy. So Ben Brogan’s column this morning with its slightly barbed observations about the number of box-sets that Cameron finds time to watch will have been read through gritted teeth in Downing Street. Ben argues that Cameron will have to
With the Eurozone and American economies both at risk of a double dip recession, how to get the British economy moving again is going to be one of the defining political arguments of the autumn. A first salvo in that fight has been fired this morning with a letter to the FT from 20 economists
The Justice Secretary Ken Clarke – who was away during the disturbances last month – has signalled his return with an uncharacteristically tough piece in today’s Guardian. The reference to the rioters as a “feral underclass” is not language that the penal reform lobby will welcome from their favourite Minister, but it does signal a
If Tony Blair thought that a meeting with Gordon Brown was like dental surgery without anaesthetic, one wonders how David Cameron would describe being questioned on Europe by Bill Cash and Bernard Jenkin. At the liaison committee, the two veteran eurosceptics pushed Cameron on why he was supporting far greater fiscal integration in the Eurozone.
William Hague is an unlikely sort of technophile. Truth be told, for all his strengths he simply does not look like a signed-up member of the Twitterati. His history-dripping, gold-covered office in King Charles Street is about as far away from the internet-enabled Google office as you can get. But the Foreign Secretary has just
Britain’s top-selling newspaper was sacrificed to stop the toxicity from the phone hacking scandal infecting the rest of the Murdoch empire. But it is looking more likely by the day that the News of the World closure will have been in vain. MPs have now have James Murdoch clearly in their sights as they continue
Tomorrow, MPs will debate whether to prevent abortion providers from counselling women seeking an abortion. The motion – put forward by Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries as an amendment to the Health and Social Care bill – is being opposed by the government, and pro-choice groups are backing a rival amendment, which reinforces the status quo.
One ally of the deputy Prime Minister suggested to me yesterday that the press was missing the most significant aspect of Clegg’s speech on education: Clegg acknowledging that free schools would now be a permanent part of the educational landscape. This ally argued that this was a big deal given that a year ago Lib
A month has passed since the riots, and it still feels as if nobody has grasped what really happened. The media debate has been limited, to say the least: lots of self-appointed community leaders and youth experts talking about giving kids a “voice” or “stake” in society, or calling the likes of David Starkey racist.
There are three things to be said about Murdo Fraser’s willingness to put his own party out of its misery: this is not a new idea, it is not enough, on its own, to spark a centre-right revival in Scottish politics and it is a brave way to begin a leadership campaign. Tactically it is
With Colonel Gaddafi’s compound lying in ruins and every self-respecting reporter combing through the wreckage, it was only a matter of time before documents of a dictatorship became public. Most explosively, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen has found letters to and from the Secret Intelligence Service which suggest complicity in extraordinary rendition and, as was suggested
Ken Clarke reveals today that three-quarters of convicted rioters aged 18 and over had previous convictions. Hence his term about a “feral underclass” – strong language, which politicians usually reserve for describing the media. But is this the whole story? One of the reasons that I wanted an inquiry into the riots, as Ed Miliband
As the wave of rioting and looting swept through London earlier this month it was disturbing to see how the actions of a minority could engender fear and disorder on such a grand scale. As the dust settles and the reality of this episode fades away, there is a simple fact that is at risk
There used to be a time when some of the most important relationships in the government were between Tory reformers and Nick Clegg. The Lib Dem leader, to his credit, tilted the scales in favour of radicalism in both education and welfare. But those reformist alliances are now pretty much over. Indeed, Ken Clarke –
Tripoli Someone somewhere must have decided it was worth keeping. Like many parents around the world, Colonel and Mrs Gaddafi were probably terribly proud of their child’s progress at school. But you can’t take everything with you when the mob is storming the barricades. So there it was strewn on a patch of sun-parched lawn,
Nick Clegg’s speech today on education has certainly garnered him some headlines. But it has also ruffled feathers in Whitehall. A senior Department for Education source told me earlier: “Clegg doesn’t understand that the 2010 Act means that Academies are the default mode for new schools, whether Local Authorities like them or not. His speech
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
George Osborne and Eric Pickles’ joint op-ed in the Financial Times on planning reform is meant to send the message that the coalition won’t back down on the issue. They warn that “No one should underestimate our determination to win this battle”. Allies of Pickles are pointing out that these planning proposals are different from
…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Hamish Macdonnell reveals Murdo Fraser’s plans to disband the Scottish Conservatives. Fraser Nelson supports the idea, and says Nick Clegg’s opposition to profit-making schools is self-defeating. James Forsyth says the government won’t back down on its planning reforms. In Triploi, Justin Marozzi visits
The list of things that will be Big Politics when Parliament returns from its summer break is growing all the time: growth, the post-riot clean-up, the undeserving rich, multiple squeezes, and so on. But few will have has much everyday resonance as another item on the list: rising energy prices. This has been a problem
It is a sign of just how close the Blairs and the Murdochs were that Tony is godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch’s young daughters. But it is also a sign of the changed politics around Murdoch that this news will now be a major embarrassment to Blair. Wendi Deng Murdoch has, the Daily Telegraph
For those of you who missed the public outing of Peter Mandelson: The Real PM, the remarkably revealing, fly-on-the-turd psychomentary by the gloriously talented Hannah Rothschild, don’t despair, the boy will be back in town on DVD in full Slimeorama on 19th September. As I’ve already reviewed the show for this blog, the good and