All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The Rolling Stones have a credibility problem. It’s nothing to do with their longevity or their wealth. It’s to do with their lead singer. Granted, he is a great frontman with a distinctive voice — but his strutting persona and his dancing-by-numbers gives the impression of a politician going through the gears in a speech to the
Pause, listen, engage and … push back. That just about sums up Andrew Lansley’s article for the Sunday Express today, as well as the government’s general effort to reconstruct and repackage its shaky NHS reforms. Which is to say, the Health Secretary makes sure to mix reassurance (“There is no more important institution in this
As a general rule if you’re minded to burn books you’re probably trotting along the road towards losing whatever argument you may be having. You also look a fool. That was true of the nutters who burned The Satanic Verses and it’s true of Terry Jones and true of this chap too: A senior member
Brother Korski is right to draw attention to Rachel Sylvester’s interview (£) with Unite’s Len McCluskey and right too to note that his defence of Castro’s island gulag* is indefensible. But there’s more that’s wrong with it than that and not all of that is McCluskey’s fault. Consider these lines: He would choose tea and
Andrew Tyrie promised that the Treasury Select Committee would be an assertive, insistent body under his stewardship — and he hasn’t disappointed so far. The committee’s recent evidence sessions have been fiery affairs, particularly by the usual standards of these things. And today they have released the result: an extensive and prescriptive report into last
I worry that Coffee House sometimes fails to enrage readers sufficiently, so let me run a scenario past you, suggested to me by Rafael Behr, the Observer’s brilliant leader writer. The AV referendum is going to be the oddest vote. Turnout will be low, but how low will depend on where you live. Scotland, Northern
I have always thought “nudge” theory was an absurd excuse for a political ideology: just another way of arguing against state intervention. But Nick Clegg has almost forced me to eat my words with his comments about free internships. The Deputy Prime Minister has probably done more in one speech to improve the conditions of
Sometimes, just when you think that the craziest left-wing ideologues have gone off to tend to their gardens, up one pops. Meet Len McCluskey, the head of Unite, who tells The Times’s Rachel Sylvester (£) that Fidel Castro has been a “heroic” leader of his people. That would be the same Cuban dictator who jails
The Guardian have an odd story today. “Business chiefs who backed cuts now doubt UK growth,” runs the headline — suggesting that these sinners are now being confronted with the error of their own ideology. Who are the business chiefs? We have Archie Norman, the retired head of Asda, now part-time chairman of ITV. He
When is a split not a split? When it’s a subsidiary, of course. We learn this morning that the Vickers Banking Commission will not recommend a complete, Glass-Steagall-style separation of retail and investment activities. But it will advise that banks erect some sort of barrier between the two, to ensure that everyday savers’ (and taxpayers’)
13 years ago, The Spectator carried an interview with Nigel Lawson in which he gave his views on the EU’s Economic and Monetary Union – views that seem especially prophetic today. ‘It’s going to be very nasty’, Christopher Fildes, The Spectator 2 May 1998 The Nigel Lawson Diet now seems to suit its inventor. Gone
As Portugal bites the dust – following Ireland and Greece in asking for an EU bail-out – the most important question is still not being asked by EU policy-makers, or by the British government for that matter: will a bail-out actually solve any of Portugal’s problems? The simple answer is, it won’t. Asking the European
Here is a selection of posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the last week. Fraser Nelson calls for the schools revolution to be reinforced. James Forsyth lists the runners and riders in a possible reshuffle, and wonders why Clegg didn’t complain about Lansley’s reforms earlier. Peter Hoskin reveals who has won and who has lost, and
The Ministry of Defence is Whitehall’s last monolith. Charged with the nation’s defence, it is powerful enough to challenge the Treasury. As Pete notes, there are signs that it’s trying to defer (if not avoid) the cuts laid out the punishing strategic defence and security review. It has many ways of doing this. Obviously it
The American academic and foreign policy realist Stephen Walt has put an interesting idea on his blog: would re-introducing the draft make America less interventionist? Perhaps it would, and perhaps there’s a good case to be made for doing the same in Britain. Calling for a return to conscription might sound like a silly right-wing
Developments aplenty on the Portuguese front — the most noteworthy being that Britain is probably in for a €4.8 billion share of the €80 billion tab. Robert Peston explains the numbers here, although it basically comes down to the lending mechanisms that will be deployed. Add up our 13.5 per cent exposure to the European
Author Alison Pargeter picks up the debate about Libya and al Qaeda in this morning’s Times (£), dismissing the idea that a new “jihadist hotspot” is being created. As I wrote some time ago, it is difficult even for people who have travelled in eastern Libya to know anything for sure. I hear from sources
As one famous artist vanished in Beijing, another appeared. Bob Dylan has begun a tour of China in the same week as Ai Weiwei became the most prominent victim of Beijing’s current repression drive. Ai has been unlawfully incarcerated for what the authorities describe as ‘economic crimes’, and the cry has gone out for his
Is the defence budget the most chaotic in all Whitehall? George Osborne said as much last October — and he’s still dealing with its hellish intricacies now. The main problem, as so often in military matters, is one of overcommitment. Thanks to various accounting ruses on Labour’s part, large parts of the MoD’s costs were
I’ve not been hugely impressed by Scyld Berry’s tenure* as editor of Wisden and his decision to name just four rather than the customary five Cricketers of the Year this season merely confirms that. It’s either a cop-out or a dishonourable play for extra publicity. Neither explanation reflects well upon the venerable Almanack. For the
I’m most grateful to Selena Gray for publicising Glenda Jackson’s response to the notion that volunteers might run a library that Brent council has threatened to close. I don’t think, however, Selena goes nearly far enough. Firstly, it cannot be pointed out too often that any library closures are the responsibility of councils, not central
Toby Young’s piece in the latest issue of the Spectator magazine captures one of the problems facing the Big Society. It’s not that people don’t want to donate their time to fill in the cracks left by the cuts – it’s that they’re often blocked from doing so. Toby highlights the case of Kensal Rise
Well, David Cameron is doing his part to boost the Spanish economy — by EasyJetting to the country with SamCam to celebrate her 40th Birthday. But what about Spain’s peninsular cousins, the Portuguese? They were, more or less, the subject of George Osborne’s speech to the British Chambers of Commerce conference earlier — but not
Most councils publish a newspaper – usually delivered to your door and instantly discarded. The government has decided that these freesheets are both a waste of public money and detrimental to local newspapers competing in the open market; the accusation that they are predominantly used for propaganda purposes has also been made. Labour opposed the
There is one particular question swirling around when it comes to Libya: how brittle is the regime and its military arm? An answer is now slowly emerging, and one that looks like good news for the rebels – if also yet more proof of Gaddafi’s depravity. Reuters is running a story about refugees inside Libya,
How much are we in for? That is the question that springs most readily to mind after Portugal’s request for fiscal aid from the EU. And, sadly, the answer is difficult to work out. The figures being spread around range from £3 billion to £6 billion, with valuations in between. But, really, it depends on
There is extraordinary news today, suggesting that the Academies revolution is continuing apace. What was a trickle under the Labour years is turning into a flood. This time last year just 1 in 16 state secondaries had ‘Academy’ status: that is, operationally independent within the state sector. Now, it is 1 in 6. By Christmas,
Nick Clegg’s interview with Jemima Khan (née Goldsmith), in which he admits to crying regularly to music, is already coming in for predictable mockery. But the point that Clegg makes about how his job is affecting his kids is worth dwelling on. Clegg is not the only coalition minister to fret about this. Sarah
Judge Richard Goldstone has changed his mind. Writing in the Washington Post, he admits that his “fact-finding mission had no evidence” for key allegations made in the UN report into the Gaza war that bears his name, including the claim that Israel intentionally targeted civilians “as a matter of policy.” Wow! That’s the only possible
With all the talk about social mobility, it was inevitable that those who believe grammar schools were the doorway to opportunity would wade into the debate. The most prominent of these interventions came yesterday from David Davis, who said: “The hard data shows that the post-war improvement in social mobility, and its subsequent decline, coincided exactly
Reassurance — that’s what the happy trio of David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Andrew Lansley sought to emit during their NHS event earlier. And reassurance not just about where the coalition is taking the health service (although there was plenty of that), but also about the “listening exercise” they are engaging in now. Although all
David Cameron is determined to get away from the idea of an annual Cabinet cull. He has repeatedly told friends that he doesn’t want to reshuffle the Cabinet until March 2012. But The Times, the most pro-coalition paper, today uses its leader column (£) to call on Cameron to reshuffle straight after the May elections.
Ahead of this morning’s Cameron, Clegg, Lansley event on the NHS, it is worth reminding ourselves of what Nick Clegg was saying about these reforms back at the start of the year. On January 23rd, he went on the Andrew Marr show and had this exchange: ‘ANDREW MARR: Huge change to the NHS just coming
The Guardian’s political editor, Michael White, has been writing about the possibility of there being a British version of the American’s Tea Party. He says: “Potential leaders? Motormouth red-top columnists such as Jon Gaunt, Rod Liddle and Richard Littlejohn are routinely touted……..” Are we? Excellent. I think I’d make a wonderful leader of a British