All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Blimey David, the startling aspect of Eric Pickles’ announcement that central government will loosen the guidelines it issues to local councils concerning the proper provision of car parking spaces is not that this modest proposal has somehow made it through the Whitehall machine but that it was ever thought sensible for Whitehall to tell the
I answer the question in an article for the Times (£) today, in response to Francis Maude’s announcement yesterday. But for those CoffeeHousers who can’t vault the paywall, here’s the relevant passage: “I have been told of an internal report that makes the argument sublimely well. Before last year’s spending review, the Treasury asked a
After all that, the House of Representatives has passed the bill to raise America’s debt ceiling, by 269 votes to 161. But, for all the economic significance of last night, it was the vote of one woman that really set proceedings alight. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords returned to the floor of the House for the first
Eric Pickles’ decentralisation revolution continues, with the announcement that Whitehall is relinquishing control over car parking restrictions in town centres. From now on, town halls will decide how much space will be devoted to parking and at what price. It is hoped that this will stimulate commerce in the localities by improving the experience of
Mind you, if Obama lost on the Debt Deal then what to make of Mitt Romney’s position? As president, my plan would have produced a budget that was cut, capped and balanced – not one that opens the door to higher taxes and puts defense cuts on the table. President Obama’s leadership failure has pushed
Despite small falls in petrol prices last month, the consequence of a supermarket price war according to the AA, motoring becomes ever more expensive. Political campaigns have opened as pressure builds at the pumps; and these campaigns have been co-opted by influential organs such as the Sun. The government has reacted: taking part in the International
Hurrah! We have a deal! Financial meltdown has been avoided! Well done Congress! As has to be the case in these circumstances it’s a case of making the best of a rotten and also ridiculous situation. Whether it lasts is a different matter, not least since this Congress cannot bind its successors. In the larger
Frantic deal-making over the weekend appears to have clinched a $2.4 trillion US debt ceiling deal, with $900 billion in initial spending cuts and the rest to be determined by a committee over the autumn. The White House has the official statement here. There’s still a chance the deal will fail in the House, but
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad has praised his troops for ‘foiling the enemies’ of his country. Some enemies. 140 civilians are said to have died in a pre-Ramadan crackdown on protesters, adding to the toll of 1,600 civilians who have been killed since anti-government demonstrations began in mid-March. Details of the events in Hama are
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
On balance, I agree with Sir Geoffrey: Ian Bell was out and the Indians had nothing for which to feel ashamed. On the contrary, it is England whose reputations are, to my mind, (slightly) diminished by this incident. To recap: batting for England in the second test against India yesterday Ian Bell believed his partner
…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Peter Hoskin notes that the public is behind Ed Balls on cutting VAT, gives some context to the death penalty debate, and wonders if the Mili-wounds are healing. Daniel Korski says that Egyptian revolution is still on track. Alex Massie asks if the
Turkish accession to the EU is apparently no more than a dream of those who desire it at present, but it remains a point of contention across Europe. The British government, for instance, are in favour of enlargement, believing Turkey’s economy to be essential to Europe’s continued economic strength. Accession would also hamper the goal
There are few more useful addendums to Danny Alexander’s comments earlier than YouGov’s poll for the Sunday Times today. It asks people about individual policies for growth, and the results will be disheartening for the Tory leadership and encouraging for Ed Balls. An overwhelming majority supports Balls’s call for a cut in VAT, while few
Danny Alexander is usually the very model of collective responsibility: sober, unfussy and diligent, he sets about the coalition’s work without ever causing a scene. Which is what makes his televised comments about the 50p tax rate earlier all the more striking. When pressed on the subject by interviewer Sophie Rayworth, the Chief Secretary to
At last, signs that Washington’s lawmakers may have scrabbled together a debt deal after all. According to the overnight wires, the White House and Congressional leaders have alighted on a package that would raise the ceiling by $2.4 trillion, so long as the deficit is reduced by at least the same amount over the next
Coffee House congratulations to Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall, who were married in Edinburgh today. Footage via ConservativeHome:
Something quite remarkable has happened over the past couple of the days. It started with the launch of the government’s new e-petition site, which promises that any petition which secures 100,000 signatures will be “eligible for debate in the House of Commons”. And it continued with Guido Fawkes submitting a petition to reinstate the death
Are the seeping knife wounds healing at last? This morning’s Guardian reveals that Ed Miliband has offered his older brother a role as Labour’s “unofficial ambassador on university and college campuses”, and that David Miliband has accepted. Although party sources tell the paper that “this should not be seen as a sign that [MiliD] is
Momentousness without momentum. That’s what we’re getting from America at the moment, as this all-crucial debt deal continues to stutter and stall. The main development in Washington yesterday was John Boehner securing enough Republican votes to pass his bill in the House of Representatives — only for it to be summarily tabled by Democrats in
Here are some of the posts that were made on Spectator.co.uk over the past week: Fraser Nelson undermines Ed Balls’s spin about growth and the cuts. Peter Hoskin previews George Osborne’s summer of pain, and introduces the Game of Growth. Jonathan Jones wonders how you measure cuddles. Martin Bright has some questions for the police.
It is 55 years, this week, since Egyptian forces under President Nasser siezed and nationalised the Suez Canal – and triggered the eventual Suez Crisis in the process. Here is The Spectator’s leader from the time: Safeguarding Suez, 3 August 1956 Colonel Nasser’s seizure of the Suez Canal provides a fitting climax to the disasters which
Tim Montgomerie is a bonnie fighter but his essay in this week’s magazine (Subscribe from as little as £1 a week!) is a splendid example of the pundit’s fallacy: if matters were arranged as I think they should be everything would be for the best and David Cameron would have a thumping majority. Well, maybe
The Egyptian revolution has pulled itself back from the brink in a quite an extraordinary way. Everyone feared a clash in Tahrir Square today but, so far, a deal struck between the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafists, the pro-democracy activists and the military is holding. Tahrir Square is teeming with white-clad Hajis. But everything is calm.
Just the thing to liven up a slow news day: a response from the Tory backbencher Louise Mensch to a series of insinuating points put to her by “David Jones Investigative Journalists”. The points were all about her time working at the record company EMI in the 90s; about her drug use, night-clubbing habits, that
Journalist seeks to embarrass politician for crime of enjoying themselves before they became a politician and, apparently, must expect to have their every move vetted by prudes and scolds. Said hack wants to know if it is true that: Whilst working at EMI, in the 1990s, you took drugs with Nigel Kennedy at Ronnie Scott’s
But first, another grubby little piece of u-turning from this government. You might think that a commitment to remove from the DNA database the details of more than a million innocent people was both simple and easily honoured. Such a suspicion fails to appreciate the so-called complexity of the matter and, one must presume, the
A cracking, little story that we arrived at via the Daily Mail website: thanks to an FoI request put in by the Taxpayers’ Alliance, the Department for Transport has revealed which websites its staff visited on work computers between January 1st and May 31st this year. The full list is here, and there are some
As you may have noticed it’s been pretty quiet around here. That’s what weddings, cricket matches, some unseasonal sunshine and, most of all, being swamped by family will do for you. Those waters are receding now and there’s time and freedom to blog again. Hurrah. Plenty to write about too, including the test match, Norwegian
The homepage of the Washington Post has a clock ticking down to America’s debt-ceiling deadline: four days, 14 hours, and a fast-declining number of minutes and seconds. It also has details of the events, last night, that upset the prospect of a deal being reached yet again. The Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives,
All of the buccaneering rhetoric has been sucked from the Libyan conflict this week, replaced with words of concession, compromise and caution. A few days ago, it was the news that — contrary to what they might previously have said — the government is prepared to let Gaddafi remain in the country after all. Today,
“The News of the World proved is is a force for good.” So said Sara Payne, the mother of the murdered schoolgirl Sarah Payne, in a column for the final edition of the paper. Its writers and editors had supported her unerringly, she wrote, in her campaign for tighter laws against child molesters. “I shall
Westminster, today, is all a-titter about an anecdote contained within this FT article about Steve Hilton. It is, it must be said, a good ‘un: “Mr Hilton’s crusade against employment legislation also saw him suggest that Mr Cameron just ignore European labour regulations on temporary workers, prompting an exasperated exchange with Jeremy Heywood, Downing Street’s
There was much sly amusement earlier this week when George Osborne, responding to the latest growth figures, described Britain as “a safe haven in the storm”. The idea that our high inflation, low growth economy might be a “safe” anything seemed, to many, a grotesque idea. But, in truth, the Chancellor may have had
