All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The ruckus over sending a high-speed railway roaring through some of Southern England’s most prized back gardens might be dominating the headlines. But another, separate row over planning is brewing. Behind closed doors, ministers are straining to develop a coherent plan to build the new houses that Britain – especially the South East needs –
My esteemed colleage Nick Cohen dislikes disagreeing with the equally estimable James Forsyth and I dislike disagreeing with Nick in turn. But his comments on the decision not to block Rupert Murdoch’s bid to purchase the 61% of BSkyB he did not already own seem unecessarily belligerent and, moreover, hyperbolic. Nick writes: The editors of
With all the provisos attached to News Corp’s takeover of BSkyB, opposition to the deal has surely now been diluted. But there are, perhaps, two groups who can still legitimately complain about the outcome. Firstly, those of us who believe that unrestricted freedom of speech is vital in the TV broadcasting arena. The Murdoch
Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. James Forsyth considers the domestic politics of oil, and believes that Cameron must try to be a little more prime ministerial. Peter Hoskin reports on Miliband’s latest break with the past, and watches Osborne go on the offensive. David Blackburn argues that
I’ve spent ten minutes reading the same passage and still don’t understand what it means. It comes from Harriet Harman, quoted in the Independent, criticising the government’s Libya strategy: “The response to the terrible events in Libya has been a shambles. The key to their shambolic response lies in their ideology. If your perspective is
On any normal day, a missive from Tim Farron to George Osborne – urging him to axe the planned rise in fuel duty – would be striking enough. On a day when the Lib Dems finished sixth in a by-election, it has a whole lot more piquancy to it. I’m not saying that the Next
Writing yesterday my esteemed colleague James Forsyth said that for want of a better alternative Jeremy Hunt was the Tory Party’s coming man. I hate disagree with James, but I would put more money on Colonel Gaddafi making it through the next 12 months than the Conservatives’ “rising star”. Every newspaper group with the exception
You may notice that the Liberal Democrats don’t feature in the first two graphs of the by-election result in Barnsley Central last night. Or, rather, they do – they’re just subsumed under the ‘Others’ category, having finished in sixth place. Second in the general election, sixth last night. The 1,012 votes for the
A strange sort of anniversary, but an anniversary nonetheless: it is 31 years, to the day, since Robert Mugabe took power in Zimbabwe, or Rhodesia as it was still called. In which case, here is The Spectator’s leading article from the time. It is, for the large part, a good demonstration of the benefits conferred
Matthew Sinclair’s piece on high-speed rail makes two main criticisms, both of which have already been addressed in the material published earlier this week for the consultation – but I would like to explain our approach again here. First, Matthew criticises our forecasts. He would prefer us not to forecast demand beyond 2026, but
An interesting survey from Conservative Home USA reports that the conservative intelligentsia – much of it DC-based – doesn’t think much of the Republican party’s presidential hopefuls. Asked to rank possible contenders across eight categories the only people to score highly are, wait for it, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and Mitch Daniels. Keen-eyed readers will
Last night’s by-election result in Barnsley is embarrassing for both Clegg and Cameron. For Clegg, it is obviously humiliating to come sixth. Fourth would have been bad enough but sixth is an even worse result than the Lib Dems feared. The fact the Lib Dems also lost their deposit just adds insult to injury. The
We are meant to be living in a multi-polar world, one where US power is waning, and where countries reject the prying interference of the West. Except, erm, we aren’t. Today’s world looks exactly as it did yesterday. First, many of the 20th century issues people thought would disappear – dictators, repression and democracy –
Is Queen Rania of Jordan turning into the Marie Antoinette of Jordan? She is loved in the West, and seen as the very model of a modern Muslim monarch. But in Jordan she’s viewed with increasing resentment. As the Arab Spring shakes thrones all over the Muslim world, Mary Ann Sieghart jetted off there to
As the situation deteriorates in Libya and the international community begins to look at various options, including military ones, policymakers would do well to remember a number of key lessons from the last 15 years of warfare. Like all history, they don’t provide a guide to the future, but can be a warning nonetheless. The
Is David Cameron a hawk or a dove? And how useful is that question anyway? I suspect the answers are “more of a hawk than not” and “not much”. The Prime Minister has not, shall we say, been at his best vis a vis Libya. Then again, foreign policy is not his longest-suit as anyone
Nick Clegg’s speech in Luton today on extremism is a challenge to large parts of David Cameron’s remarks on the subject in Munich just last month. Indeed, even the venue of the speech can be seen as a rebuke to Cameron who was attacked for giving a speech on Islamic extremism on the same day
The decision on News Corp’s take-over of BSkyB has thrust Jeremy Hunt into the spotlight. The culture secretary is many Tories’ bet to be the next leader of the party. Hunt is ambitious even by political standards: during the Brown bounce he canvassed opinion as to whether he should stand in the Tory leadership contest
Need a bestiary to tell the hawks from the doves? Then this article (£) in the Times should serve your purpose. It’s an account of Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting on Libya, and the differences of opinion that transpired. Michael Gove, we are told, was “messianic” in his call for a tougher stance against Gaddafi. William Hague,
Government is about choices. In opposition you can like anything, support any measure, back any proposal. But when in office you either make choices or invite dismissal. So when International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell looked at Britain’s development spending he was determined to make choices. Now that he has, some people don’t like it. Not
The London School of Economics once had a global reputation. The Libyan revolution wiped it away as easily as if it was mist on a window. I cannot find precedent for the collapse in liberal and academic standards Howard Davies, the LSE’s director, presided over. The Cambridge spies met at Cambridge University, as their
The Nottingham Post has a great scoop about Labour-led Nottingham City Council’s abuse of taxpayer funds. The story can be distilled into one sentence: ‘City council leader Jon Collins has used a consultant paid £870-a-day by the taxpayer for advice on Labour’s campaign in the run-up to the May election.’ Nottingham is one of England’s
I can’t decide whether Matthew Sinclair thinks High-Speed Rail too ambitious or not ambitious enough. I’m happy to share his scepticism towards the economic and jobs numbers put forward by the plans’ backers but trust he will not be offended by the suggestion his own figures should be treated with comparable scepticism. Who knows what
The government release a claim that HS2 will bring 40,000 new jobs. They are so desperate to let the public know that figure they breach proper practice by briefing it ahead of the publication of the consultation document. When the consultation document comes out, I will look at whether creating that number of jobs is
I think that nice Laurie Penny over at the New Statesman must actually be a conservative mole dedicated to undermining leftism from within. How else to explain this sort of stuff: The difference between Tahrir Square and Parliament Square is one of scale, but not of substance. Across the world, ordinary people are being denied
The BBC are reporting that unleaded petrol has now reached 130p per litre and are blaming Libya. I¹m not convinced. Libya only accounts for about 2.3 percent of global oil production and even now the Arabian Gulf Oil Co¹s production in east Libya is around a third of normal levels. The real cause of the
Theresa May has a new soundbite: police pay or police jobs. May has been asked to find cuts of 20 percent in the police budget. May insists that the frontline must and will be protected and that therefore these ‘extraordinary circumstances’ mean that the government will have to rewrite the terms and conditions of police
PoliticsHome reports that the government is to ask the ECHR to reconsider its verdict in the prisoner voting rights case. The website says: ‘In a response to a parliamentary question from Labour MP Gordon Marsden, Cabinet Office Under-Secretary Mark Harper said: “We believe that the court should look again at the principles in “Hirst” which
On Friday Ireland threw away a chance of victory against Bangladesh, losing a game their bowlers had put them in a position to win. Chasing 205 on an oddly-paced pitch proved too much. And that’s often the way: anything much more than 4 an over is asking a lot. So when England reached 327 today
It was Monty Python without the jokes. The focus of PMQs today veered surreally between crisis in north Africa and early swimming pool closures in Leeds. The session opened in Security Council mode with Ed Miliband politely asking the PM to brief us on the humanitarian disaster evolving in Libya’s border-zone. Cameron went into his
VERDICT: What began as a measured affair, with polite questions from Miliband about Libya and the Defence establishment, effervesced into something more dramatic. I was surprised Miliband didn’t concentrate on the rising cost of living; rather, he chipped at the local government funding settlement. By concentrating on examples of Tory-led council intransigence, Miliband did not
Danny Finkelstein’s paean of praise (£) to Andrew Cooper, the PM’s new director of political strategy, contains several interesting lines. Finkelstein says that his former flat mate’s biggest challenge is, ‘Devising a strategy for changes in the NHS so that a critical political battle isn’t lost disastrously’. This is yet another indication of how nervous
The Home Office has an ambitious police reform agenda and is overseeing challenging budget reductions, but they are also forging ahead with plans to introduce real workforce modernisation. The serious and credible reviewer, Tom Winsor, will publish his independent report next Tuesday. Winsor’s review will cover pay, conditions and other aspects of employment that
Matthew Sinclair argues that the government’s plans for high-speed rail would not create enough jobs to justify the government spending money on the project. But his argument is disingenuous as he is not comparing like for like. He is comparing predictions about jobs created directly by high-speed rail with predictions about jobs created indirectly by