All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The extraordinary scenes in Cairo today should not blind us to the fact that Hosni Mubarak’s apparent departure is not the beginning of the end but merely the end of the beginning. The army may have assured the protestors – whose gallantry, courage and peaceful presence on the streets of Egypt’s cities has been as
The world does really end with a whimper, not a bang, as T.S. Eliot said. After 31 years in power, seventeen days of protests, more than 300 dead and a shouting match between the US administration and its one-time Egyptian ally, it looks as if Hosni Mubarak will be leaving office tonight. Twitter is atwitter
The Davis Straw motion on keeping the ban on prisoner votes has just passed by 234 votes to 22. It is a crushing victory on what was a very good turnout given that both front benches were not voting. The 22 against the motion were a bunch of Liberal Democrats plus the Ulster MP Lady
The resignation last night of Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat’s Treasury spokesmen in the Lords, over his criticisms of Project Merlin is more important than it might appear. Despite not being a coalition minister, Oakeshott is one of the bigger figures in the Liberal Democrats and is extremely close to Vince Cable, who skis with
Twitter has exploded at the news that former Labour MP Jim Devine has been found guilty on two counts of false accounting, and is likely follow to David Chaytor to the slammer – another argument against votes for lags. Sentence will be passed in four weeks As James Kirkup wrote at the time of Chaytor’s
More so than other parties, the Liberal Democrats depend on their grassroots’ presence in local government. The foot soldiers’ importance has increased as the party’s polling strength wanes. So, Nick Clegg will be aghast that 88 leading Liberal Democrats have written to the Times (£) to castigate the government’s ‘front-loaded’ cuts to local government. Tuition
Project Merlin? Really? Never mind the detail of the plan to “deal with” the banks and their bonuses, my first reaction was to wonder if some Treasury chap with a sense of humour has been reading* Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy recently. Source Merlin, you will recall, peddles product Witchcraft to the Circus and nearly succeeds
James’s column in this week’s edition of the magazine (subscribe!) is characteristically excellent but it has produced one odd response already. Tim Montgomerie worries that it might be harder to pass “unpopular legislation” if the British electoral system is changed from First Past the Post to the Alternative Vote. Like other opponents of AV, Tim
Despite today’s ruptures, Hosni Mubarak has vowed to stay on until there can be an ordered transfer of power. His defiance will sound familiar to western ears: a lame duck politician determined to cling to the final vestiges of office. But, of course, in Egypt, Mubarak’s intransigence poses far more serious questions. It is
Seventeen Days that Shook the World? Not so fast, my friend! Hosni Mubarak’s speech this evening was many things but it wasn’t much of a resignation statement. Mostly, it was a nationalist plea for Middle Egypt’s sympathy vote. Presenting himself as father of the nation – including his “children” gathered in Tahrir Square and in
Reports from Tahrir Square are very confused. There is a firm body of opinion who doubt the ‘tough cookie’ Mubarak would have stood aside. Many suspect that today’s announcements are a ruse designed to strengthen his position. As Richard Ottaway put it, ‘Ill believe it when I see it.’ Meanwhile, others report the Mubarak has
Following the jury’s decision in the Jim Devine case, Eric Ilsley has been sentenced to 12 months in jail having pleaded guilty to charges of false accounting. As I wrote this morning, prison sentences for expenses offenders are both appropriate and constructive. They dictate that parliament should conduct itself with dignity and probity; and
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, asks a good question: When it comes to education, pensions, health care, Social Security, and hundreds of other government functions, conservatives are a beacon for fiscal responsibility, accountability, and limited government — the very principles that have made this country great. However, when it comes to criminal-justice spending, the
The government’s plans for state forestry are so weak and feeble that it is hard to understand why there is so much fuss about them. Maybe people do not realise that three-quarters of the English woodland that they love so much is already privately owned. And those private owners face strict standards on public access
Parliament will debate a prisoner’s right to vote tonight, to satisfy the ECHR’s now infamous judgement. Jack Straw and David Davis, the progenitors of tonight’s discussion, have taken time to explain why they believe the ECHR does not have the right to dictate to sovereign states on such matters. Writing for Con Home, Davis has
Some attacks hurt more than others. And the attack launched by Chris Simpkins, the director-general of the Royal British Legion, on the government’s approach to the military covenant will be particularly painful. For it comes after a Defence Review that left few happy, and when the nation is engaged in a war from which many
One of the more depressing sights in politics at the moment is how Andy Burnham is leading the Labour party back to its comfort zone on education. Burnham, who The Spectator once named minister to watch, seems to have jettisoned all of his Blairite reforming instincts. He now wants to draw as many dividing lines
Last night the Southbank Centre hosted its second “Think Tank Clash”. As last year, it was a sell out event, and saw representatives of six of the country’s top think tanks take each other on in three debates. These debates were ably and wittily compared by writer John O’Farrell and the winners determined by audience
The fallout from Labour’s morally and tactically disastrous decision to attack David Cameron’s defence of liberal values continues. Now it is Joan Smith’s turn to take a kick. She is one of the few true feminists left in Britain, and proves it by her willingness to say without equivocation that if white-skinned women in Britain
Bankers make estate agents look popular and so any government deal with bankers that doesn’t involve kicking them is politically tricky. The Treasury, acutely aware of the politics of all this, are very keen to stress that the government ‘played hardball’ with Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS in the Project Merlin talks. The actual deal
VERDICT: A rowdy session, but constructive. Miliband went for the Big Society, which is in severe difficulty at present. He was very effective, but his attacks lacked absolute coherence. He failed to establish a link between his examples and his wider political point that the agenda is mere packaging for latent libertarianism. So, Cameron had
Today’s PMQs threatens to be overshadowed by the statement on Project Merlin, the government’s deal with the banks, expected at one o’clock. I suspect that Cameron will try and push away any questions on banks with the line that Miliband should wait for the Chancellor’s statement. But PMQs will still be a far livelier affair
These are hard times for the government and there is no respite. Today, parliament will debate a prisoner’s right to vote, in accordance with the wishes of the resented European Court of Human Rights. The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour writes what many suspect: on the back of a free vote, the House will deny prisoners the
Plenty of personality at today’s PMQs. Not much policy. Miliband opened with one of his stiletto questions. Short sharp and deadly. ‘How’s his Big Society going?’ he asked the prime minister. Potentially this is tricky ground for Cameron and he rose to a barrage of Labour jeers. At least he’s had time to rehearse his
Earlier today, the government unveiled Project Merlin, its attempt to link executive pay in banks to institutional lending, whilst driving down bonuses and increasing the Treasury’s revenue take. Here are its key components: Osborne welcomed ‘the most transparent pay regime in the world. Executive pay will be linked to targets for gross lending; remuneration for
Presently, the waves of bad news are as relentless as biblical plagues. The latest trade figures show that Britain’s trade gap opened in December; the seasonally adjusted deficit stood at £9.2bn, a rise from £8.5bn in November. There are plenty of explanations as to why the export-led recovery failed to jump customs, despite the comparatively
Foreign Secretary William Hague has arrived in Tunisia in order to support to the pro-democracy movement. Unlike his previous visit to Syria, which I think was poorly timed, this one is perfectly-timed. It could even end up looking like George Bush Snr’s visit to Poland in July 1989 when the US president publicly backed the
Not to grant him guru status or anything but I’m glad that Reuel Marc Gerecht has at last weighed-in on the Egypt Question. I’ve mentioned his writing before and think him one of the most interesting, and in some ways provocative, middle-east analysts. Even if you disagree with him, his ideas are worth serious consideration.
November 8th, 1994 is one of the hinge moments in modern American politics. If you wanted to write a counter-factual chronicle of recent American politics you could do worse than begin with the night George W Bush was elected Governor of Texas and Jeb Bush was defeated by Lawton Chiles in Florida. The 63,940 votes
Cambridge University’s decision, leaked to The Guardian’s Nick Watt, to start charging fees of £9,000 a year from 2012 is an irritation for the Liberal Democrats who did not want any university to move to charging the highest fee possible straight away. It also threatens to overshadow Nick Clegg’s efforts to increase the social mix
Balls is a bit like a vampire – he has bite, but he works best in the darkness. In the House of Commons, with those lights shining on him, his powers drain. George Osborne had the better of him in their brief exchanges at Treasury Questions. Balls led on the snow joke. But Osborne had
Here is a dispatch from the north-east by Andrew Hankinson, one of the best feature writers around, who wrote a superb piece on the effects of the crash of 2008 on the young. It sums up one of my worries about Labour’s awful response to David Cameron’s speech on the need to revive liberal values.
In October last year, Osborne announced a new levy on banks’ balance sheets. It was 0.05 percent for this calendar year, before rising to 0.075 percent from 2012 onwards. But, today, the Chancellor has announced that the ‘introductory’ rate has been abolished – so banks will be charged the 0.075 percent rate on all liabilities.
In continental lore, it is Britain that is often seen as the greatest impediment to EU integration. The government’s EU Bill initially caused horror in the rest of Europe. Would Britain have to vote for each treaty change, even those needed to enlarge the Union? Before the text of the bill became clear, every self-respecting