All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
No wonder some backbench Tory MPs are apoplectic: courtesy of David Cameron, Simon Hughes has been elevated from soapbox to pulpit. Hughes’ first statement as the government’s university access adviser is to suggest that universities should limit their intake of students from private schools. He told the Guardian: ‘I think my message to the universities
As Tim Montgomerie notes, tonight’s Angus Reid poll asks an interesting question about who voters would support if asked to choose between Labour and a Coalition party. This questions pushes up support for Labour with Labour scoring 45 percent on it compared to 40 percent on a normal voting intention question. The increase in Labour
Inflation is one of the most important topics around right how so I thought I’d respond to CoffeeHousers’ comments in a post rather than the original thread. Nick and Gareth Sutcliffe say that inflation is due to global forces (and they’re right insofar as metals, food, etc are all going up). But if the money
Here is a selection of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson is pleased that Gove’s school reforms have reached a ‘tipping point’, and weighs up King’s ransom. James Forsyth charts the political fallout from the VAT increase, and says there is all to play for in Oldham East. Peter Hoskin
Log it in your diaries, CoffeeHousers: on this day – Friday, 7th January, 2011 – a former MP was sent to jail for abusing the parliamentary expenses system. Yes, David Chaytor has been sentenced to eighteen months for, ahem, “false accounting” his way to £18,000 of taxpayers’ cash. He’s the first former parliamentarian to be
As if to illustrate Pete’s post about the rise of China and India, Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang has just finished a visit to Spain during which agreements worth 5.7 billion euros were signed. The Chinese delegation is said to have committed itself to buying six billion euros of Spanish debt, which helped calm markets
Neal Lawson¹s Comment is Free blog-post/essay/manifesto on the ‘good society‘ is causing a flurry of interest in Labour circles. The head of Labour leftish pressure group Compass has been banging on about this for four years now. Borrowed ultimately from Aristotle, this re-heated utopianism is a tempting route for post-socialists tired of the compromises of
By my count, it’s the fourth speech that Nick Clegg has delivered specifically on the subject of deflating the state since last May. And like his last three, today’s number was stuffed with words like “liberty” (23 times), “freedom” (19) and “power” (14). Much of the more specific content was familiar, too: like the confident
The week began with grim projections about petrol prices, and has been coloured by the twin topics of tax and inflation since. So, a decent opportunity to look back on the fuel protests of 2000, in the latest shot from the Spectator archives. Here’s a piece from the time, by Coffee House regular, and Spectator
We’re used to seeing growth forecasts for the next few years, but here’s an altogether rarer beast: forecasts stretching all the way to 2050. They were released by PricewaterhouseCoopers last night, and I thought CoffeeHousers might appreciate seeing them in graph form. Naturally, slap health warnings aplenty across this – economists barely know what will
How much bigger does Britain’s inflation have to become before Mervyn King realises it’s a problem? The VAT rise should have lifted prices by 2.1 percent – but shopkeepers over Britain have been applying far larger rises. Why? Because one of the most important factors in economics – expectation of inflation – is back. People
David Aaronovitch is one of the preeminent voices of the liberal-left in this country. He is no social conservative and has been dismissive of those who want a lower time-limit for abortion. But today he wrote something that reminded me of that famous Peggy Noonan column about the Columbine massacre and ‘the ocean in which
Sarah Ellison has profiled Julian Assange and his relationship with the Guardian for Vanity Fair. Read the whole piece for each petulant tantrum, sordid disclosure and twist of hypocrisy, but here are the opening paragraphs to get you started. ‘On the afternoon of November 1, 2010, Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks.org, marched with
Ed Balls has been biding his time on Control Orders, but now he has struck. Writing on his blog, he appealed for consensus on this ‘sensitive issue’. ‘I have told Theresa May that, wherever possible, I will support her over the counter-terrorism measures that must be taken in the national interest – and we will
Ed Miliband has penned a combative but incredible piece in today’s Times (£). He makes two substantial points. First, that the coalition is deceiving people: Labour was not to blame for the deficit. And second, the coalition’s cuts package (in its entirety) is unnecessary. Oh what a tangled web he’s weaved. His argument is a
Clichéd, for sure, but it is the line that’s tagged every story about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s departure from office. Will Arnie return to the political fray or enjoy a sun-kissed retirement? The odds of a return to office are long. California, the state that did most to shape America’s self-image in the 20th century, is now
David Cameron has reiterated that Control Orders are to be scrapped. He told an audience in Leicester yesterday: ‘The control order system is imperfect. Everybody knows that. There have been people who’ve absconded from control orders. It hasn’t been a success. We need a proper replacement and I’m confident we’ll agree one.’ Whether the new
It is to his credit that nuance is a word inimical to Lord Tebbitt. The unashamedly independent voice of the past has written a cutting piece about the coalition, the Lib Dems and the Oldham East by-election. He says: ‘A Lib Dem win would tilt the Coalition even farther Left and away from Conservative policies.’
I have been arguing for a return of the Thatcher-era Enterprise Allowance scheme for two years, so I was delighted to see David Cameron announce the extension of the New Enterprise Allowance today. It always made sense to allow as many people as possible to come off the dole and set up their own businesses.
Today marks something of a milestone for Michael Gove’s school reform agenda. Free schools – i.e. ‘Academies’ which are independently run, yet within the state sector – now account for more than 10 percent of British secondaries. This is what I have always thought of as a tipping point – where independent schools offer real
The Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election is fast shaping up to be the event that will set the tone for the first quarter of the political year. The unique circumstances in which the vote was called makes it particularly hard to predict, no one is quite sure whether there’ll be a backlash against Woolas or
This comment from Nick Clegg – speaking to the Evening Standard today – deserves pasting into the political scrapbook: “Let me be absolutely clear once and for all. The Liberal Democrats will fight the next election as we did the last – as an independent political party in every constituency in the country.” Which is
It seems that Cardinal Walter Kasper was right: parts of Britain are suggestive of the Third World. The Sun has been leading the tally-ho against council leaders in Exeter and Birmingham, who have allowed rubbish to lie in the streets for more than a month. And today, Local Government Minister Bob Neil joined (£) the
The foreword to IPSA’s latest consultation document is certainly more conciliatory than combative. “The last eight months have been demanding, both for MPs and their staff, and for IPSA,” it starts – in subtle reference to the mutual frustrations that have overtaken the expenses operation to date – before asking whether the current system can
Ok, not quite. But this snippet from GQ’s interview with Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan is almost a description of Ed Miliband’s rise to the Labour leadership: “One of my criticisms of a lot of politicians of all parties is that they’re career politicians. Since they were 11 years old they dreamed of being an
Grant Shapps has impressed in the housing brief, arguing that house prices rising faster than wages is not a good thing (with which Policy Exchange’s report, Making Housing Affordable, agreed). He has probably been encouraged by the fact that some recent polls have shown even a majority of owners want prices to stop rising. Perhaps
I’m afraid this blogging-hiatus is likely to continue for another day or so. Or at least until the batch of plague from which I’m currently suffering moves on to victims new. Assuming it ever does… Meanwhile, here are the answers to the 2010 edition of the Christmas Quiz: CHRISTMAS QUIZ 2010 ANSWERS: 1. Where could
Cameron and Clegg are putting on a show for the in-laws. After mounting disquiet from the fringes of their respective parties, the two leaders are journeying to Oldham East to quash rumours of a merger and reaffirm that theirs is a marriage of necessity. David Cameron will travel north in due course. God knows what
Today has been one of predictable political sparring over the VAT increase. But, as one Tory MP said to me last night, the crucial question is how long people keep talking about it. If the public come to blame the VAT rise for every price rise they encounter—as Ed Miliband wants them to—then the coalition
A month ago I found myself in the space of one week in two different countries, yet in the midsts of what felt like the same phenomenon: the political awakening of a new generation. In both London and Rome, students took to the streets to protest against government policies in numbers and in ways that
Come back, you insufferable relatives, all is forgiven: the political class has devoted an afternoon to trading insults about who said what about VAT and when. However, there have been some intriguing exchanges amid the New Politics’ latest outing. First, Labour seems to be fighting the two coalition partners as a single entity in Oldham
VAT, VAT, VAT – but what’s this? The main headline on today’s FT doesn’t mention the sales tax at all, and the piece below it only does so in passing. Instead, a declaration that “UK austerity measures [are] expected to pay off,” based on a survey of economists conducted by the paper. Although those polled
It is very clear that the government cannot carry on borrowing at current rates and the coalition’s proposals for reducing government borrowing are prudent. However, today’s VAT rise is unnecessary. As has been said before, we did not get into this situation because the government taxes us too little. Ever since Gordon Brown abandoned his
For a while it looked like the West had the upper hand. Belarus’ Aleksandr Lukashenko, Europe’s last dictator, seemed to be moving away from Russia and closer to the West. A succession of European ministers went to see him and returned to develop packages of support and assistance with his country. In that new “Great