All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
There’s good and bad news this month. The disappointing news is that the latest surveys suggest only one in five American high schoolers smokes tobacco even occasionally. The good news is that one in five smokes marijuana from time to time. According to this year’s official figures: For 12th-graders, declines in cigarette use accompanied by
You don’t need to share Julian Assange’s politics or his objectives to think that he’s the victim of at least one double standard. If he’s guilty of betraying secrets and endangering lives and making diplomacy more difficult and everything else then so are the publishers of the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde and
Shane Warne’s statement on his separation from his wife, which makes no mention of his alleged affair with Liz Hurley, is a classic example of how difficult it is for celebrities—or politicians—to both engage online and control a message. The first comment from a Greg Quinn says, ‘thanks shane for sticking it up the poms’.
Peter Kellner has an interesting comment piece up on the YouGov site about how we are in the unusual position of having three relatively unpopular party leaders. Nick Clegg’s approval rating is down at minus 29 but that hasn’t helped Ed Miliband who is at minus 15. David Cameron does have a positive rating, but
Each time politicians fight regulation, regulation normally wins. So far it seems like this coalition government is no different. John Redwood has been busy tabling parliamentary questions asking each department how many regulations have been introduced, and how many repealed. Rather than “one in, one out” in turns out that two regulations have been introduced
We’ve got lots of power – please take some. That’s the central message of today’s localism bill, and of Eric Pickles’ article in the Telegraph to accompany it. Indeed, the government’s 15-page document to explain the bill features the word “power” (in the context of shifting power away from the centre) over 50 times. Eight
After Ed Miliband’s buttery overtures to the Lib Dems earlier, a response courtesy of the party president, Tim Farron. It offers, on the surface at least, a vicious rebuke to the Labour leader – and a staunch defence of what the coalition has achieved. Here it is in full: “Labour have just spent 13 years
It seems strange for Ed Miliband to veer from offensive to charm quite so quickly, but it’s a decent ruse nonetheless. Miliband deliberately cites David Cameron’s famous ‘comprehensive offer’ and many disenchanted Lib Dems will be swayed by his three point-plan, especially after the recent Grayson intervention. Disingenuous? Yes. Opportunistic? Very. Coherent and well-defined opposition
…here some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson urges Cameron to head for the centre ground. James Forsyth analyses the Liberal Democrat insurgency, and examines the coalition’s current strength and weakness. Peter Hoskin notes that Clegg has fallen from hero to zero, and charts the submerged tensions in the Tory
A repulsive feature of contemporary left-wing thinking is its insistence that clerical fascists should dictate our foreign policy. After the 7/7 attacks on London, Robert Fisk lambasted Tony Blair for saying that radical Islamists were trying to destroy “what we hold dear”. He took Osama bin Laden as a source of moral and political guidance,
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
When the Obama administration started its latest Middle East initiative, it was amid great fanfare. I blogged – sceptically — about the optimism exuding from the State Department at the time. Now, however, the US government has given up its push for a freeze in Jewish settlement construction as quietly as possible. As Martin Indyk
With an uncanny sense of timing, the latest annual British Social Attitudes Survey suggests that the “conflicts of the future may be between today’s young and their parents’ generation.” And the thinking behind this conclusion? Simple: that, in so many ways, young people have never had it so good as the babyboomers did. From tuition
By way of an addendum to Fraser’s post, it’s worth reading Melissa Kite’s account of internal Tory strife for the Sunday Telegraph (it doesn’t seem to be in the paper, but is available online here). The piece records what sounds like a tumultuous week for the Tory whips, as they struggled to keep a group
All the attention last week was on the Lib Dem split – but what about the division within the Conservatives? This is the greater threat to the coalition, and while there is not likely to be an earthquake soon, one can discern the outlines of the tectonic plates. Ladbrokes has odds of 5-2 of an
It seems like only yesterday that conservative pundits were denouncing MPs for “destroying trust” with their fraudulent expense claims and writing books exposing New Labour deceitful spin with such stirring titles as The Rise of Political Lying. How soft those strident voices have become now that a centre-right rather than a centre-left government is doing
The Liberal Democrats are not like the other two parties. The acitvists still have real power and set the policy agenda of the party. This is what makes Richard Grayson’s intervention in The Observer today so important. Grayson is one of the leading activists on the left of the party. After Nick Clegg’s election as
If this morning’s papers are anything to go by, Nick Clegg is in freefall. The man who was the Lib Dems’ biggest electoral asset is now a magnet for all sorts of political digruntlement. Exhibit A: the Ipsos MORI poll (£) in today’s News of the World, where 61 percent of respondents say that they
Paul Chambers knows, more than most, the dangers of expressing yourself in 140 characters. His troubles, which you’ve probably read about in the papers, started when he joked on Twitter: “Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”
In the week when the Iranian regime forced Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani to goulishly re-enact the murder of her husband on TV, it is worth reading Newsweek’s interview with Mohammad Javad Larijani, a regime insider. His answers call to mind Comical Ali, whose delusional denials of the US advance in Iraq made everyone realise how detached
Today I joined number of leading Afghan experts, from Ahmed Rashid to Gilles Dorronsoro, in calling on President Obama to change the American strategy in Afghanistan. Based on our work in and on Afghanistan, we wanted to make a number of points just as the White House begins reviewing its strategy: First, that the cost
It’s quite something when the editor of The Spectator concedes that revolting students (if not the rioting ones) have a point. Fraser makes a persuasive point that no government department should have been immune from cuts. The political fallout from the decision to slash university budgets and hike tuition fees will continue long after the
As with so many things, the coalition’s great strength is also its great weakness. On the one hand, it is two parties working together, politicians putting aside their differences to cooperate in the national interest. This is something that, broadly speaking, the electorate likes. On the other, it is a government that nobody voted for.
A long time ago, I worked for CCHQ, David Cameron’s leadership campaign and them back in CCHQ again. We spent months trying to define what Conservatism really is. I don’t think we ever really got a pithy soundbite, because the root of its success is that it evolves to suit the times. Perhaps the best
I was astonished by the Guardian’s story this week about the lack of British African-Caribbean students at Oxbridge colleges. If we weren’t quite so blinded by the Wikileaks blizzard, I’m sure more would have been made of this. Hats off to David Lammy for raising the issue. I suspect this is as much an issue
During the latest bout of America’s interminable health care wars, Fox News decided that its presenters should refer to the “public option” as the “government option” or “government-run health insurance”. Big deal, you may say and you would have a point, but this has people in a tizzy about Fox’s “bias”. As if this had
No, not Paris, but the University of Essex – where, in early to mid-1968, students rallied angrily against Vietnam and all that. The situation was aggravated when three students – including David Triesman, later Lord Triesman – were summarily suspended from their studies, and The Spectator duly dispatched a correspondent to investigate. The resultant article
Can you imagine Gordon Brown holding a meeting with Tony Blair in Downing Street, then agreeing to share a the Prime Ministerial podium with his predecessor and then disappearing to another engagement, leaving Blair to hold court for half an hour? No, I don’t think so. And not just because Brown hated Blair’s guts. Even
One of the things I heard yesterday when I strolled around the edges of the protests, particularly from older people, was how the coalition’s policies had politicised Britain’s young. “It has really made my children wake up”, said an elderly bystander with a wistful look in his eyes. Student leaders say they now hope to
Tim Montgomerie tried to define his “Mainstream Conservatism” project again this morning. (My first take on it is here and Pete’s astute view is here). Bear in mind that Tim contrasts liberal conservatism with what he calls “authentic conservatism” and that while he insists upon the importance of breadth (good!) his movement is the one
It’s costing more than the government cuts in welfare, more even than the UK’s Irish bail-out, but what exactly is all that money set aside for the 2012 Olympic Games actually being spent on? You might be surprised. In this week’s Spectator, Andrew Gilligan and I disclose, for the first time, all the petty, legally-binding
Yesterday, I blogged that Serbia’s decision not to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony because of Chinese pressure was a shameful stance for the Balkan would-be EU member to take. Many others felt the same. Now, feeling the international pressure, it seems that Serbia’s government has decided that the country’s Ombudsman, Sasa Jankovic, will attend the
It’s not just the students who are waging a political struggle. In yesterday’s Times (£), Tim Montgomerie fired up a debate over the future of the Conservative Party that will no doubt simmer through the rest of this Parliament. For those who can’t delve behind the paywall, the argument was broadly this: that a tension
The revolution may not be televised, but protests certainly are – and the process magnifies the drama. Since last night, the news broadcasts have all had footage of two thugs trying to smash the windows of the Treasury and, in the process, familiarising themselves with the properties of bombproof glass. The attack on Charles and