All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
It sometimes feels as if there has never been as much despair over the state of our education system as there is today. Despite the capacity of the Royal Wedding to awaken our heaviest-breathing collective fantasies of a return to serfdom, as we all excitedly queue up to shake the hand and curtsey to a
In or out? — that is the question that a new cross-party campaign would have put to the British people. And so they’re launching their “People’s Pledge” today. The idea is that voters would promise to support only those parliamentary candidates who back a referendum on our membership of the EU. The signatures will then
Plenty of folk have posted this video of the Japanese tsunami but if you haven’t seen it yet then check it out. It’s not gruesome but it is extraordinary and, to use the word properly for once, awesome. Make sure you watch right to the end. UPDATE: Ooops. Should be the right link now.
Obvious John Rentoul bait as this may be, the answer is still a definite No. Actually that’s not quite fair. Nick Clegg and at least some of his parliamentary colleagues are serious; much of the party membership and, above all, the people who often vote Lib Dem are not. That’s one thing to take from
I don’t know what we – that is Britain/NATO/the West/Whoever – should do about Libya. But while I think Brothers Korski and Nelson make many valid points I’m not sure that the case for any kind of military action has yet been made persuasively. That doesn’t mean one must be happy to see Gaddafi blitzing
The Liberal Democrats are still traumatised by what happened over tuition fees. Nearly every fringe meeting contained a long discussion of the issue and how the party could have handled it better. Clegg’s plan to heal the wound is to show that the new system will go hand in hand with a broadening of access
Of course PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesman, had to go for his gaffe. That’s what happens when you tell an obvious truth in circumstances that embarrass and even shame your bosses: P.J. Crowley abruptly resigned Sunday as State Department spokesman over controversial comments he made about the Bradley Manning case. Sources close to the
If the West is not ready to intervene decisively against Colonel Ghadaffi, it needs to get ready for a post-revolutionary Libya, where the dictator and his bloodthirsty family seek revenge on pro-democracy activists and countries like Britain. Think of Ghadaffi’s previous record: the Lockerbie bombing, targeted assassinations like in the 1970s, and attacks on US soldiers
I do feel for Nick Clegg. He’s taken an oppositionalist party into government, and they hate it. He is politically and psychologically prepared for what goes with power; grassroots LibDems less so. And this brings problems. Yesterday, he was complaining that his party is “too male and too pale”; but his main problem is that
‘Governing from the middle for the middle’ was the message of Nick Clegg’s unapologetic speech to Lib Dem conference. His effort to redefine the Liberal Democrats continued as he tried to move the party away from its traditional yoghurt-weaving concerns and instead focus on appealing to ‘alarm clock Britain.’ Clegg’s view is that the left
Whenever the BBC broadcast a major national celebration or royal event, they wheel out a Dimbleby to maintain the hereditary principle. If they want a probing political interview, they sacrifice the victim to the snarls of Paxman or the claws of Humphries. If they want election night gravitas, up pops the psephologically effervescent Peter Snow.
Slowly, David Cameron seems to be mutating into a hawk over Libya. I’ve been increasingly impressed with the way he has made the case for a no-fly zone – knowing that it is an unpopular cause outside of the Arab world. Since the evacuation chaos, which he apologised for, he has pretty much led calls
I hope the Japanese authorities are telling the truth about the nuclear reactor building which exploded as a consequence of the earthquake. We are told that while the outer shell at the Fukushima plant did indeed explode (as seen on YouTube), the inner core, within its steel cradle, remained apparently unimpaired. In which case, why
The cultural change Nick Clegg is trying to bring to the Liberal Democrats was summed up by one exchange during his Q&A with party delegates. One delegate, a member of the Federal Policy Committee, got up and said how conference had “sent the government a message” with its decision to amend the coalition’s health reform
We’re pushing for a no-fly zone. France is pushing for a no-fly zone. And now the Arab League is pushing for a no-fly zone too. The news fresh out of Cairo is that the organisation has voted in favour of restricting airspace above Libya. It will now push the UN to do the same, which
Singapore China has lost little time pledging rescue help and aid to Japan, even though it is burying its own dead from the earthquake that shook Yunnan on Thursday. Beijing is keenly aware the world is watching it like never before – so its leaders are keen to make all the right noises. But dig
Lib Dem conference has just overwhelmingly voted to amend Lansley’s NHS bill. In the end, the Lib Dem leadership simply accepted the amendments because it was so clear they were going to pass. Evan Harris, the former Lib Dem MP, warned that the party would not accept the leadership simply ignoring these amendments. He said
It’s not just the protestors who are rallying against Nick Clegg today. Here’s what Ed Balls has to say about the Lib Dem leader, in interview with the Guardian: “‘Clegg looks an increasingly desperate, shrill and discredited politician, losing both public and party support. People think that if Clegg says something, it cannot be the
Devastation today, and devastation when a tsunami swept across Sri Lanka, and other countries around the Indian Ocean, in 2004. Here is Andrew Gilligan’s report from Columbo at the time, which sought to set the facts straight: The littoral truth, Andrew Gilligan, The Spectator, 8 January 2005 Columbo The staff of Unicef’s Sri Lanka operation
The Liberal Democrats have, as Clegg’s team like to joke, gone from being the party of protest to the party people protest. Here in Sheffield, at Lib Dem spring conference, there’s a growing group of demonstrators standing just outside the secure zone. They are keeping up a steady chant of ‘Lib Dem scum, Lib Dem
Here is a selection of articles made at Spectator.co.uk over the last week. Fraser Nelson analyses Labour’s inflation pitch. James Forsyth thinks that Cameron needs a Praetorian Guard, and reports on SpAd Wars. Peter Hoskin is intrigued by MiliD’s reappearance, and gives some context for police cuts. David Blackburn watches Eric Pickles go on the
In the last two days, Nato and European leaders have declared that Gaddafi must go, but both have baulked at taking unilateral action. Their reticence has sparked a response from those in favour of intervention. Speaking in Brussels today, David Cameron said that situation on the ground may be getting worse and that Europe and
The multiple crises in North Africa, from the revolution in Tunisia, through the protests in Egypt and to the conflict in Libya, has reinvigorated British foreign policy. In the last couple of years classic international issues have been pushed to the side by a need to focus on economic statecraft. Foreign ministers became less important
Project Merlin, the deal between the government and the banks, was meant to turn the page on banker bashing. But the deputy prime minister is still stuck on the previous page, telling Radio Sheffield today ‘I want to wring the neck of these wretched people’ the bankers. The language isn’t very statesmanlike and is
The momentum behind the Arab Spring revolutions appears to have been checked – for now. The Libyan domino hasn’t fallen. But there’s more unrest to come in North Africa. On March 21, a group called Youth for Change will hold mass protests throughout Sudan. Youth for Change (sinister name) are inspired, obviously, by what has
And, meanwhile, William Hague and David Cameron have issued statements on the disaster. Here’s Hague: “My thoughts are with the people of Japan at this time. We are in contact with the Japanese government and I have asked our Ambassador in Tokyo to offer all assistance we can as Japan responds to this terrible disaster.
Graphs and tables cannot ever convey the full tragedy of the situation in Japan, but the one above captures an important fact: that today’s earthquake is historic in size. At 8.9 magnitude, this Japanese disaster is the 7th largest on the US Geological Survey’s books. Because it struck on the seabed, its destructive energy is
What have the Lib Dems ever done for us? That’s the question that Nick Clegg sets about answering in interview with the Independent today — and he does so with righteous vigour. “Brick by brick, policy by policy, decision by decision, sometimes almost invisibly,” he insists, “we are putting in place good policies that will
Spot the mistake the New York Times makes here. Unfortunate but amusing. This produced, as it would, a fine correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the new Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny as a female. Enda Kenny is a male. As I suspected this was New York’s fault, not Sarah Lyall’s
I think it perfectly reasonable for the state to deny prisoners the right to vote and that losing the franchise is one of the consequences of incarceration. But as far as I know no-one in this country has suggested denying ex-prisoners their voting rights. They do things differently in the United States. Over to Roger
The tragic truth is that in Libya Colonel Gaddafi appears to be on the way to regaining control. As the US director of national intelligence said today The tragic truth is that in Libya Colonel Gaddafi appears to be on the way to regaining control. As the US director of national intelligence said today, the
Today’s decision to leave base rates at an emergency 0.5 per cent — the lowest since the Bank of England was founded in 1694 — shows how Britain is running out of options. Not even Mervyn King would deny that Britain has an inflation problem: global prices may be up, but the UK seems to
From the moment David Cameron started agitating for a no fly-zone, he’s been looking for allies. France and Denmark look like they will support him, with Russia and India opposed and China perhaps willing to abstain at the United Nations. But what about closer to home, inside the coalition? Since the formation of the coalition,
Mark Wallace has been passed some very interesting information about local Conservative associations. He writes: ‘Apparently Andrew Feldman reported (at a meeting this morning) on a study CCHQ has carried out into the effectiveness of local Conservative Associations. In a “mystery shopper” exercise, CCHQ wrote to over 300 associations under the guise of being a