All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Danny Alexander’s announcement of a £900 million clampdown on tax avoidance, evasion and fraud is designed to reassure Lib Dems that the coalition’s policies are fair, that it isn’t balancing the budget on the backs of the poor. In a deliberate echo of George Osborne’s comments about welfare, Alexander said that the years when people
If Nick Clegg was a weak-willed, crowd-pleasing charlatan the the front page of yesterday’s Independent would not have read “Clegg: there is no future for the Lib Dems as a left party”. Turning up to a Lib Dem conference and saying there’s no point in being a party of lefty protesters is like William Shatner
So far, so effective from Nick Clegg and his coalition colleagues. They seem to have three key messages for the party faithful in Liverpool – i) c’mon, let’s enjoy being in government, ii) we are achieving something in government, and iii) the cuts are necessary – and they’re broadcasting them in bulk. Clegg himself is
The pro AV rally at Lib Dem conference demonstrated the problem with the AV campaign: they don’t think it is the best system. Pam Giddy, chair of Yes! To Fairer Votes, described it as “a small but important upgrade to our electoral system”; hardly the most inspiring campaign slogan. The Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson
Nick Clegg opened last year’s Lib Dem conference with the promise of ‘savage cuts’. The party shuddered at the idea and they’re unnerved by the reality. Those savage cuts lour over what should have been a glorious conference for Clegg. Vince Cable stalks with insidious intent these days, so Clegg has called on Danny Alexander,
I’ve obtained this list of Baroness Ashton’s proposed recommendations for the next wave of EU diplomatic appointments. CoffeeHousers’ will notice there are no Brits on it. DELEGATION Nomination proposed Nationality CHINE, Pekin Markus EDERER DEU JAPON, Tokyo Hans Dietmar SCHWEISGUT AUT AFRIQUE DU SUD, Pretoria Roeland VAN DE GEER NLD BRESIL, Brasilia Readvertised ETAS-UNIS (Deputy)
The Lib Dems’ week in the sun has started and Nick Clegg has marked the occasion by giving a series of interviews. David has already noted the one in The Independent, but Clegg’s one with The Sun where he talks about playing tennis with Cameron at Chequers and assembling IKEA furniture together is perhaps more
Nick Clegg has opened the political season with a very singular statement: ‘There is no future for us as left-wing rivals to Labour. Clegg urges his internal critics to be patient: the future could be yellow if the coalition is maintained. It’s a gamble. Immediately, Clegg has alienated those who abandoned Labour for the Lib
Another good speech from Pope Benedict XVI, grand in historical sweep and intellectual clarity. His softly spoken, yet heavily-accented, English demands some mental concentration. And it was funny watching some of the tired looking politicians squinting as they tried to figure out what on earth the Pontiff was saying. But if his voice was
Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson introduces the new look Spectator. James Forsyth asks who is behind Nick Boles’ proposed Tory-Liberal pact, and wonders if the polls are telling the story of the Labour leadership. Peter Hoskin says that Nick Clegg is getting forceful on welfare
The images from inside Westminster Hall right now: Captions please…
A good scoop from The Catholic Herald. Stuart Reid reveals what Mayor Boris Johnson said to the Pontiff last night: ‘I’d like to tell you what went on in the Royal Suite at Terminal 4 last night when Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, met Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope of Rome. “I told the Pope,”
John Rentoul has already pulled the best passage from this preview of a forthcoming radio series on Gordon Brown. But I reckon that the testimony of Spencer Livermore, the former strategy chief in No.10, deserves a spot in the Westminster scrapbook: “Mr Livermore, who was Downing Street’s director of political strategy, regrets not warning about
No need to explain why we’ve disinterred this piece by Peter Ackroyd, on the last papal visit to Britain, from the Spectator archives. And, to the left, the cover image by Garland from that week’s issue. As news emerges that five people have been arrested in connection with a terror plot against Benedict XVI, a
I’ve suggested that the current crop of opinion polls are meaningless. That’s not true. As a friend pointed out, they measure public opinion and that can’t be considered wholly meaningless. So let me put it another way: the “meaning” of the opinion polls is, at present, greatly over-valued by the Westminster Village. Happily, uber-expert Philip
Al Shabaab and al Qeada are brothers in arms – Somalia is a hothouse for terror. Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5, has openly expressed his view that it is ‘just a matter of time’ until Somalia and the Yemen export terrorism to Britain’s streets. That striking statement contains one oversight: they do already. Umar
After stumbling in his crusade for a graduate contribution, Vince Cable seemed to go a bit quiet. But this morning he’s roared back into the newspapers with another attack on coalition policy. The target of his anger is, once again, the immigration cap – but he’s being far less equivocal about it this time around.
The Labour leadership hustings are over, tonight’s one on Question Time was the last one. As has been the case at so many previous hustings, Ed Balls was the most intellectually forceful of the contenders. Whatever you think of his arguments on the economy (and I disagree with them), he puts them across with a
Yorkshire cricket is the epitome of hard, correct cricket. Lancashire cricket is always bowling into the wind, beating the edge and wondering if luck will ever shine on the Red Rose. Kent cricket, I somehow feel, should always be played in a manner that has the ghosts of Woolley and Cowdrey murmuring their approval. These,
In these grim dark days of austerity and cuts, the coalition urgently needs to find a compelling political narrative of hope and optimism. David Cameron’s Big Society rhetoric occasionally threatens to contain some philosophical depth, but suffers from the same problem as most new fangled analyses of the world. Namely, it is so fluffy that
You may notice that today’s Spectator looks a little different. We have updated our design, introducing some new features and bringing back some old ones. I suspect that a good number of our readers will not really notice the new design as such – just, I hope, that the magazine looks better. As ConservativeHome says,
This is the next of our posts with Reform looking ahead to the Spending Review. Earlier posts were on health, education, the first hundred days, welfare, the Civil Service, international experiences (New Zealand, Canada,Ireland) and Hon Ruth Richardson’s recent speech and selling the case for cuts to the public. George Osborne was right to
The Yarrow Valley, yesterday. More later, including a post on Freddie Flintoff plus the excruciating conclusion to the County Championship. But for now, a pastoral scene to soothe overstretched Somerset nerves… UPDATE: Bloody Notts have taken the three wickets they needed to steal the Championship from Somerset. 119 years of not winning the title now.
Last night, the Spectator hosted a debate on the future of arts funding. Panellists included Ed Vaizey, Ben Bradshaw and Matthew Taylor of the RSA. CoffeeHousers can read Lloyd Evans’ web-exclusive review here.
What exactly did Cardinal Walter Kasper of the Vatican mean when he said that Britain was like “a third world country”? More specifically he said that “when you land at Heathrow” it’s like arriving in a Third World Country. Most people have cheerfully taken this to be a racist observation – ie, that there are
Leaderless Labour is neck and neck with the Tories for the first time in more than two years, according to the Reuters/IPSOS Mori monthly poll. This follows the trend that Pete observed a couple of days ago, and surely Anthony Wells’ prediction will come to pass: Labour will overtake the Tories. However, these grim figures
Since it’s Pope Day, let’s consider this tediously-hardy perennial too. Commenting on this post, Fifer asks: Since you’ve given this some thought, then, perhaps you can answer me this – why, exactly, are my taxes being used to fund an education system divided in Scotland on sectarian lines when, out of a population of 5
The Pope, as I’m sure you know, has touched down in Britain. Here, for CoffeeHousers, is the editorial on his visit from this week’s new-look issue of the magazine: Benedict brings hope The arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in Britain has provoked protests that, in the intesity of their anger, far exceed those that greet
Andrew Mitchell’s speech today at the Royal College of Defence Studies confirms me in my view that Mitchell is one of the most impressive members of the current government. Mitchell, a former soldier, is moving the Department for International Development away from being the government wing of Oxfam and into a department that plays its
Stephen Fry is good at taking himself seriously while pretending not to take himself seriously. But slowly, as he gets older and grander, his self-effacing mask is slipping. He’s becoming less and less of a comedian, more and more a sanctimonious bore. Look at the way he has taken it upon himself to denounce, with
We’ve been here before: Hacker’s ‘Grand Design’, a scheme to save money by cancelling Trident. The BBC reports that the coalition plots a similar ruse – the renewal of Trident is understood to have been deferred until after the next election. This is the best of bad a situation. Britain has an independent nuclear deterrent,
Enter Nick Clegg with another self-assured article for a national newspaper. A few weeks ago, it was his defence of the coalition’s Budget for the FT that caught the eye. Today, it’s his case for welfare reform in the Times (£). These may be arguments, about dependency and disincentives, that you’ve heard before – but
And welcome to Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Of all the pointless activities in all the world you’d think telling the Pope he’s wrong must rank pretty highly. So I don’t think there’s much point in standing outside Bellahouston Park today shouting “There is no God you know” at the 70,000 Roman
The TUC’s attack on a leading public sector reformer, reported today, was designed to embarrass him and discredit the idea of reforming the public sector. In fact, it has shown that they will oppose any change to the public sector workforce, even if it results in a better service for the public. According to
