All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Welcome to the Liberal Unionist club, Fraser! It won’t surprise regular readers that I think your latest post is spot-on. While we’re taking names, let’s also add John Rentoul to the list. His Independent on Sunday column this week concludes: This is where I think that Cameron is misunderstood. It seems to be generally assumed
From a completely selfish standpoint, I’m pleased that the BBC has saved 6Music. The decision does, however, raise a pertinent question: why is one of the public sector’s mammoth institutions seemingly impervious to spending cuts? Never mind DfID and the NHS, ring-fencing Sue Barker is simply inadmissible. Mark Thompson, the Director General, has identified the
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
This may be today’s most infuriating “story”: Rugby scrums should be banned in schools to protect children involved in a sport which is “not safe enough” for them, an expert has warned. Professor Allyson Pollock, director of Edinburgh University’s Centre for International Public Health Policy, called for the ban after research into child injuries. The
When the coalition was first formed, I expected it to collapse in months. But, then, I was expecting the type of coalition that I’d seen in the Scottish Parliament when Labour and the Lib Dems kept their distance (and their mistrust). But what has emerged is a far tighter coalition – and one that may
Imagine that we find out on May 6th next year that the Liberal Democrats have taken a pasting in the Scottish Parliament elections, done badly in the Welsh Assembly ones, lost seats in English local government and AV has been defeated. In these circumstances, Nick Clegg would face loud and sustained calls from within his
Today is, of course, Independence Day. To mark it the New York Times have, as usual, commissioned some historical op-eds. The one by Adrian Tiniswood is particularly worth reading. Here’s a taste: “It is a fact rarely discussed on either side of the Atlantic that American colonists played a crucial role in the English Civil
A regrettable, discreditable business back in, you know, 1776 And All That. Nevertheless, happy Fourth to you all. To celebrate here’s John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever, performed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the Albert Hall in 1976.
Picking up David Laws’ axe at the Treasury was never going to be easy – but all credit to Danny Alexander, who seems to be managing it with some degree of gusto. After those extra savings he announced a few weeks ago, the Chief Sec has now written to ministers asking them to identify cuts
When General Petraeus called for a “united effort” on Afghanistan earlier, he might as well have been addressing our government. Between David Cameron’s and Liam Fox’s recent statements, there’s a clear sense that the coalition is pulling in two separate directions. And it’s left William Hague explaining our Afghan strategy thus, to the Times today:
Ok, so the general public doesn’t much care for this AV referendum – and understandably so. But at least it has added a good slug of uncertainty into the brew at Westminster. Already, curious alliances are emerging because of it – Exhibit A being Jack Straw and the 1922 Committee. And no-one’s really sure about
One thing that the AV referendum might do is revive the debate in Conservative circles about why the party did not win a majority in the general election. As the most striking example so far of the price of Coalition, it is likely to start off some grumbling about why the party is in position
The coalition’s plan for moving claimants off Incapacity Benefit and into work is, at heart, an admirable one. For too long, IB has been used a political implement for massaging the overall unemployment figures, and it has allowed thousands of people to wrongly stay unemployed at the taxpayers’ expense. There is, quite simply, a moral
Like Satan, Sodomy and Socialism, Soccer begins with an S. Obviously, then, it’s un-American and likely to corrupt these great United States. Hats off to Marc Thiessen for scrawling the most absurd anti-soccer nonsense of the World Cup. At long last we have a winner: The world is crazy for soccer, but most Americans don’t
Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson lists 190 Tory manifesto pledges that have been ditched. James Forsyth says that George Osborne’s plans for a Tory victory are in motion, and wonders if Cameron will soften his stance on AV for the sake of the coalition. Peter
I doubt No.10 will be all that charmed by David Davis’s comments on Straight Talk with Andrew Neil this weekend, but they should certainly take note of them. They contain some substantive points about the government’s relationship with Tory backbenchers, and points which Davis is not alone in making. The key passage comes when he
For a man of such rhetorical talents, William Hague’s foreign policy speech was strikingly bland. His eloquence escaped him and he sounded like David Miliband – earnest, conscientious and often unintelligible. The similarity didn’t end there. Hague was very pleased with his observation that a multi-lateral world requires bi-lateral relationships; but even David Miliband had
So now, thanks to Left Foot Forward and reports this morning, we know: the referendum on an alternative vote system will take place on 5 May 2011, the same day as same day as the English local, Scottish Parliamentary and Welsh Assembly elections. There are plenty of ins and outs, whys and wherefores – most
Nicholas Macpherson, the permanent secretary at the Treasury, has sent an interesting letter to Michael Fallon about the leaked figures on public sector job losses that created such a political storm when The Guardian printed them on Wednesday. Macpherson states that the slide was incorrectly labeled; it was meant to represent job losses to 2014-15
Among the biggest of challenges facing the new government is the need to make welfare more affordable while continuing to support people in need. There is a strong case for lowering the welfare bill. At around £200 billion the government spends more on welfare than anything else. Spending on pension benefits alone is £77 billion
ITV’s Lucy Manning reports that David Cameron will campaign against AV ahead of next year’s referendum In one respect, it’s not surprising news: this is what the Tories have always said they’d do. But given recent rumblings and speculation to the contrary, it’s still worth noting down. If the Tories don’t change their minds before
The Coalition’s decision to hold the referendum on AV so early is fraught with risk. If AV is defeated at the ballot box, then Nick Clegg will face huge pressure from elements of his party to quit the Coalition. The argument would go that all the Lib Dems were getting out of staying was providing
Does prison work? I’m very pleased that John McTernan – who is one of the brightest and sanest of Labour buttons – is now ensconsed at the Daily Telegraph. Unfortunately he’s not inoculated against daftness: Suddenly it’s become fashionable to see ending short term sentences as common sense. Alex Massie is the latest victim of
A shout-out to Canadian friends and readers on this, your national day. Another year passed: another year of peace and prosperity in the northland. Here’s my friend Will Wilkinson writing about how he became an accidental Canadian: As the clock struck midnight on April 17, 2009, the Canadian citizenship of my Saskatchewan-born but subsequently naturalized
Ming Campbell’s comments today show that some Liberal Democrats do believe in Fox hunting. Responding to Fox’s speech in Washington yesterday and his remark that Britain would be among the last to leave Afghanistan, Campbell told the Daily Politics that the “intervention was unhelpful, indeed the government thought it was unhelpful.” “It would have been
Well, CoffeeHousers, I’ve read David Miliband’s article for the latest New Statesman so that you don’t have to. And let me tell you: it’s classic Miliband the Elder. Sure, the central theme – how Labour can reconnect in the English heartlands – is perceptive enough, and it runs through a few home truths which Miliband’s
A follow-up to this post on the Irish economy: our friends on the Emerald Isle are now officially out of recession. That’s good news. The bad news? Unemployment remains above 13% and, if you exclude multinational corporations, the “indigenous” economy (if you can call it that) still hasn’t recovered completely. The bleeding has slowed but
It may have overlapped generously with his first speech as Deputy PM, but Nick Clegg’s effort today is still a breezy read. Its subject is how the overreaching state should be pushed back out of people’s lives. Its rhetoric is punchy and persuasive in equal measures. And there’s even a mention for that most underrated
During the love-in at the start of the coalition, no one really asked which Tory pledges bit the dust. It becomes relevant now: the Tory pledge to reduce immigration to the “tens of thousands,” for example, was in their manifesto but not in the coalition agreement. Although verbally restated later, it is still seen as
An inventive article from Ben Brogan this morning, arguing that a new vigorously Tory foreign policy is emerging. I can be a little slow sometimes, but I haven’t noticed anything new or Tory about Britain’s foreign policy. Brogan records that the Prime Minister has let it be known that British troops will withdraw from Afghanistan
David Aaronovitch’s column today is excellent. He makes a case for David Cameron coming out and supporting the switch to the Alternative Vote. The key bit: The pessimism that Conservatives invariably express about their fortunes under electoral reform is based on a particular assumption about the British electorate — an assumption that belies their constant
Last night, I met a man who changed my life. Not that he knew it. Shakil Khan from Spotify is part of the team that has delivered what is – to me – the most lifestyle-changing innovation since Sky Plus. For the uninitiated, it has a seemingly limitless database of music all for £10 a
We can’t really let today go by without mentioning Nicholas Cecil’s extraordinary scoop in the Standard. Here’s a snippet: “MPs are sleeping secretly in the Commons after being stripped of their second home allowance. A handful of parliamentarians are bedding down at Westminster during the week because they are now banned from claiming on the
If this weren’t posted by Marc Ambinder I’d think it must be a parody. It certainly has the feel of a Jihadi edition of The Onion. It is, however, supposed to be al-Qaeda’s first English-language, glossy propaganda magazine. Obviously Inspire is the title you’d choose too and, frankly, who can resist the appeal of a