All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. James Forsyth charts the coalition’s shifting horizons, and notes the coalition’s vulnerability on crime. Peter Hoskin says that Alan Johnson has been caught in the Coulson crossfire, and recalls Stephen Green’s double-dip warnings. David Blackburn watches the vice chancellors scupper Vince, and
Boris’s decision to announce today that he is to run again for Mayor of London is intriguing. Many in government circles expected Boris to wait until London’s settlement in the CSR had been finalised before announcing, his candidacy was the best card he had in the negotiation. So his declaration has sparked speculation that Boris
It’s official: Tsars have jumped the shark as surely as the phrase “jumped the shark” has itself jumped the shark. We’ve reached the end of an era since, frankly, I’m not sure you can beat the Obama administration’s appointment of, wait for it, an Asian Carp Tsar: The White House has tapped a former leader
All the baristas here at Coffee House would like to thank those who voted us no1 in Total Politics magazine list of top 60 media blogs. It’s a real honour, especially given the quality of the company we’re in. And two of our other stablemate blogs are also in the top20: Melanie Phillips at 14
Boris Johnson has announced his candidacy for a second term as London Mayor. Here is what he wrote for the Spectator on the campaign trail last time round. How, as Mayor, I would help our brave troops, The Spectator, 17 December 2007 Even if the story is exaggerated, the underlying psychology is convincing. It is
Sandy Arbuthnot in The Three Hostages: “Lord!” he cried, “how I loathe our new manners in foreign policy. The old English way was to regard all foreigners as slightly childish and rather idiotic and ourselves as the only grown-ups in a kindergarten world. That meant that we had a cool detached view and did even-handed
Two years ago, Richard Hooper wrote a report on Royal Mail which recommended part-privatising the service, among other measures. And today, with the official update to that report, we learn that his views have barely changed at all. If anything is different between then and now, it’s that the need to modernise Royal Mail has
Catholics fuss too much about anti-Catholicism. Yes, there’s been lots of hostility to next week’s papal visit. (Peter Tatchell’s documentary, which will be broadcast on Monday, looks particularly nasty.) The secularists have got their knives out, and Catholics are understandably alarmed and angry. But should they really mind? Isn’t Christianity supposed to be all
I’m not sure if the sun will ever rise in the east again: Michael Howard has supported a Ken Clarke prison policy. The Justice Secretary has launched a pilot scheme at HMP Peterborough that uses private bond investment to fund inmate remedial programmes to cut re-offending. The Social Impacts Bond will provide £5million to produce
Today, it seems, the uncertainty is going to come an end: Boris Johnson will confirm that he is running for a second term as Mayor of London in May 2012. In truth, though, we probably shouldn’t have expected anything else. The timings of the Parliamentary term, and the inavailability of safe seats, always made an
The annual memorial service at Flodden. Photo courtesy of Grant Kinghorn. Today marked the 497th anniversary of the battle of Flodden, perhaps the gravest military disaster in Scottish history and a fiasco that’s still keenly recalled in these parts where Flodden is a bigger deal than Bannockburn. The story goes that some 50 men from
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 and international experiences (New Zealand, Canada, Ireland). Ruth Richardson, the former reforming Finance Minister of New Zealand, set the benchmark for the Spending Review in a
Is William Hague finished? That’s the sub-text to this interesting, even intriguing, Ben Brogan post in which The Telegraph’s man in Cameronland goes so far as to suggst the Prime Minister “should fear for his colleague’s state of mind.” That’s not all: In a series of Commons conversations this morning I was struck by the
The 8.10 Today programme slot this morning went to Nick Clegg. The programme wanted to discuss with the deputy PM the BBC’s finding that those areas most dependent on the state would be hit hardest by the coming cuts, for some reason this statement of the obvious is regarded as news. But John Humphrys, in
I enjoyed Arthur Herman’s romp through the Scottish Enlightenment and his book on the Royal Navy, though derivative, was a breezy read. But this piece for Commentary is truly bizarre: according to Herman, you see, Barack Obama and Bob Gates are preparing to throw away American military supremacy. Yes, really. Despite the reality of a
To these eyes, this afternoon’s phone hacking debate was a surprisingly sedate affair. Chris Bryant – proposing a motion to have an inquiry conducted by the Standards and Privileges committee into the News of the World’s actions – seemed to go out his way to depoliticise the argument, and other Labour MPs followed his lead.
During the election campaign, Labour MPs and their supporters were most put out, offended even, by the suggestion that the rotten state of Britain’s public finances placed us next to Greece in the basket-case category. And to be fair, these Labour MPs had a point: the structural deficit is serious but Britain, whatever its faults,
Now this should dispel any worries that the Office for Budget Responsibility is partisan in the government’s favour. Robert Chote, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and scourge of Osborne’s “regressive” Budget, has been appointed as the body’s new chief. It is, in many repsects, the most sensible and obvious choice. Not only is
Nick Clegg’s speech today is meant to be one of a pair with David Cameron giving the other tomorrow. The speeches mark an attempt to set out an agenda for the government that goes beyond deficit reduction. The idea is that Clegg’s speech called ‘horizon shift’, which is all about making government policy more long
A noteworthy directional shift from Nick Clegg in his speech this morning. Instead of priming the us for “savage cuts,” as he once did, the Deputy PM is now deemphasising the severity of what’s to come: “Some of the hyperbole I have heard is just preposterous – this idea, that somehow, it is back to
Blame Bob Diamond. Until the “unacceptable face of banking” (© the utterly acceptable face of politics, Peter Mandelson) was appointed chief executive of Barclays, the issue of banking reform was trundling along noiselessly in the background. But now it has spilled, violently, back out into the open. Critics of Diamond say that his very presence
Some day soon – unless the coalition has already lost its bottle – a bill will be introduced to ‘part-privatise’ Royal Mail. It has to be done. But it will be a tough sell, for four reasons. First, the market for the Royal Mail’s product is shrinking. It’s a big fish, but its pool is
A delicious prospect in store for political comedy fans, if not for the next Labour leader, according to a post by Channel 4’s Gary Gibbon: “[Gordon Brown] feels, I hear, that it is right that he be seen to say some words before the new leader is unveiled and be seen to hand over the
You’ve got to hand it to Dan Hannan – he knows how to make a splash. His latest initiative is a cross-party campaign for an “in or out” referendum on Britain’s EU membership. You can find details in his article for the Telegraph today or, indeed, on the campaign’s actual website. But the basic argument
Sad news today, Ian Cameron has died. The Prime Minister was with his father at the end, having flown out to France with his brother and sister from City airport this morning. His father’s cheerfulness and determination in the face of his disability has long been cited by friends of Cameron as one of the
Let’s face it. This wasn’t a classic. Today’s PMQs featured a duel of the deputies. Nick Clegg, who leads part of the government, faced Jack Straw who’s so far from leading anything that he isn’t even a candidate in the race to head his currently driverless party. Unfortunately, Mr Straw had left all his good
Jack Straw did not improve on his previous PMQs performance today. He used up all six questions on Coulson and they were all too long-winded. Clegg got through it without too many problems, regularly using the operational independence of the police as a shield, as the Home Secretary did on Monday. The deputy PM also
Stay tuned for live coverage of Clegg vs Straw from 1200. 1201: And here we go. Clegg begins by passing on his best wishes to David Cameron and his family. Condolences for the fallen in Afghanistan follow – “we will never forget their sacrifices.” 1204: Mark Pritchard begins with a dubiously plant-like question. “300 policemen
David Cameron’s father has suffered a stroke on holiday in France and so the PM is, understandably, travelling out there to be with him. This means that Nick Clegg will be standing in for him at PMQs. At the risk of sounding Jo Mooreish, this shift in PMQs personnel has political implications. Labour was always
The US constitution cannot stop Pastor Terry Jones from burning 100 Korans to mark the 9th anniversary of 11 September, and neither should it – the right to free speech is absolute when within the law. But free speech comes with responsibilities. Just as it is unwise to build, with provocative intent, a mosque near the site
I don’t know. I really don’t. It can’t go on. But it will. It bloody will. There are times when watching Scotland play international football produces the sensation that one’s actually trapped inside a Beckett play. It might seem a tragicomedy to you but it’s no fun in here. A game of two halves,
David Lloyd George is, I think, the only Welshman to have become Prime Minister but he was born in Manchester. Does this mean that Julie Gillard is the first Welsh-born person to become Prime Minister (or its equivalent) anywhere on earth? Surely Wales must have spawned someone who has been in charge of somewhere before
Not exactly on the ball are they? It took nearly six hours for a Labour leadership contender to try to resuscitate Vince Cable’s graduate tax, which lapsed into seizure following reports that Lord Browne will recommend a tuition fee hike instead. Ed Miliband, in Mephistophelean mood, has appealed to Vince Cable, offering to replace tuition
Quick public service announcement*: you’ve only got a few hours left to register to avoid having to pay £9 every time you want to enter the United States. Yup, even the Visa Waiver programme costs these days. (And even registering to avoid the fee offers but partial relief since in two years time you’ll have