All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Not the least of the entertainments* between now and polling day will be seeing how the Guardian manage to keep up their exhausting warnings of the dire consequences that will inevitably follow any Conservative victory. Nothing but nothing will be too trivial for the paper and that’s fine: free press and all that. The best
After April 6th senior bankers and top hedge funder workers who are based in London will pay a greater proportion of their earnings in income tax and national insurance than their counterparts in any other major financial centre, reports The Wall Street Journal Europe today. This research shows just how damaging Labour’s various soak the
So, the government is tying the taxpayer to £11bn of new IT contracts before the election, making the Tories’ planned immediate IT cuts very expensive. Is this latest example of a scorched earth policy? Or Labour ‘getting on with the job’? With the polls narrowing, I can’t see Labour setting a fiscal booby-trap that they
Ok, so it’s down on the 75 percent achieved in 2005, but it’s still striking – encouraging, even – that voter turnout was at 62 percent for the recent Iraqi general elections. That’s higher than the 61.4 percent for the last UK general election, and, lest it need saying, we didn’t have to deal with
There are many arguments, and many perspectives, when it comes to how much we need to know about Jon Venables’ return to prison. Yes, too much information – and too much publicity – could forfeit his anonymity. But too little, and there’s the risk that some serious questions about the probation service could remain unanswered.
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
Earlier this year, Transatlantic Trends, an annual survey of public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic, was published. Key highlights from the survey included a quadrupling of European support for President Obama’s handling of foreign policy. But what really caught my eye was how badly the relationship between the West and Turkey had frayed.
This is Sarah Pirie, a ballet teacher and television actress, who is accused of abducting a fifteen year old boy and having sex with him at various hotels in Lancashire. How desperately awful it must have been for the lad, who was allegedly subjected to three months of this sort of treatment. I can only
…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson asks what it does it matter if Samantha Cameron voted Labour once. James Forsyth notes that Sir John Major accuses Brown of conduct profoundly unbecoming a Prime Minister, and argues that the Lib Dems’ electoral rhetoric will make it much harder
Fourteen years on from “education, education, education,” Labour seems to have hit upon three new priorities for government: “Ashcroft, Ashcroft, Ashcroft”. Sure, we all knew that they would push this story as hard and as fast as it could go. But it still says a lot about how they will go about their election campaign,
Why does Britain fall for financial spin so often? The question goes well beyond the great confidence trick of Gordon Brown’s ten years in the Treasury. I’m just back from three weeks in Australia. What’s always struck me in the years I’ve gone there is how different the newspapers/news shows/political debates are. They are well
Commenting on this post, Tim Montgomerie writes: Did you actually read what I wrote Alex? Not once did I call for an end to the new Toryism. I advocated blending new and old messages. I did not suggest “banging on” about immigration but as voters’ number two issue it should be part of the mix.
Our plucky friends in the north have done the right thing: Icelanders have overwhelmingly rejected a plan to repay Britain and the Netherlands billions of pounds lost when Reykjavik’s banks collapsed in 2008 Partial referendum results from around a third of the cast votes showed 93% opposed the deal and less than 2% supported it.
To be honest, the leg-flashing that the Lib Dems are doing in front of the Tories and Labour just doesn’t really grab my attention. Their overtures and innuendo may, or may not, turn out to be significant in a few weeks time – but we need a general election before we can judge either way.
John Bercow was on the Politics Show this morning decrying ‘personal abuse’ in politics. This appears to be another issue on which Bercow’s views have evolved. Back in 2005, in a Tory leadership contest that was relatively free of personal abuse, Bercow, a Ken Clarke supporter, chose to attack Cameron’s candidacy in personal terms, decrying
Tim Montgomerie says it’s “time to stop apologising for being Conservative” and calls for an end to this Red Tory nonsense and, instead, a return to “red-meat Toryism”. As a committed Conservative it’s not too surprising that Montgomerie thinks this is the way to stabilise a wobbly Tory campaign. The base always thinks the problem
According to the Mail on Sunday David Cameron, William Hague, Ken Clarke, Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt will be the faces of the Tory election campaign. Obviously, others will play a role too. For instance, we know that Liam Fox has been charged with going on TV to harry the government. Theresa May is also
On the back of Andrew Rawnsley’s revelations, I decided to write about Gordon Brown’s “bad citizens” for the politics column of the Spectator. Under the magazine’s new online rules, this is only available a week after publication. But now you can read the filth and the fury in all its sordid glory. I have since
So what if Samantha Cameron has voted Labour in the past? When I saw this story flash up on the wires last night, I wondered what the big deal was. But to splash the Mail on Sunday on it? Everyone knows that she is not the stereotypical Tory wife: she has a tattoo on her
There is an excellent piece on the Ashcroft affair from Martin Ivens in the Sunday Times today. He quotes a member of Team Cameron: “Why didn’t David just take Ashcroft out and shoot him? His work is done. What’s the point of him hanging about?” Well said. No one has quite got to the bottom
The problem Scientology has… Let me start again, among the problems with Scientology is that it wasn’t founded a couple of thousand years ago. Had it been it might not seem quite so obviously fraudulent and, well, nuts. Age rubs off the harsh edges and all that and at least permits the creation of a
Tonight’s YouGov poll has Labour up one and the Tory lead down to five points. There’s also a BPIX survey in the Mail on Sunday which suggests that the Ashcroft operation might only net the Tories an extra 13 seats. While the News of the World reports on a Unite-led campaign to boost the Labour
An ICM poll for the News of the World has the Tories above the psychologically important forty percent mark. After a week that has been dominated by the controversy over Lord Ashcroft’s tax status, the Tories will be delighted to see a poll showing their lead growing; they are nine points ahead in this poll
In a striking move, John Major will tonight accuse Gordon Brown of “using the Armed Forces as a Party Political prop.” This isn’t the first time that Major has been critical of Brown. He was one of the people who, rightly, criticised Brown’s trip to Iraq during the Tory conference in 2007 and just last
Just a quick post to encourage CoffeeHousers to read David Cameron’s speech to his party’s Welsh conference today. It’s not just the clearest, and most sensible, exposition of the Tories’ economic message that I’ve come across so far – it’s also the finest overall speech that I can remember Cameron giving for some time. Plenty
Living in a three-way marginal, I get a bunch of election literature. The latest Lib Dem flyer caught my eye because it is the mirror image of the Tories vote yellow get Brown message: ‘In areas like this, the only way to get real change is to vote Liberal Democrat. Voting Conservative could just help
Yesterday, Gordon Brown argued that he curbed defence spending to prevent the public finances from spiralling out of control – but added that he had still given the MoD everything they had asked for. So, when it’s anything but defence spending, he boasts of all that extra “investment”. But when it comes to defence, he
This, from Roger Alton in this week’s Spectator Sport: “Manchester United and Aston Villa players are moaning about the state of the Wembley pitch for last Sunday’s Carling Cup Final. Give over, lads. Football’s not billiards. A harsh winter’s just a fact of life, and your skills have been flattered by manicured surfaces for too
Iain Martin and Tim Montgomerie are both reporting that the Conservatives have hired YouGov to do polling for them. This might seem like the ultimate Westminster insider story but it will actually have ramifications for the election campaign as a whole. I understand that the Tory deal with YouGov will mean that they will get
Here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the past week: Fraser Nelson explains why the Tories should talk about immigration, and faces the protesters. James Forsyth wonders whether the Tories are over the worst of their wobble, and welcomes Michael Gove’s efforts to restore the educational gold standard. Peter Hoskin says that any fallout
The small crowd of demonstrators from a group calling itself the Anti-Academies Alliance who gathered outside the Spectator conference on The Schools Revolution yesterday gave an indication of the opposition that Michael Gove and the Conservatives would face, were they to win the election and attempt the radical overhaul of which the British education system
Poor Armenia. Just about the only time that wee country gets a mention in Washington is when the perennial Recognise-the-Genocide issue comes up. As tradition demands, the Secretary of State lobbied Congress to avoid passing anything resembling or hinting at any such thing. Nevertheless the Foreign Affairs Committee voted 23-22 in favour of the annual
Like Mr Eugenides, I’m on record opposing the disgraceful ban that prevented Geert Wilders from entering the United Kingdom. So in that sense it’s a good thing that he’s in London today to show his little film to Lord Pearson and his pals. What I don’t understand, like our redoubtable Greek friend, is why UKIP
Transparency is one area where the Tories are committed to being truly radical. The changes they are already committed to ushering in—publishing government expenditure and contracts online—will create far greater scrutiny of government. In time, this will lead to money being saved. and are unlikely to ever be reversed. Their announcement today on local government