All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Yeah, I know: 4,500 words of Brown’s rhetoric is too much for most CoffeeHousers to bear. So I thought I’d read his “speech on crime and anti-social behaviour” on your behalf, and highlight three things which jumped out at me. Here goes: 1. Taking on the Tories over DNA retention. Paul Waugh has already blogged
Just a quick note: Andrew Sullivan is taking a breather for a few days and, as is customary, it takes several people to replace him. I happen to be one of them this week. So while there’ll still, I trust, be plenty happening here, you can also catch up with me over at the Daily
Brilliant New Labour Tactic: the Tories are soft on rapists. Really, that’s what they’re saying. And all because the Conservatives think that innocent* people’s DNA should not be held on a national database. Perhaps Gordon can explain why his ain party north of the border is equally “friendly” to rapists. After all the laws on
We are expecting at least one poll tonight, the YouGov tracker, and I think there will be one other. If these polls show the Tories ahead by six—a level that just last week was seen as rather disappointing—they will add to the sense that the Tories are over the worst of the wobble. Significantly, the
Like Norm says, you can’t never have too many articles singing the praises of country music. So hats off to Simmy Richman for his excellent piece in the Independent today. He makes many of the essential points, not least the fact that this is universal music, not merely stuff for hillbillies and cowpokes (not that
Forget the polls, the markets should be enough to give any of us a sharp dose of The Fear. Exhibit A: Sterling, which has slumped below $1.50 today, for the first time in nine months, and on the back of what analyists are calling “deficit worries”. And Exhibit B: the UK Gilt markets, where rising
So now we know the full extent of the Prime Ministerial bullying. Did he whip, flay or pummel his staff? Did he pick on them relentlessly, or spit at them or try to force them to have sexual intercourse with him while he growled about having saved the world? Did he swear at them in
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
Out of the conference hall, and back on to the campaign trail, it would nice to see the Tories talking about the things which make them ready for government. In particular, William Hague should make a foreign policy speech setting out what ideas he has, and which would merit him being referred to as the
…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson wonders whether the YouGov poll is a hammer blow to the Tories or a gift from God, and highlights a tonic to dispel doubt about Cameron & Co. James Forsyth thinks that Cameron’s speech delivered, and gives his take on William Hague’s speech.
Lord Ashcroft has just released a statement admitting that he’s a non-dom, and suggesting that he’ll soon become a full UK taxpayer. Here’s the key passage: “My precise tax status therefore is that of a ‘non-dom’. Two of Labour’s biggest donors – Lord Paul (recently made a privy councillor by the Prime Minister) and Sir
So, what did the newspapers make of Cameron’s Big Speech? A brisk stroll through this morning’s coverage, and you’ll come across the whole gamut of responses: from wholehearted enthusiasm in the Sun, to wholehearted scepticism in the Independent. But the general tone is somewhere in between: the mitigated praise of, say, the Times or the
There’s lots of sense in Matt d’Ancona’s most recent column, not least his implied warning that if the Tories tack to the right this will, no matter how much it appeals to the base, be a terrible mistake for Dave and his boys. Whether you like it or not – and plenty of Spectator readers*
More on this essay on American exceptionalism in due course, but first Conor Friedersdorf: In a post on President Obama and American exceptionalism, Victor Davis Hanson explains why he thinks our nation is different from all the others: Perhaps it would be better, when speaking of an early rural society, to talk of an absence
A follow-up to this post: sure, excitable Conservatives in Britain and the United States see the Obama administration’s disinclination to take a position on the latest Falklands dispute as proof that the poor man really does dislike the United Kingdom and is quite happy to see the so-called Special Relationship consigned to the library of
Whenever a sense of crisis is building around him, David Cameron delivers a speech without notes. This has the effect of bringing things to a head, of creating a moment which, if Cameron can make it through, the situation is defused. Today’s speech did that. It has, I suspect, moved the story on from Tory
When you watch David Cameron speak without notes you wonder why they ever let him speak with a text. You can tell when Cameron is on form as he stops and sets himself before he delivers the bit that he hopes will be clipped for the news and he was back to doing that today.
Stay tuned for coverage from 14:00 The word is that Cameron will not provide details of any new policies; the speech will be hearfelt and probably spoken without notes. He will stress that the nation faces a critical choice: salvation or ruin. Cameron is at his best with his back to the wall, but he needs
There is only one topic of conversation here in Brighton, the shrinking Tory poll lead. The optimistic take is that a poll suggesting Labour would be the largest party actually makes the prospect of five more years of Gordon Brown real to people and so lets the Tories emphasise that this election is choice between
Is the Sunday Times poll a hammer blow to the Tories, or a gift from God? It sounds a weird question, but think of the logic. So far, Cameron’s big mistake was to allow the campaign to become a referendum on him. He was desperate to turn that into a basic question: do you want
The mood in the bars of Brighton is grim: the Tory lead is down to two points in the latest poll. (As UK polling Report notes, any individual poll should be treated with caution) The poll is, obviously, bad news for the Tories. But it does set the stage for David Cameron’s speech tomorrow. Cameron
If any CoffeeHousers have been feeling despondent about the Tores, I have the perfect tonic: Cameron’s YouTube video released today. In my News of the World column last week, I listed five messages I thought he should give. And he ticked all of them off – and then some. It was one of those biannual
If you had a fiver for every time a Tory speaker today has said ‘five more years of Gordon Brown’ you would soon be rich enough to start worrying about the 50p tax rate. All the speakers in the economy debate stressed how the country ‘cannot afford five more years of Gordon Brown.’ George Osborne
Gordon Brown does not have much of a personal “backstory” but he does talk about his family. When he’s feeling guilty about something, he mentions his father. But today, speaking to the Welsh Labour Party, he again talks about a figure we heard about a few days ago: his grandfather. “Like so many here I
As this morning papers’ show, the Tories know that their spring conference here in Brighton offers them a chance to change the narrative of this campaign, to get back on the front foot. William Hague’s speech, the first big set-piece of the event, tried to frame the choice facing the country at the election as
Both James and Tim Montgomerie felt that William Hague must be more prominent during this campaign and Cameron has reached the same conclusion. Hague opened the spring confernece with a stark, bleak message: “And I say it is that most crucial election because I believe the choice for Britain is as stark as this: it
Now that the post-Cold War era has ended it is hard to find small, inspirational states who seek to cement a new-found independence and yearn for what the West has to offer. Georgia looked like such a state until Russian aggression and Tblisi’s behaviour put an end to the country’s westward journey. Ukraine is too
Not to trivialise the story too much, but if this ain’t the headline** in every British newspaper tomorrow then, damn it, the subs should be ashamed of themselves. *So far & thankfully & given the size (8.8) of the quake anyway. UPDATE Sunday 7pm: It seems, sadly, that more lives have been lost than had
George Osborne saved the 2007 Tory conference with a tax cut. He’s recalling that mood today, elaborating on the plans to cut corporation tax which – as James detailed a while ago – will be the backbone of his first budget. Now, you may think: we know all this. Osborne has said he’d cut corporation
Actually, there seem to be rather more than six promises Still, the Daily Mail reports on a series of Tory pledges that Dave & Co will roll out this weekend as part of their Get Back on Track plan. Let’s have a look at them: Act now on debt to get the economy moving: Deal
Tory spring forum gives David Cameron a chance to regain the momentum. The media will be there in numbers and I suspect that the rumours of an early election mean that it will get more attention than it otherwise would have done. Cameron’s speech is a real chance to show what the Tories are going
Here is a selection of some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson gives some reasons to be cheerful about Cameron and the Tories. James Forsyth has some advice for Cameron, and welcomes George Osborne’s Mais lecture. Peter Hoskin watches Alistair Darling unleash the forces of hell, and observes Brown
A few days ago, BBC Newsnight ran in effect the first live TV debate between the three parties when Secretary of State for Defence, Bob Ainsworth, Shadow Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, and Liberal Democrat defence spokesperson Nick Harvey shared a platform at the Imperial War museum. The programme was meant to focus on the main
Brownies galore in our PM’s interview with the Economist. So many, in fact, that I thought I do a quick Fisk: The Economist: The big worry seems to be the deficit—the deficit. What should the message should be? Gordon Brown: I actually think that the first thing that we’ve got to do as a
