All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The pre-conference coverage today is dominated by a marginals poll which shows the Tories on course for a 70 seat majority down from 146 this time last year, a Tory proposal on elderly care and the likely Irish yes vote and interviews with Osborne and Hague. Osborne receives a thoroughly positive write-up from the Mail;
I just don’t understand David Cameron’s stubbornness over his alliance with his new friends in fringe European parties. Why make a stand for these people? William Hague’s insistence of an apology from David Miliband following his comments at Labour Party conference is plain daft. Miliband may have gone over the top in what he said about
Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk this week. Fraser Nelson can’t believe the lines Labour MPs are coming out with, and says it’s game over for Labour in Brighton. James Forsyth says that getting shirty with the media won’t do Labour any favours, and sees Brown’s speech fall flat in Brighton. Peter
Chris Grayling’s reputation as a one-dimensional attack-dog was accentuated by his ill-judged comparison of Britain with Baltimore. The argument laid against Grayling is that he shouts about the government but provides no more than a whisper about policy. However, Grayling shows deep and nuanced consideration of policy when interviewed by Martin Bright in the Jewish
Much has been made of David Miliband’s vitriol against the Tories and their EU parliament grouping, and the intimation that Eric Pickles is Anti-Semitic. William Hague complained yesterday, and has now formalised that complaint by writing to the Foreign Secretary, highlighting the factual errors and misconceptions that dominated Miliband’s speech. Hague ends the letter by
The change from being in opposition to being in government is almost impossible to gauge. How does a new prime Minister assume control of government? Peter Riddell gives David Cameron 10 tips that would ease the process. To emphasise the scale of Cameron’s impending problem, the only tip he can enact now is to ensure
Paul Waugh has the scoop that all eight Labour councils in London will freeze council tax from next April. The councils worked with Communities Secretary John Denham, who emphasised that 2010-2011’s increase in the central grant means that tax rises are unacceptable. As Waugh puts it, the “low-tax era seems finally to have begun”. This
That the Irish referendum result will be announced on Saturday afternoon is not, to put it mildly, ideal for the Tories. If as expected the Irish vote yes, it will be almost certain that the Lisbon treaty will be ratified by the time of the next election (the Czech delay is not expected to last
The Spectator’s role is to inform, entertain and – quite often – infuriate our readers. But does Rod Liddle go too far? One of the many joys of being editor is receiving letters from readers saying that he does. For every one of those, I get four saying he’s a national treasure (which is my
Did you know that the problem with the Bible is that it is, frankly, a book for liberal surrender-monkeys? Apparently so. Hence the urgent need for a new, properly conservative translation. Let’s hear it for the Conservative Bible Project. Apparently, As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the
All eminent barristers have their specialism, Lord Goldsmith’s is changing his mind. Scholarly integrity is to blame – he likes to give both sides of the argument. His two thrillingly different Iraq war advices are, of course, his crowning achievement; but he’s playing devil’s advocate again today. He writes in the Guardian: ‘I applaud Richard Alderman,
I confess that until recently I had never heard of Mary Seacole. But, like Boris Johnson, who found himself in this position a few years ago, that reflects poorly on me, not on the redoubtable Seacole. Brother Liddle says that her inclusion upon new lists of eminent Victorians can only be explained “solely and utterly
I do hope you can forgive this diversion from the usual subject matter of my blog, but just for today I would like to deal with a personal matter. That is not to say it does not have wider implications – I believe it does; in a very real sense it has implications for all
Iain Martin writes a typically insightful post on Labour’s conference capitulation. His central point is that Brown & Co. are following a misguided “no compromise” strategy: “These difficulties with the media are part of a wider problem with the so-called ‘fight-back’ strategy being used by Gordon Brown. It is based on an analysis which is
The red flag has been sung and the delegates are heading home. But no one I’ve spoken to believes that this conference has really changed anything. Labour is still heading for defeat at the next election. Perhaps, the biggest thing to come out of this conference is that Labour’s relations with the media are
Photo: Max Nash/AFP/Getty Images Brother Liddle says that Jon Cruddas is the only one of Gordon Brown’s potential successors that gives him any great hope for the future of the Labour party. And given the competition that may not be so very surprising. But if the party conference this week has proved anything, it’s that
The press really is beastly, isn’t it? According to Jonathan Freedland, The media’s conviction that Labour, and Gordon Brown in particular, are doomed has grown so intense that it has turned into a kind of sneering disdain for the government, casting aside all conventions of respect for those holding elected office… You don’t have to
If there was an award for most improved conference speaker it would go to David Miliband. Last year his lacklustre effort helped put an end to his putative leadership challenge. This year he showed delegates why he might be up to the job of being Labour leader after the next election. He has dropped his
So we’ve heard before that Brown is “obsessed” with Winston Churchill and, in his mind, wants to avoid the wartime leader’s fate as a Prime Minister who guided Britian through a crisis only to be answered with a thumping in the polls. In which case, it’s rather odd that Brown should write this in the
According to exhaustive polling data, the Irish will vote Yes to the Lisbon treaty. With Czech senators looking set to ratify the treaty also, the probable future Conservative government in this country faces a dilemma: what to do about Lisbon. Simple, says Bill Emmot in the Times. Cameron and Hague must hold their noses because
It had been expected – according to press reports admittedly – that Aberdeenshire Council would lift the threat of compulsory purchase orders being used to evict four families from their homes to pacify Donald Trump’s demand for yet more land for his golf course development on the Menie Estate, near Aberdeen. Well, so much for
The latest issue of the Spectator is released today. If you are a subscriber you can view it here. If you have not subscribed, but would like to view this week’s content, you can subscribe online now. Three articles from the latest issue are available for free online to all website users: Fraser Nelson interviews
Halloween’s still a few weeks away, but here’s something to inspire CoffeeHousers’ nightmares in the meantime: Gordon Brown’s infamous glower at the end of his interview with Adam Boulton. The footage that Sky released yesterday tactfully cut the whole thing short, but the new video below features our PM’s Look of Pure Hatred in its
Remiss of me not to note that this photograph of the Obamas and the Zapateros has caused quite a stir in Spain. That’s because the Spanish people were not generally aware that the Prime Minister’s daughters, Laura and Alba*, are goths. There’s a law that protects their privacy, you see and so, until the State
A quick post to point out that Fraser’s interview with David Cameron – to which CoffeeHousers contributed questions – will be appearing in tomorrow’s issue of the magazine. We’ll also be making the article free to all website users tomorrow morning, so you can read the full thing then. In the meantime, here’s a selection
Was Rory Stewart, Harvard Professor, author of The Places In Between and prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate for the Bracknell constituency, an MI6 officer? Former-ambassador-turned-conspiracist Craig Murray says he was: One person I would not vote for is the crusading neo-Conservative Rory Stewart. It is particularly annoying that he is constantly referred to as a former
Gordon Brown is an intelligent man but I’ve always thought him a better tactician than strategist. His speech to the Labour party conference yesterday confirmed that view and, indeed, strengthened it. Consider this passage from Jonathan Freedland’s column today: The Brownites always loathed Blair’s “respect agenda”, regarding anti-social behaviour orders as dismal and sacking Blair’s
Tony Woodley of the Unite union just received a huge cheer for coming to the podium and ripping up a copy of The Sun while laying into ‘Australian Americans’ who come to this country and try and tell us how to do politics here. There’s no doubt that the feeling here in Brighton is that
Paul Waugh highlights a passage from Harriet Harman’s speech today: “Contrasting Labour’s record on equalities and feminism with that of the Tories, she said that David Cameron would extend foxhunting rights to everyone, while George Osborne would replace a SureStart in every community with ‘a lapdancing club in every community’.” Now, Paul reports that Harman’s
Who would you like to see succeed Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour Party? Still deluded by the continuation of power and the hopeless yearning that it all might come right next summer, Labour has been strangely united at its conference. Certainly compared to those conferences I well remember in 1979, 1983 and even
The news that the Sun was endorsing the Tories deflated the mood of conference last night. And Labour hang-overs can not have been improved by Brown’s performance on Sky today, which Pete referenced earlier. The Prime Minister was clearly irritated by Adam Boulton’s line of questioning, using the phrase ‘let me finish’ more than any
If you still haven’t made up your mind about whether Brown’s speech yesterday will do anything for Labour’s chances, then just dash through his interviews with the broadcast media. Two topics stand out – the Sun’s decision to back the Tories, and whether Brown will get involved in a televised debate – and there’s little
Well, that’s what he claims anyway. Brown’s extended interview on the Today programme was an exercise in deflecting blame (and the Sun coming out for Cameron) – ‘none of this would have happened if people had listened to me because, you see, I saw it all coming’ was his refrain. This exchange with Jim Naughtie
Considering the dire situation in which Gordon Brown finds himself, yesterday’s speech was really rather good. It gives the party faithful something to cling on to as they begin the grim task of campaigning for a Labour victory in 2010. The obvious question for me after hearing it, though, was “why now?” How can the