All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
David has already blogged about George Osborne and Jeffrey Sach’s article in the FT this morning. But it’s worth returning to what is as clear and as unalloyed a statement of Tory policy on the public finances as you’ll have seen over the past few months. What I find most impressive about the article
Gordon Brown must be feeling generous today, for he did the Tories two favours on Woman’s Hour earlier. David has already mentioned the first one: Brown saying that he would “keep going” as party leader even if Labour loses the next election, which ups the potential for more summertime Sturm und Drang on his own
Heaven forbid that the Tories and LibDems end up in coalition – but the Guardian asked me to write a piece war-gaming what would happen if they did. The result is here. I really do believe it would be a short-lived calamity because no one would be playing for the long-term. The Westminster system does
Things have come to a pretty pass when the Secretary of State for Education endorses ignorance and scoffs at knowledge pretending, one is given to understand, that it’s just a kind of posh irrelevance favoured only by the terminally stuffy and fuddy-duddy and out-of-touch. Such, however, seems to be the case for you poor English
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
At last, Gordon Brown has been forced from the comfort of silence on the Unite/BA strike. Yesterday, Lord Adonis said that he “absolutely deplored the strike” because the “stakes were too high”. Brown has done nothing more than echo those sentiments, but that is at least a step in the right direction. Obviously, the strike
…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson uncovers Brown’s latest confidence trick. James Forsyth argues that the LibDems should receive more scrutiny, and spies electoral politicking amid Labour’s Lords reforms. David Blackburn thinks that David Cameron’s interview with Sir Trevor McDonald was a success, and reckons that Edward
George Osborne has long been in the City’s crosshairs, and criticism peaked last week when less than a quarter of a City panel believe he has the mettle to be Chancellor. Today, Osborne fights back in the FT, with a piece co-penned by Jeffrey Sachs. The pair set out an argument for immediate ‘frugality’, rather
It was mostly standard fare for a political interview, but the Cameron/Trevor McDonald show reminds you of what I think is one of Cameron’s foremost positives, and one that is welcome amid the Tories’ current self-doubt. Cameron and his team turned the unelectable Tories into a modern and truly representative force. Jonathan Freedland may argue that the change
There was a classic Brown interview exchange in his face the voters session on the Politics Show today: Q: Would you accept the criticism that came from your home secretary on this issue, that maybe you’ve been a little kind of, eye taken off the ball? I think we have cruised a bit on this because we
Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox has given an interview to the Sunday Express, where he talks about overcoming a sense of “colonial guilt” bestowed by revisionist historians and the need for a new government to forge defence links with commonwealth nations, such as Australia and New Zealand, but he also cited India and Saudi Arabia.
Everywhere you turn, it is hard to escape the sirens of decline. Their song echoes through Coffee House: “Buy supplies”, they sing, “take the kids out of schools, close down the hatches – for Britain is going under, broken beyond repair, stuck in a rot from which it cannot escape, while the weaklings of yesteryear
Labour knows that its class attacks on David Cameron only work when they tie them to a specific issue. So it was almost inevitable that House of Lords reform was going to be wheeled out at some point. There was excitement in Labour circles earlier this year when the Tories voted against removing the voting
My old mate Andrew Gilligan lacerates the BBC in this week’s magazine, for having allowed a member of the Islamic Forum of Europe onto Radio Four’s usually genteel “Any Questions”, and indeed having allowed the East London Mosque (which is run by the “extremist” IFE) to host the programme. At first sight, it is a
It would be news if the Tory lead didn’t contract every Sunday. James has already noted the latest retreat in the Tory lead, detailed in the Sunday Telegraph’s ICM poll. Tory poll contractions are the new banking bailouts – so numerous you scarcely notice them. What struck me about this poll is the large minority who want a hung parliament. Not just
With another poll showing the Tories short of the lead they need to be sure of a majority—ICM for the Sunday Telegraph has the Tories on 38, Labour on 31 and the Lib Dems on 21—we are going to hear even more about a hung parliament and the role of the Lib Dems; I can’t
Edward McMillan-Scott fights a lone and determined battle. Timing his defection for maximum destruction, McMillan-Scott characterises the Tory party in the style of Orwell’s Big Brother. He told the LidDem spring conference: “People are controlled within the Conservative party, as I was.” It is a common charge, but, because the Tory leadership currently resembles Channel
I must admit I am baffled as to why David Cameron has chosen now as the moment to reopen the question of under what circumstances he would move George Osborne from his job as shadow Chancellor. The Times reports that Cameron says in his interview with Sir Trevor McDonald that he has talked to Osborne
It is more than 100 days since Guido Westerwelle became Germany’s foreign minister and the questions about Germany’s diplomatic introspection remain. They may have even grown and are becoming problematic for Berlin’s allies. Chancellor Schröder appeared to follow a Sonderweg, a philosophy that saw Berlin move away from old notions of peacemaking and away
One of the Brownie’s we’ve been hearing recently from the Dear Leader is that it is in some way ambitious to “halve the deficit by 2014”. It’s a Brownie because it is technically accurate, yet designed to mislead the voter. Two years ago, he forecast no deficit at all by 2014. Now he’s projecting one
The Liberal Democrats have developed a reputation for being able to face in two directions at the same time. Their Janus-like qualities have stood them in good stead during their rise to parliamentary credibility over the past decade. This week, Nick Clegg has appealed to Conservative voters in the pages of The Spectator, while my
If we are going to spend so much time talking about the possibility of a hung parliament, it is worth noting that you don’t actually need 324 MPs to have a majority in the Commons. As John Rentoul reminds us, Sinn Fein MPs do not take their seats as they refuse to recognise the legitimacy
Liam Byrne told The Daily Politics yesterday that Labour would reduce the deficit without raising additional taxation to that which is already planned. Iain Martin describes this pledge as being akin to a chocolate fireguard. He’s right. It’s less realistic than a Jeffrey Archer novel. As Andrew Neil notes, Labour plans to reduce £82bn from
Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson argues that the government is tough on dangerous dogs but blind to their causes. James Forsyth is clear that the Tories will have a lot of mud thrown at them, and worries that London is becoming anti-competitive. Peter Hoskin examines
I’m aghast. I never imagined that even Griffin and Brons would fall at the first, and eminently negotiable, jump. The Telegraph reports that Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons have given insufficient detail of their expenses, worth nearly £500,000. All other parties provided detailed returns. Griffin stood on an anti-sleaze ticket last June, and successfully exploited
Michael Savage called it right. The LibDems’ campaign slogan (Change that works for you. Building a better Britain) is a wooden, overly alliterative union of Labour’s and the Tories’ respective slogans. All three party slogans are jumbled. ‘A future fair for all’ is mealy-mouthed and grammatically suspect – where will they build this national fairground?
No blogging here until Monday: it’s Calcutta Cup weekend and I’m off to Edinburgh today for the festivities. It’s an odd feeling this, the notion that England aren’t the obvious and heavy favourites. Two average sides will meet tomorrow and it’s quite possible they will produce the worst match of the championship. How grim that
If you listen to the Tory front bench, you’d be excused for believing that Rue des Drapiers, 17-23, Ixelles in Belgium houses a place of unadulterated anti-British evil. What lies at this address? The European Defence Agency (EDA), which the Tory party has pledged to pull Britain out of should they win power. Does this
Three weeks ago, James argued that the Tories’ incoherence emanated from their disjointed campaign management. Steve Hilton, Andy Coulson, George Osborne and George Bridges were not communicating and the stark clarity on the economy and ‘Broken Britain’ was obscured. James urged the Cameroon duma to put its house in order. Cameron heeded some of his
I’d assumed the left was dead, but Mehdi Hasan says otherwise. The left is triumphant. Whilst Hasan defines left with abstractions like ‘progressive’ and ‘empowerment’, I prefer something more concrete. Unionism is triumphant. With New Labour in rigor mortis, the Unions slipped their moorings and struck out for old havens. Whelan, Crow, Simpson and Woodley
Think Defence has some fun with this video, suggesting that it’s a British version of The Hurt Locker. But actually, it’s also a mini-exemplar of some of the debates currently being heard in Tory circles. From the perspective of the Tory grass roots and true believers, the officer in charge here not only looks like
Thanks to Matt Welch for spotting this splendid piece of “What me?” nonsense from the President: As we were driving in, I was saying, boy, it’s just good to be back in the Midwest, this is about as close as I’ve been to home in a while. And part of the reason it’s just good
In a splurge of activity, William Hague gave both an interview to the FT and another foreign policy speech at RUSI outlining the views of a Conservative government. It was time for an update on Tory thinking, not least because David Cameron’s description of his policy as “liberal conservatism” and his unwillingness to march into
David Cameron warns the nation to “get ready” for Samantha, who will be interviewed by Sir Trevor Macdonald on Sunday. If Sarah Brown is the damsel in distress, saved by her heroic husband, Sam Cam is the trouser-wearing uber-bitch. Allegedly, she is terrifying: cowering Smythsons’ interns refer to her as Anna Wintour. She never does
