All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Adam Boulton is exceptionally well sourced in the Blair circle so the extract from his updated history of the Blair years makes for fascinating reading. It shows how Blair is carving out a post-premiership in a way that no other ex-British Prime Minister ever has. What is making news, though, is what Boulton reveals about
A story that has escaped largely unnoticed this weekend is the creation of the Liberal Democrat party’s sinisterly named ‘anti-Tory attack unit’. Sam Coates has the details in the Times: ‘Nick Clegg has created an anti-Tory attack unit which will focus Liberal Democrat firepower on exposing George Osborne’s “complete inexperience”. In an interview with The Times,
If things were looking bad for Baroness Scotland before, then they’re looking calamitous now. On top of the row about her illegal immigrant cleaner, it’s emerged that she wrongly claimed around £170,000 in living expenses since 2004. According to the Cabinet Office, the money should only go to peers whose main residence is outside London.
An interesting spat is just breaking out over cuts. The Conservatives have a leak from the working of the Budget showing detailed projections in government revenue to 2013-14 covered by all the main Sundays. This suggests income tax rising from £140bn this year to £191bn in four years’ time. The Tories say this is not
The opposition rally in Tehran yesterday on Quds day is a hopeful sign that the Iranian regime’s hard-line anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric—Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a ‘lie’ in his remarks—is increasingly ineffective. The New York Times report, which was filed from Beirut and so probably reliant on opposition sources and websites, states that opposition supporters
For all his celebrity, Vince Cable is not exactly an economic genius – as those who have read his book, The Storm, will know all to well (Specator review here). But he is seldom tested on this point, as he encounters broadcasters whose line of questioning is normally “tell us, Sage of Twickenham, what is
It’s not often that a man who claims to have bedded and satisfied over 30 women declares that the nation is on the cusp of ‘its liberal moment’, and it’s drawn attention to the Liberal Democrats. With Labour seemingly returning home to the house that Jack Jones built, Nick Clegg should be sweeping the country,
Fresh from winning GQ’s Politician of the Year award last week, George Osborne now has an accolade he may be even happier with: heavy praise from both Peter Oborne and Matthew Parris. Both commentators write columns today which dish out the superlatives for Osborne’s response to the fiscal crisis, and suggest he has been vindicated
Patrick Wintour has an insightful article in today’s Guardian, setting out how and why Brown has dithered when it comes to deploying the c-word. So far as the current landscape is concerned, this passage is particularly striking: “There is tension between Brown and Darling on how far the campaign can be based on Brown’s achievements
A few years ago, around the time that Bob Geldof was arguing that George W Bush had done much more for Africa than Bill Clinton ever did, I appeared on a BBC Radio Five show to try and explain this apparently mystifying, confusing, aspect of the Bush presidency. Well, it was mystifying to the BBC.
As Ezra Klein says it would be remiss not to give this transparently link-whoring Observer list of The 50 Best Foods in the World and Where to Eat Them the attention it so desperately craves. And like Ezra I’ve only had two of them: the pastrami-on-rye at Katz’s deli in New York and currywurst in
Well that didn’t take long. No sooner had I decried the notion that President Barack Obama’s decision to move (but not cancel) the US’s proposed missile defence shield from eastern europe than, sure enough, up more folk arrive to suggest that OMG! It’s Munich All Over Again! This time it’s Rich Lowry, editor of National
Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week Fraser Nelson asks why the high-priests of climate change alarmism fear debate, and wonders if it wise for the Tories to be more angry about the public finances. James Forsyth thinks Vince Cable doesn’t receive anywhere near enough scrutiny, and sees Peter
At last night’s Policy Exchange lecture, General David Petraeus said he had known the former CDS, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, since “he was simply Sir Charles.” I met Petraeus for the first time when he was simply a colonel, serving with NATO forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Even then he was thought of as a rising star.
So are Vince Cable’s public spending cuts his own, or are they Lib Dem policy? In his Straight Talk interview with the Lib Dem treasury spokesman this weekend, Andrew Neil tries to get to the bottom of it all. The result? Well, according to Cable, Nick Clegg “approved” his pamphlet for the think tank Reform,
Over at his new blog for the Wall Street Journal, Iain Martin ups the provocative factor by asking: “Will the Tories axe the RAF?” Here’s the key passage: “It has long been the dirty little secret of the U.K. defence establishment that a way to streamline the command structure, reduce duplication and slash costs is
With the Lib Dem party conference kicking off this weekend, Lloyd Evans has written a Web Exclusive preview of what the main party leaders can expect over the next few weeks. You can access it in the Essays section of the site, under the Spectator tab in the navigation bar, or by clicking here.
Everyone agrees that cuts in public spending are necessary. Everyone also agrees that we could do with a better and more candid class of politician. And everyone should agree that we could do with better newspapers too. It’s budget week here in Scotland and that means there’s the chance to preview some of arguments that
A Populus poll for The Times shows that the Conservatives are more trusted to run vital services than Labour. Here are the details: ‘The Tories are now in a strong position on most public services, which have traditionally been vote-winners for Labour. On doing the best job of improving the NHS, the Tories are on
Much though I like and respect the chap, isn’t Jonathan Freedland slightly overstating the case? The headline to his Guardian article read: “If Obama can’t defeat the Republican headbangers our planet is doomed.” Later in the piece, Jonny admitted that some might see this assertion as “hyperbolic” or “deranged”. Maybe. My definition of it is
18th March 1940: British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) walking across the Horse Guard’s Parade, Buckingham Palace on his seventy-first birthday. Photo: Davies/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images. Neville Chamberlain, it is fair to say, does not receive a good press these days. The War Party – on both sides of the Atlantic – sees Munich popping
Spot the difference: 5 September, 2009: Gordon Brown warns G20 countries against reining in spending, The Telegraph “Britain is resisting pressure from Germany and other Euro-currency countries who are planning to moves towards an ‘exit strategy’ that would see some of the planned anti-recessionary spending programmes being scaled back to cut rising national debts.” 18
With the Baroness Scotland housekeeper mini-scandal still in the air, I hear a delicious rumour. I’m told that in a surreal extension of Labour big tent policy, Gordon Brown approached Shami Chakrabarti about the job of Attorney-General. The hammer of the government’s civil liberties turned down the offer. But the latest events provide the perfect
A couple of weeks ago, Kevin Maguire told us that No.10 is thinking about a March or April general election. And now Steve Richards follows up by suggesting April is most likely: “Speaking to influential ministers and aides I get the impression that their favoured month for an election is next April. In theory they
Today Barack Obama publicly tore down the missile installations that George W Bush put up in the Czech Republic and Poland. The system was ostensibly meant to counter threats from Iran, but given the swift creation of missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic in the wake of Russian’s invasion of Georgia, Moscow’s elite
The news that the UK Border agency will launch an investigation into allegations that the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, employed an illegal immigrant is, obviously, highly embarrassing for the government. With his customary lack of style, the Tories’ attack-dog Chris Grayling commented: “This is a Government that says all small employers should be prosecuted if
Paul Waugh’s beaten us to it, but Ed Ball’s New Statesman article is a rallying cry to the left. He writes: ‘As we approach the most important general election for a generation, this is no time for introspection or defeatism. There’s never been a moment when Labour’s values and experience have been more relevant or
For the Kremlinologists among us, Andrew Grice has an insightful article in today’s Independent on the growing support for Ed Miliband in the Labour Party. He kicks it off by asking the pivotal question when it comes to the Brothers Miliband – “Will Ed Miliband eclipse brother David?” – and follows that up with some
Fucking Jews! A Foreign and Commonwealth civil servant has appeared before Westminster magistrates accused of inciting racial and religious hatred. Rowan Laxton, who reportedly earns £70,000 per year at the FCO, was allegedly heard to shout “fucking Israelis………..fucking Jews” in a gym while watching a Sky news report of Israeli military action in Gaza. Confronted
After Michael Fallon’s claim last week that the shadow cabinet hasn’t got “the faintest idea” of the commitment necessary to tackle the debt crisis, this anecdote from Benedict Brogan’s column should act as another warning to David Cameron: “Whitehall is gripped by short-termism, yet in a world dominated by the targets culture introduced by Labour,
Did Bush or Paulson have a clue what they were doing? It’s an intriguing question. James flagged up the view of Bush’s speechwriter Matt Latimer that Paulson, not Bush, was to blame. But, in this month’s Vanity Fair, Todd.S. Purdum flips the coin. Based on interviews with Paulson, conducted as the bailout unfolded, the article’s
Nick Clegg joins the ‘progressive’ debate with a double of salvo in The Times and in a pamphlet, titled ‘The liberal moment’, published by Demos. The philosophically anachronistic Labour party is his target. He writes: ‘The contrast between Labour and liberals is starkest in their different approaches to power. While Labour hoards at the centre,
The Independent’s Hamish McRae writes a superb column today on just how far the next government will have to go to tackle Brown’s debt crisis. His main point is that unless severe action is taken over the coming years, we’ll be stuck in a perilous position by the time the next global downturn hits. But
Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice has released a very important report today, and one which should influence the welfare debate for years to come. At around 350 pages, it’s a weighty enough tome, but I’d recommend that CoffeeHousers give it a flick through. Its subject is how to fix a benefits system which