Conservatism is dead in Britain — as it is in Europe, as it is in most of the world — and if you want to know what the problem is, a good place to start is the one where I’ve just been: the David Horowitz Restoration Weekend in Palm Beach, Florida. Horowitz is a prominent
There’s a pattern emerging to George Osborne’s autumn. He gives a big domestic set piece speech on growth and then immediately leaves the country for a meeting of European finance ministers. It is what he did straight after his conference speech last month and what he will do after the growth review on 29 November.
For months now, the whole idea of the Leveson inquiry into press standards has been dimly reminding me of something. Only recently did I figure out what it was. You know when anthropologists descend upon some almost-doomed Patagonian tribe, desperate to document their language, costumes and strategies for spear-throwing, nose-boning and rat spit-roasting before the
During the Depression, tent cities sprung up across America. Today, in the second great contraction, they are appearing in the financial centres of the western world. But there is a crucial difference: the contemporary campers are there out of choice not necessity. Pitching your tent has become the fashionable form of protest. It is easy
The typical cowardice of French journalists has prevented us from knowing the full details of that off-the-record chat between Nicolas Sarkozy and President Barack Obama — until now. Hitherto we had to make do with Sarkozy’s rather boring attack upon the Israeli leader Benyamin Netanyahu: ‘I cannot bear Netanyahu, he is a liar.’ To which
Another Remembrance Day approaches as I write. Another autumnal Sunday; another Last Post; those poppies again; in Derbyshire the church parades; another nationwide two-minute silence. The occasion always sets me thinking about what people call ‘perspective’ in history. Sir Percy Cradock, leaving Peking as ambassador nearly 30 years ago, said something about history’s rear-view mirror
‘Farage has only got one ball.’ The last time I made reference to the Ukip leader’s monotesticular status, I got a rocket from an outraged reader. But the reader had missed the point entirely. Nigel Farage’s handicap is a strength, not a weakness. He’s open about it, he’s unembarrassed by it and he’s a better
Last week’s rebellion by David Cameron’s backbenchers in support of an EU referendum ended eight years of peace in the Tory party on the European question. Now, the offer by the Greek Prime Minister of a referendum on the bailout package — designed to appease nervous Greek Socialist party backbenchers — means that the uncertainty
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has at last spoken on the issue of the great St Paul’s Cathedral controversy, which has so far seen the departure of both the Dean of the cathedral and its canon. Dr Williams lamented the loss to the church of both men but added that the ‘issues’ raised by
What I’m lacking, really, is any sense of the parameters. As I understand it, a best-case scenario involves the Greeks doing what they’re told. Everybody else tightens their belts a bit and there’s a bout of quite dispiriting inflation, followed by the ejection of a couple of countries from the euro, the slow retrenchment of
In the hours leading up to Monday’s vote in the Commons on the EU referendum motion, frantic negotiations took place between No. 10 and Nick Clegg’s office. Downing Street wanted the Liberal Democrat leader to stay away from both David Cameron’s statement on the European Council and William Hague’s speech in the debate. It feared
What is the appropriate sort of language, do you suppose, for the captain of the England football team to use in respect of his colleagues? This is an important issue and I, for one, will not sleep until a sort of resolution — a closure, if you will — has been arrived at. Because we
Do you remember that classic 1980s American TV series about a group of elderly American women, The Golden Girls? You could call the sitcom the geriatric equivalent of Friends: equally sharp, and every bit as addictive. One of the central characters (she was called Rose) was forever lapsing into interminable accounts of uninteresting events. Her
‘Great God, Twitter is an awful place!’ I tweeted the other day. Hypocritically. After all, if I really hate it so much, what the hell am I still doing there? It’s quite possible for someone in my game to survive without Twitter. Look at Rod Liddle. The reason Rod doesn’t do Twitter is that he
How long do you suppose it takes Chris Huhne to shop for the most competitive energy bill for all seven of his houses? Ages, I reckon. If he had been driving during that infamous speeding incident on the M11 — and everyone knows, of course, that he wasn’t — then this would surely have been
How long do you suppose it takes Chris Huhne to shop for the most competitive energy bill for all seven of his houses? Ages, I reckon. If he had been driving during that infamous speeding incident on the M11 — and everyone knows, of course, that he wasn’t — then this would surely have been
The government’s never-ending European problem In the hours after the coalition was formed last May, a minister and a group of Tory MPs sat around a table in a parliamentary cafeteria discussing what it all meant. One new MP said to the minister that it was a pity that, in the course of the talks,
It isn’t often that a piece in the Spectator makes its way straight into a Prime Minister’s party conference speech but, as this magazine’s online Coffee House hinted last week, Douglas Murray’s ‘Why conservatives should welcome gay marriage’ (1 October) looks like an example. I’ve often disagreed and occasionally crossed swords with Mr Murray but
‘Oh God, you realise if it gets really bad we might have to end up eating that,’ I said, meaning our fat cat Runty. The Fawn started making upset noises. She’s very fond of Runty. My problem wouldn’t be so much the sentimental aspect as the practical one. Just how do you go about skinning
Do you have any idea what a decision support analyst actually does for a living? This is a controversial topic because the chief operating officer of the BBC, a woman called Caroline Thomson, was unable to answer the question as to what her own decision support analysts did while they were at work. Truth be