Fraser Nelson says that the scale of public disgust at the MPs’ expenses scandal presents the next Prime Minister with a huge challenge — and a huge opportunity. If Cameron devolves power to voters, he will be rewarded. But if he fails, the punishment will be swift It will be a brave parliamentary candidate who
‘It was an age of apocalypse. People across the world lived in fear of a new pandemic disease that leapt with ease from animals to humans, which spread on the breath and moved across borders with alarming freedom. Howls of protest carried through the smashed streets of Europe’s cities as they fell to popular rioting,
Rod Liddle says that the insane therapeutic methods used by Haringey Social Services typify the ideological determination of these ‘experts’ to accentuate the ‘positive’ and ignore social reality The Baby P case is still howling around us all, another gale of reproof hammering at the shutters of our liberal indulgence and at our fathomless respect
In the hall at Aberglasney — a fine, classical country house, built in 1720, 20 miles north-west of Swansea — high up by the cornice, an elaborate chunk of plasterwork is missing. To give the full catalogue entry, it is a rococo console, carved with twirling honeysuckles, a motif dear to the ancient Greeks. I know, to
Next month’s European elections are unlikely to be decided on European issues. But as Europe is the one foreign policy area where William Hague has said he has major differences with the government it is important to clarify what is at stake. As Conservatives commemorate the 30th anniversary of Mrs Thatcher’s election in 1979, they
In a disastrous week for the PM, Matthew d’Ancona reveals the plot to mount a leadership challenge after the June elections. But Brown is absolutely determined to cling to power; and Labour has shabby psychological reasons for keeping him where he is Here is the plan: if the local and European elections on 4 June
As we circle out into Table Bay and back towards the mountain, the pilot welcomes us to Cape Town – and warns us about the burgeoning violence. For the first time, locals are talking about it too. ‘We all know people who have been raped and murdered,’ says one friend who delivers me to my guesthouse
Rod Liddle says that Harriet Harman’s notion of ‘structural pay discrimination’ is nonsense. It is women’s decision to have children that disrupts wage equality One government proposal which seems to have gone largely unnoticed as a consequence of the credit crunch, Susan Boyle’s triumph on Britain’s Got Talent and flying Mexican pigs spreading their lethal
Travels in Obamaland: we take our two boys for their first holiday in the vast parish of St Barack, as his first 100 days come to an end. The wave of T-shirt wisdom unleashed during the election campaign hasn’t dried up: one favourite is a sepia image of a group of American Indians, being sold
I blame Matthew d’Ancona, esteemed editor of this organ, for his over-generous hospitality. It was after one of The Spectator’s pre-Christmas celebrations that I was breathalysed and banned from driving for a year, later reduced to nine months if I underwent counselling. It all started when, as an occasional Spectator scribe since 1974, I received
In an exclusive interview, Sir Michael Lyons, the BBC chairman, talks to Matthew d’Ancona about the licence fee, the Ross-Brand affair — and hints at flexibility over funding If there is a stereotype of the BBC chairman, Sir Michael Lyons does not match it. Marmaduke Hussey, for instance, was the archetypal establishment patrician, while Gavyn
Brahma Chellaney says that India is indeed ‘the sponge that protects us all’ from terrorism emanating from Pakistan. The new President’s strategy is compounding the Af-Pak problem New Delhi One of the most striking things about the larger Asian strategic landscape is that India is wedged in an arc of failing or troubled states. This
The Eighties mantra ‘greed is good’ may be unfashionable, says Fraser Nelson, but it is still true. We have forgotten that wealth generates revenue, while high taxes crush prosperity and pauperise nations. Will the Conservatives have the guts to declare this economic truth? Before Gordon Brown was writing books about political courage, the subject that
Matthew Parris says Mayor Johnson must now focus obsessively on fixing London’s transport system In more ways than one, the suffix ‘ism’ is not easily appended to the word ‘Boris’. Indeed ‘Borisism’ sounds so ungainly that some may pray that no such phenomenon ever needs to be described. If so, the prayer has been answered.
We asked a distinguished panel to assess the Mayor’s progress — and what he should do next David Cameron Boris and his team have done a brilliant job in the last year. Under his leadership City Hall has become less extravagant, and more focused on the right priorities: making London a safer, greener and more
Ross Clark says that we mustn’t underestimate Boris’s greatest achievement: to have frozen the GLA precept without affecting services is a triumph It is hard to remember the horrors of the London inherited by new Mayor Boris Johnson a year ago. It was a city gridlocked with traffic, with unaffordable housing, and where you couldn’t
‘I believe in the mysterious beauty of Margaret Thatcher, in the arch of her nostrils and the sheen on her lower lip; in the melancholy of wounded Argentine conscripts; in the haunted smiles of filling station personnel, in my dream of Margaret Thatcher caressed by that young Argentine soldier in a forgotten motel, watched by
Boris Johnson’s first year as Mayor of London has proved something of a shock, especially to his own side. His enemies, including the Tory parliamentary leadership as well as the sort of people who toil on the Guardian’s comment pages, find they have underestimated him. It suited them to write him off as a clown
‘The thing about Boris is that he really, really wants to be President,’ said an Old Etonian contemporary of his. This was back in 1984 when we were all at Oxford together. ‘Yes, I know,’ I replied. ‘He’s already announced his candidacy.’ ‘I don’t mean President of the Union,’ he said. ‘I mean President of
I met Boris Johnson in his office in City Hall overlooking the Thames and Tower Bridge. Our former editor seemed a more thoughtful and sensible character than the man who used to practise cycling with no hands down Doughty Street at lunchtime, but there were signs of the old Boris tucked around his mayoral office: