Following the example of progressive local authorities, this magazine will not, on this page this year, be celebrating Christmas but an alternative festival of light in which Muslims can share too. It is called the elections for a permanent government in Iraq. As we go to press, the polling booths are being prepared to enable
A good friend said something strange the other day. Her daughter, who is approaching her final school year, has asked if she can leave private school and go to the local sixth form college because she would like to make some new friends. Her mother was brimming with pride as she relayed this news —
It has become a cliché in recent days to contrast the gloomy jowls of Gordon Brown, performing emergency surgery to his spending plans in the Commons, with the beaming countenance of David Cameron, radiating hope and happiness throughout the nation. To make too much of this contrast is, of course, to underestimate the task that
Almost exactly two years have passed since Michael Howard was drafted in as emergency leader of the Conservative party. He has done the job he was asked to do. He took over at a moment of traumatic collapse. He administered first aid and gradually brought the victim back to life. In due course colour returned
A fortnight ago this magazine praised the Prime Minister for a statesmanlike speech in which he made the case for abolishing agricultural subsidies and dismantling tariff barriers on food from the developing world. We repeat our assertion that if Mr Blair achieves this, it will be a legacy well worthy of honour. Unfortunately, however, he
At the heart of David Cameron’s project for the Tory party is admiration for Tony Blair: his techniques, style, language and persona- lity cult. This reverence for the Prime Minister extends far beyond mere form to embrace substantial policy issues. It is well known that David Cameron agrees with Tony Blair’s insights into public-service reform,
A front-page exclusive in the Daily Mirror is normally something to be treated with great scepticism. Until, that is, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, offers his full stamp of approval by invoking the Official Secrets Act. Fantasies and hoaxes — unless they are fantasies and hoaxes propagated by HM government — by definition lie outside
We have entered an equivocal and shiftless passage in British politics. Tony Blair is in the situation of a relegated football club towards the end of the season. He is going down, and there is a zero statistical chance that he can survive. He lingers at top table, but has reached the stage where even
Over the past fortnight it has been necessary for this magazine to side with those who would like to bury Tony Blair. This week it is our solemn duty to praise him. No amount of disquiet over his illiberal — and happily failed — scheme to subject terror suspects to 90 days’ detention without charge
No prime minister, with the debatable exception of Anthony Eden, has been held in such low private esteem by senior civil servants as Tony Blair. Cabinet secretaries Robin Butler and Richard Wilson have delivered withering public verdicts on the slipshod way government now conducts its business. So have senior officials like Michael Quinlan and former
When history comes to make a final judgment on the Blair government — and we can be forgiven for hoping that moment is not too much longer delayed — there is one key statistic by which to assess the Prime Minister’s performance. Since 1997 the Labour government has created no fewer than 700 new criminal
At least this time we were spared the self-pitying squealing about only doing what he had for the ‘little lad’. But even though David Blunkett walked the plank he still refuses to accept that he’s done anything wrong. Maybe the Viagra has gone to his head. It was obvious as early as Tuesday morning that
Edward Gibbon would recognise it: the air of decadence, the smell of death which hangs over the New Labour empire this week. The impotence of Emperor Blair is a pitiful sight. His protestations of the innocence of Senator Blunkett — which once would have swung the public behind him and turned the condemnation upon Blunkett’s
Tony Blair has always had the remarkable ability to give the appearance of engaging in an heroic struggle with the intransigent Left of his party — while on closer inspection his proposals present at best a minor departure from old Labour dogma. He promised to ‘think the unthinkable’ on social security: the unthinkable result being
North Oxford is not one of the most deprived areas of Great Britain. When its generally quite large houses come on to the market — which is not often — they tend to be snapped up by computer millionaires or bankers from London rather than by dons. The ‘Tory turncoat’ Shaun Woodward has just paid
When Edward Heath was held to ransom by the unions in 1974, he called an election with the stirring question, ‘Who governs Britain?’, to which the answer was ‘not you, chum’. It is incredible that after more than 30 years, when so much is meant to have changed, the unions have just rolled over a
MPs returned to Westminster this week during a spell of hot, sultry weather more characteristic of late July than mid-October. They sweated up in the corridors, mopped their brows in the chamber, sat in shirtsleeves on the Commons terrace (apart from the Liberal Democrats, who at first did not return at all; the recall of
There were three news stories this week which might at first appear to be unrelated. The government announced that its forthcoming Work and Families Bill will give new fathers the right to take six months’ unpaid paternity leave. The BBC demanded that its licence fee rise at 2.3 per cent above inflation over the next
Despite well-meaning efforts by Francis Maude, Theresa May and Alan Duncan to cast a pall over the occasion, Blackpool 2005 turned out to be the most life-enhancing Tory party conference in recent years. With 6,000 members present, it provided a pleasing reminder that vigour and enthusiasm survive among the grass-roots. Meanwhile, a series of outstanding
Many Conservatives will have left the party’s Blackpool conference with their feelings about the leadership contest transformed. As the horses enter the final stretch, the pulses of the punters are unquestionably quickening, and the smart money must surely be moving on to David Cameron. It is no disrespect to the other contenders to say that