Derry Irvine has not gone to pieces, as some former colleagues predicted that he would after being suddenly sacked as Lord Chancellor last June. Friends say that, if anything, he drinks less than he did in government and that his intellect is as sharp as ever. Convention debars former lord chancellors from practising law after
A small milestone was reached this week. The Prison Service announced that for the first time the prison population has passed the 75,000 mark. To be precise, a total of 75,007 people now reside at Her Majesty’s pleasure, or the people’s pleasure as it will perhaps soon be known. It has become customary to greet
The most significant purely domestic event in what has turned into a terrible week on the international stage was a speech by Jack McConnell to Labour’s Scottish conference in an arctic Inverness. McConnell looked ahead to next year’s general election, as all politicians are beginning to do, and emerged with a subversive proposition: Labour should
Aspiring actors are, by tradition, advised by their mentors never to work with children or animals. Budding politicians, on the other hand, should be advised at all costs to avoid pensioners. They make lousy photo opportunities and they have a tendency to fuss over irritatingly small amounts of money. On the other hand, it doesn’t
The invasion of Iraq and everything that followed caused grave difficulties for the government. But at least it created a sense of purpose and perpetuated the illusion that Tony Blair is a strong Prime Minister. The primacy of domestic issues over the last few weeks has reminded us how vacant New Labour really is. Politics
If staff at the Lancet ever go on bonding weekends, they should avoid rock-climbing, canoeing or any other activity in which they would rely on the trust and loyalty of their colleagues. Last weekend the magazine spectacularly turned against the author of one of the most controversial papers it has ever published. Andrew Wakefield, who
This has been by far the dullest week in British politics since well before the 2001 general election. Yet it would be wrong to say that nothing is going on; far from it. A meddling government has resolved, once again, to tear up the examination system. There is a Cabinet rift over the treatment of
Oliver Letwin has laid the foundation for a Conservative victory at the next general election. We do not mean the Conservatives will necessarily win that election: that will require the recovery of great tracts of the political landscape from the Labour party. But the Conservatives are now in a position to campaign on the basis
This year’s dominant theme has been the domestic legacy of the war against Iraq. It has hung over British politics like a cloud of mustard gas, foul-smelling and ubiquitous. This week the cloud at last lifted, and it became possible to survey with a new clarity the ravaged landscape. Lt Col Blair, the commanding officer,
There could be no clearer example of human exploitation and its tragic consequences than the recent events in Morecambe Bay. Nineteen Chinese workers, who had paid a small fortune to agents in order to come to Britain for a better life, were drowned while gathering cockles in dangerous tidal waters of which they lacked local
Every so often there is an event which confuses the usual prejudices of political folk. One such event was the rise of the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, who combined gay liberation with a dislike of immigrants, thereby scattering in all directions those on the Left whose belief systems are dependent on the assumption that all
On Tuesday, 24 September 2002 Tony Blair stood up in the House of Commons and waved a dossier. ‘The threat of Saddam and weapons of mass destruction is not American or British propaganda,’ he said. ‘The history and present threat are real.’ These words were vital, at the time, since many MPs believed this country
Two developments this week demonstrate the absurdity, not to mention the inhumanity, of the government’s policy towards child-rearing. Firstly, sperm donors were informed that children conceived with the aid of their donations will be given the right to trace them. Secondly, the minister for children Margaret Hodge announced that it would be impossible to reunite
Iin the immediate aftermath of the 2001 general election victory Tony Blair made a series of important organisational mistakes, for which he is still paying the price. Probably the most disastrous was the eviction of the government whips’ office from its historic base in 12 Downing Street. Alastair Campbell, director of communications, moved in with
At 6.20 a.m. on Tuesday, the serial killer Harold Shipman hanged himself in Wakefield prison. He tied a noose in a bedsheet, placed it round his neck, tied the other end to the bars of his windows and jumped off a radiator pipe. It is difficult to see what else there is to say about
On Sunday, Tony Blair told the troops in Basra that they were ‘new pioneers of 21st-century soldiering’. The praise was fully deserved and sincerely delivered. Over his years in office, the Prime Minister has become a great admirer of the armed forces. Even so, there was a slight problem about the way he chose to
When, at the insistence of the US Department of Homeland Security, the first armed ‘sky marshals’ take to British transatlantic flights, it is to be hoped that the in-flight movie won’t be Goldfinger. For anyone who has managed to avoid seeing any of the 40 years’ worth of repeat screenings, the Bond film concludes with
As we go to press, two prisoners are awaiting their fates in very different circumstances. Ian Huntley, found guilty of the double murder of the Soham schoolgirls, seems destined for 50 years’ worth of DVDs and games of ping-pong in one of Her Majesty’s jails. Saddam Hussein, on the other other hand, faces a public
By the time Parliament rises for the Christmas recess, the Prime Minister will have endured 18 consecutive days without a day off. This stretch embraces two uncomfortable working weekends, the first of them to the fly-blown Nigerian capital of Abuja for the Commonwealth conference, an event made more fractious than usual by the Zimbabwe squabble.
It is traditional at this time of year to feel a kind of self-disgust. After the wrapping-paper has been burned in the fire, and the last mince pie has been forced down the gullet, you sit back, crapulous and afraid, and try to find some spiritual meaning in the festival of Christ’s nativity. What’s it