Like everyone, especially his old friends and colleagues, I can think of unkind things to say about Boris Johnson. He is a lazy workaholic — too busy doing things to do them thoroughly. He can be exasperating. But as the mayoral election campaign reaches its climax, I must dispute the central current criticism of Boris
On Monday, via the BBC, the Treasury put out the line that ‘10 per cent of those earning more than £10 million a year pay less than 20 per cent in income tax.’ It was not explained, or asked by the BBC, how this could be, or how many people were involved. Even in the
People often tell opinion polls that ‘The Conservatives are the party of the rich’, and this worries party managers, because the rich are, almost by definition, few, and the voters are many. But would it actually be better, electorally, if people thought ‘The Conservatives are the party of the poor’, or even, which is often
It is interesting that David Cameron sends out an Easter message each year. Such a thing is a symptom of the decline of Christianity. When Britain was a Christian country, no prime minister would have thought it necessary (or proper) to speak urbi et orbi. Today, Easter takes its place alongside Eid, Diwali, Rosh Hashanah,
As one who has had the pleasure of meeting Peter Cruddas, without being an undercover reporter, I see the latest scandal about party funding rather differently from most. Mr Cruddas has the curious, attractive unworldliness which often goes with being a very successful self-made businessman. He is the son of an alcoholic taxi-driver from Hackney,
It is almost 30 years since Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. I must admit that those few strange weeks were incredible fun for us journalists. At the Daily Telegraph, where I was working as a leader writer, there was an interesting generational split. All the older men, with the notable exception of the blind sage
With gay marriage will come gay divorce. If you look at civil partnership dissolutions, the numbers have multiplied more than ten times in four years, though this rate of increase will presumably level off. (The level is still much lower than that of heterosexual marriage.) What will be the grounds for gay divorce? The only
Everyone seems very bored with the coalition, but if you look at the pre-Budget discussions, might it not be working quite well? It is surely a good thing that most senior Liberals now admit that the 50 per cent top rate of income tax is not necessarily a great idea, and that most senior Conservatives
Although I like and admire Trevor Kavanagh of the Sun, I feel that his article about the wickedness of arresting journalists at dawn, published two weeks ago, marked that moment which always comes during a scandal when the trade under attack fails to ‘get it’. The same happened with those MPs who protested at the
This column is written from St Andrews, where our son is in his last year as an undergraduate. It is the most perfect university town I know. Held in on two sides by the Firth of Tay and the sea, and by the famed golf course on the third, it can scarcely expand at all.
At the weekend, we stayed in Hillsborough Castle, official residence of the secretaries of state for Northern Ireland. There, in the 1770s, came Benjamin Franklin. He was said to have got on so badly with Lord Hillsborough, then acting Secretary of State for the Colonies, that he went home and declared the independence of the
Last week, I went to a party in No. 10 Downing Street to relaunch its official website. In his speech of welcome, the Prime Minister said something quite bold. Because of Freedom of Information (FoI), he explained, officials and ministers are increasingly reluctant to put on paper what they actually think. He is right. If you
The present Queen succeeded to the throne 60 years ago this coming Tuesday. Her father, King George VI, had died at Sandringham in the night. Pursuing a ‘Where were you when…?’ line of inquiry, I asked my father what he remembered. An undergraduate at Trinity, he was walking down Sydney Street, Cambridge, when he saw
As the Labour party wrestles with self-definition in hard times, I wonder if it was wise to ditch Clause 4. In 1994-95, it was important for Tony Blair to win a symbolic victory over the left. This undoubtedly helped get him into Downing Street. Clause 4 of the party’s constitution was considered a doctrinaire text
In Thought for the Day, of all places, the weird bitterness behind much Scottish nationalism was revealed. On Wednesday, John Bell of the Iona Community complained of the suffering of the Scots and asked people in the south-east of England how they would like it if their history books had been ‘written in Aberdeen’. We
Alan Titchmarsh says that ‘Gardening is more important than politics. It has a consistent point of view. And that is: that a piece of ground should be cherished.’ He is right, but he may not be fully aware that, in speaking as he does, he is expressing a political opinion. He is saying something conservative.
A Spectator footnote on David Cameron’s adventure in Brussels last week. In 1990, Nick Ridley gave a famous, prescient, ill-tempered interview to the paper in which he condemned the single currency as a ‘German racket’. He had to resign, and Mrs Thatcher’s fall was not long in coming. Last week, Ridley’s nephew, the Northern Ireland
The last week has been bracing for me, because I have had many interesting encounters with Europhiles. Visiting Spain, I met the former prime minister, José María Aznar. In Paris, I interviewed Jacques Delors, the grand architect of the single currency. Back home, I studied the speech in Berlin by my old friend Radek Sikorski,
On Tuesday morning, I was sitting reading Jessica Douglas-Home’s vivid new book about the great Delhi Durbar in 1911 (A Glimpse of Empire, Michael Russell). In the background, the Today programme was burbling. I had just got to the bit about the Maharajas paying homage to the King-Emperor. The author describes how the Maharaja of
Not a lot of people know that Douglas Alexander is the shadow foreign secretary, but his speech this week about the euro shows that Labour is at last thinking like an effective opposition. Mr Alexander has noticed the danger of being the status quo party. He wants Labour to hand that honour to the Conservatives.