Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
As you’d expect, Michael Gove’s White Paper is a feast of good sense. His speech in the Commons was powerful analysis, and his rebuttal of Labour MPs fun to watch. He’s all for making kids learn properly in primary school, retaining order in the classroom, making detention easier and better modern language teaching. Amen, amen,
Are we witnessing the start of a very long death scene for the Euro? Asked if the Euro will survive, William Hague replied simply: “who knows?”. The new president, Herman Von Rompuy, has said that the Euro faces an “existential test”. We are looking at the very real prospect of the Euro’s collapse. And that
Oh dear. On Wednesday night, we at The Spectator saw David Cameron handing Lord Young his Spectator/Threadneedle Parliamentarian of the Year in the category of Peer of the Year. “Over the decades,” said yours truly, “Prime Ministers have come to value his advice. As Thatcher put it: ‘other people bring me problems, David brings me
In my last post I did Cameron a disservice by suggesting he had to research his remarks about The Spectator. Like many well-read people, with an interest in life in the round, he’s been a reader for years – Steve Hilton buys him a copy for his birthday, I’m told – and we backed him
David Cameron was on sparkling form last night, at our Parliamentarian of the Year awards. He joked about his photographer – saying he didn’t arrive for dinner because he saw fish was on the menu and didn’t want to pay for his own snapper. His remarks about the magazine were thoughtful, and well-researched. But what
For years, I have complained that the Conservatives have timidly stayed within Labour’s intellectual parameters, arguing that they need “permission” to make certain arguments and need to stay within the limits of what the public find acceptable. Such intellectual timidity confined them to opposition: they can never win, playing by Labour rules. Iain Duncan Smith
Earlier this year, officials in the Indian driving licence department received an extraordinary application. It was from Lakshmi Mittal, the richest man in Britain, who wanted to know — given the circumstances — if it would possible for him to be posted the documentation rather than sit a driving test. They refused, and the steel
In my cover story for this week’s magazine, I say that the damage of the 50p tax, various bank levies and general banker-bashing is far greater than Osborne realises. Here are the top points I seek to make: 1. We may hate to admit it but the British tax base, and our chances of
Keen-eyed spectators might have noticed Danny Alexander and Michael Gove wearing a slightly different type of poppy over the last few days: the Scottish Poppy. At the beginning of the poppy-wearing season they are for sale at the Scottish Office in Whitehall and are worn by certain Scots down here – any money that Andrew
Is David Cameron just too nice? There are worse accusations to levy at a politician, but it’s one I have heard suggested quite a lot recently – and I have written about it in my News of the World column today. He seems to have adopted the politics of wishful thinking. There is a “zip-a-dee-do-dah
The Times has a spread on free schools (p20-p21) today (£), focusing on the model of Kunskapskolan, one of the largest Swedish chains, who are setting up shop in Britain. “Pupils set their own homework, decide their timetables, set themselves targets and work at their own speed – oh, and they clock off at 2pm,”
It’s pretty unusual for classical pianists to sign a six-album deal with non-classical record labels like Warner Bros – but James Rhodes is pretty unusual. He is one of Britain’s fastest-emerging musical talents, but is not churned out of an elite music college with years of classical training. His story, which he tells in this
The latest edition of The Spectator is now out on iPad (click here for more info) and the newsagents (or £2, posted direct today). I thought CoffeeHousers may be interested in a small selection of the goodies we have in store. 1. Andrew Neil on the conservative comeback in America. He spent the summer
Free schools are all well and good – but what about the schools that remain? Some CoffeeHousers raise this question in response to my earlier blog, and it’s important enough to deserve a post in itself. Because introducing new schools to compete with council schools is the best way of raising standards for all –
At last, The Guardian is reporting the grassroots rebellion in education. It has picked up on the story of Fiona Murphy who blogged on Coffee House yesterday about her trouble with the Tory-run council in Bromley. But hang on… the “grassroots revolt” of which the Guardian speaks is the councils, trying to protect their monopoly
Is George Osborne the first British Chancellor to hide good news in the small print? I ask this in my News of the World column (£) today, and ask what he’s up to. Listening to Nick Clegg on Marr this morning, even he can’t quite say that the same forecasts that predict 500,000 public sector
Déjà-lu is a feeling that Spectator subscribers become familiar with. Part of the reason for subscribing (which you can now do from £12, including free iPad access) is to get ahead of the competition – and read today what the newspapers will be saying tomorrow. We’re delighted that the cover story of Thursday’s edition, by Allister
I’m on the train back from doing Radio Four’s Any Questions – broadcast live from Derby, repeated at 1.10pm tomorrow – where I had a bust-up with Christine Blower of the NUT. CoffeeHousers may recall she was the star of a cover story we ran a few weeks back, about the campaign of bullying and
Paul Mason’s review of the cuts for Newsnight last night (from 10:20 into the video here) was one of the most powerful critiques of Osborne from the left. His package majored on Osborne’s decision to cut a further £11 billion from welfare and pensions, to soften the departmental cuts. Adopting a rather funereal tone, Mason
In the end, George Osborne didn’t flinch. The Chancellor is a clever political operator – too clever, sometimes – but the result is a cuts package that has surprisingly broad popular support. And this has been achieved, in part, by including measures that strike the likes of me as economically unwise. So much of this
