Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.

Fiasco Royale: Labour’s ineptitude

Fraser Nelson reveals the mounting fury within the intelligence community at ministers’ failure to set in place a serious framework for smashing Islamic terrorism. Too little too late is the angry verdict of the spooks Throughout their history, James Bond films have shown an eerie ability to predict national security threats. Dr No (1962) looked

Reid ‘wants some Etonian blood on his hands’. But so does Brown

The most famous political quotations come not from politicians but the wickedness of headline writers. Although Jim Callaghan never said ‘Crisis? What crisis?’, the phrase stuck because it seemed to sum up perfectly his psychological denial during the Winter of Discontent. It was a newspaper, not Thomas Jefferson (or even Thomas Paine), which declared ‘that

The eight who know Britain’s future

Naming the likely winners and losers in a Gordon Brown government has become a favourite parlour game among the political class. Enthusiastic supporters of Tony Blair’s agenda are routinely tipped for a long spell in political Siberia. Anyone with a Scottish accent or an aptitude for statistics is tipped for the top. Brownite MPs have

Fraser Nelson

The future face of Labour

Fraser Nelson talks to Douglas Alexander, the young Transport Secretary, who shot to prominence during last week’s terrorist threat to our airports The last week has given us our first, unexpected glimpse of the post-Blair era. There has been a crisis at the airports, a massive terrorist plot averted. Yet the only sign of the

Fraser Nelson

Ming’s message to the Tories: my heart’s on the Left

‘I’m going to take my tie half-off,’ Sir Menzies Campbell announces. ‘Feel free to do so.’ It is a sweltering afternoon in his office, and there is no etiquette governing how men should strip off in such circumstances. I lower my tie knot an inch or so. He takes off his jacket. I follow suit.

Fraser Nelson

‘The stroke could have killed me’

When facing an audience of ambulance workers in a speech last Friday, Andrew Lansley had the ideal joke to warm them up. ‘People always imagine politicians are a bit brain dead,’ he said. ‘Well I am — and I have the MRI scan to prove it.’ He was being absolutely serious. In a freak medical