Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
“It’s part of the energy of nationalism,” sighed Jim Murphy on Newsnight. “They’re never knocked down.” He’s right, and that that is why the Scottish referendum polls show the gap between the two narrowing – YouGov has that gap at 6 points, down from 22 last month. If even Labour’s Jim Murphy accepts that the
Where is this burning point of principle that drove Douglas Carswell into the arms of Ukip? I’ve read lots about his defection, and I’m still none the wiser. We’re told that he was talking to Farage for almost a year, which would have overlapped with the time he told me that the Tories need to
Anyone who would rather not live in a Britain run by Ed Miliband and Ed Balls should be dismayed at Carswell’s defection to Ukip. He is an original, intelligent and eloquent MP who has done much to help the Prime Minister form the more radical parts of his agenda. For a while, I thought that
At a time when politics resembles a bad soap opera, it’s easy to despair about the ability of government to change anything for the better. But as the Queen pointed out in her 2010 UN address, the best changes in society tend not to come from governments but from society more broadly. Anyone concerned about
Over the summer I read Vilhelm Moberg’s The Emigrants, a documentary novel about the Swedes who emigrated to America in the 18th century. It powerfully describes what drove illiterate peasants to take such an extraordinary gamble on a country about which they knew almost nothing. The story, of course, could have been written about migrants
Now and again, America puts its inequality on display to the world. We saw it after Hurricane Katrina and we have seen it again in the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. A white police offer shoots dead a black man, after having stopped him for jaywalking. Britain’s police don’t have guns, so these scenes are unthinkable
David Cameron is back on holidays again, this time to Cornwall. He missed a trick. His economic recovery is making the pound strong and, ergo, the continent cheap for British holidaymakers. This also makes imports cheaper which has, in turn, cut UK inflation to 1.6 per cent in July – down from 1.9 per cent
How seriously should we take modern slavery? To some, the very phrase sounds hysterical: slave markets are seen as something belonging to 18th century Jamaica (or present-day Mosul) but not modern Britain. It’s true that slavery has mutated, but it’s very much still with us – which is why, at 6.30am on Saturday, screaming and
I’m delighted to announce another strong set of figures for The Spectator. It’s still a pretty tough market out there for magazines but today, we’re reporting a headline print ABC that’s actually up on last year: 62,684 in the first half of this year. Add digital subscriptions, which rose by 24 per cent, over the year,
It’s a busy summer for The Spectator. Sales of the magazine are rising and our website is now visited by well over a million people each month. Spectator TV has now joined our regular podcasts, so we’re now watched (and listened to) as well as read. One of the great strengths of The Spectator is
I’m in the US right now, where the national conversation is – it’s safe to say – not fixed on Ed Miliband’s White House trip. We now have photographic proof of this event, but what’s Barack Obama saying? A prize for the best suggestion. PS some unkind souls have suggested that this picture is the
I can confirm that Liam Fox was offered Minister of State at the Foreign Office with responsibility for India, China and Latin America. He politely declined the Prime Minister’s idea, even when it was later sweetened with the offer of a place in the National Security Council. Fox, a former party chairman and defence secretary,
After today’s hiring and firings, the women ratio in the Cabinet rises from 14 per cent to 24 per cent. There is something horribly tokenistic, and faintly misogynistic, about boasting about what percentage of women you have in the Cabinet – as if this is a sign of how ‘progressive’ you are. It’s not clear that
Good morning. We’ve just had the night of the long knives – for middle-aged Tory ministers at least. Now for the promotions, and you can expect a disproportionate number of them to be younger and female. Will Britain join the list of countries with female defence secretaries? Will Esther McVey, Liz Truss and Priti Patel become
A few weeks ago, I was reading the newly-published Modernisers’ Manifesto (pdf) published by Bright Blue and a fact jumped out: ‘London is a tearaway success, responsible for 79 per cent of all private sector jobs growth since 2010’. Startling fact, I though – I’d missed that. But about ten minutes of Googling showed that
In our latest View from 22 video, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the two top stories from this weekend — the allegations about a paedophile ring in Westminster and Ed Miliband’s localist agenda — and how they will play out over the coming week. We’re still playing with the format of this: two-subject discussions, or one? 5 mins, 10
Last night’s summer party was only the warm-up. Today, we invited some of our subscribers over for a cup of tea in the garden here at 22 Old Queen St. It’s a chance for us to meet the people we work for – the best-read, best-humoured cohort of people in Britain (and beyond). Andrew Neil, Taki,
In our latest View from 22 video, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the two top stories from this weekend — the ascension of Jean-Claude Juncker and Jon Cruddas’s intervention on Labour’s ‘dead’ hand — and how they will play out over the week.
I’ve always admired Jon Cruddas, and worried a little at his being placed at the centre of Ed Miliband’s policy unit. What happens if he talks sense? Well, my fears were well-founded: a good dollop of common sense has emerged from Cruddas, through the medium of today’s Sunday Times splash. On 21 June, we learn, Cruddas
The new issue of The Spectator is now out, chock-full of the best writing in the English language. Here are a few of my highlights. Damian Thompson argues that religion is the new politics – the forces tearing up the Middle East, Africa and even Asia are to do with God rather than country. But,
