Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
It’s pretty rich hearing the Labour Party criticize Cameron for taking a principled stance on Europe. How vulgar, they say, how amateur. Doesn’t he know that the job is to (as Douglas Alexander put it yesterday) ‘balance’ domestic interests and European ambitions? When I thought that Cameron was following Labour’s ‘sophisticated’ approach – ie, being
‘No cuts!’ said banners held at the march on Whitehall today. Well, the Treasury is listening. It has pushed state spending to £732 billion this year, up from £673 billion under the last year of the Labour government. So why the fuss? My guess: lefties like to march and call for the downfall of governments.
David Blunkett has announced that he’ll be standing down at the next election. ‘It is clear that the leadership of the party wish to see new faces in ministerial office and a clear break with the past,’ he said — I’m not sure if that’s a coded reference to Miliband’s unfinished purge of those who
Danny Alexander doesn’t suntan well, but he looks more freckly than normal when we meet in HM Treasury. He’s just back from the seaside town of Nairn in the Highlands, where, as the most senior Scot in the Cabinet, he’s been sent to fight in the front line of the Battle for Britain. People were
If conservatives had an answer to Woodstock, it would resemble the Margaret Thatcher Conference on Liberty held today by the Centre for Policy Studies. The lineup is stellar, and I’ve been here all day. General David Petraeus is one of the many guests and was asked what he’d do about the rise of ISIS. Here’s
No one quite expected it, and even now ministers struggle to explain it. But the British jobs miracle has become the single biggest fact of economic life – proving that sometimes, things go badly right as well as badly wrong. Cameron has now overseen more job creation than his last six predecessors did at this
Those of you who read The Spectator mainly for its peerless arts coverage have Liz Anderson to thank for keeping up a formula of quality, variety, heft and zest. We’re all very sad that she is retiring this summer, after many successful years at the top of her game. She’ll be a tough act to
The avalanche of good economic news continues today, with news that the number of people in work rose by 344,000 from Feb to April – the sharpest such rise since data began in 1971. So if you’re Ed Miliband, how do you pick holes in this? You can say that much of this is self-employment
David Cameron visits Sweden today to discuss the future of the EU with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. The Prime Minister is attempting to block former Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker from securing the top job in Brussels. Earlier this year, Fraser Nelson
Tristram Hunt hasn’t lost much time using the Birmingham Islamist schools scandal to call for an end to the autonomy of free schools and Academies. It’s a bizarre non-sequitur. The ‘Trojan Horse’ scandal happened in schools run by the appalling Birmingham City Council (whose defects I’ve already written about). Yet Labour is using this scandal
The Bible may be creeping its way back into England’s classrooms if advice from University of Exeter study is taken But it misses a trick by suggesting that kids are asked. to re-tell Bible stories – rather than study its best passages as examples of word craftsmanship. When the folk singer Pete Seeger died recently,
I went back to my old school last week, Nairn Academy, taking my family to my native Highlands for half-term. I learned two things: that the gorgeous northeast of Scotland is one of the best places in Europe to go with young kids, knocking the spots of any of the overseas venues where I stupidly
While Americans swooned over Thomas Piketty and his thesis about ever-rising inequality it has taken a Brit, the FT’s Chris Giles, to expose the corruptions in his data. What he has found – on the cover of today’s FT and in detail on a blog here – is shocking because the errors are so basic.
We have had much occasion to reflect, recently, on Disraeli’s dictum that Britain ‘does not love coalitions’. It’s now becoming depressingly clear that coalitions don’t much love Britain either. What started off as functional coalition government has descended into the most appalling policy blackmail which I looked at in my Daily Telegraph column yesterday. I
The British jobs miracle continues – and in ways that continue to surprise. Your CoffeeHouse baristas have been crunching the numbers. They’re startling in a number of ways. For example:- 1. David Cameron’s record at job creation is better than any of his last four predecessors – including Tony Blair in a boom. See chart
Yet again, the best Eurovision entries rose to the top on the night. Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria were the bookies’ favourites before the betting started, and no amount of ‘buddy voting’ upended that. What did disappoint me was the booing of the teenaged girls representing Russia. I felt desperately sorry for the Tolmachevy twins, who
The Eurovision song contest has just started – seven million of us will tune in, at least 30 million Eurovision-related drinks will be consumed and the voting will be deliciously political as always. (Poland has entered again, perhaps just for the joy of being able to vote on Russia). But there’s plenty domestic politics too.
Is intellectual self-confidence a good thing? Ed Miliband was teased in parliament by David Cameron for claiming to possess it, and teased again by Lord Finkelstein in his notebook for The Times. ‘I know he thinks he is extremely clever,’ Cameron sneered at PMQs. Lord Finkelstein refers to a book that claims that intellectual self-confidence
Seven million of us will be tuning in at 8pm tomorrow night for the Eurovision final, rising to nine million when the UK number is played. But what do we expect to see, and do we think it’s rigged? The Spectator’s Culture House Daily blog, in conjunction with YouGov, is able to give you an
There are those to whom the word ‘volare’ means nothing. But for us Eurovision enthusiasts, it’s all starting with the opening ceremony tonight. Two semi-finals this week, then the big one on Saturday. It’s transmitting live in China, New Zealand and Canada this year – making Eurovision the most-watched non-sporting television event on the planet.
