Last night may well have been the moment Rick Perry’s hopes of winning the Republican nomination finally ended. Having already seen his polling surge rapidly reverse – largely because of poor performances in the last two debates – he put in another poor performance as the candidates clashed in New Hampshire. Worse, he followed up
Today, Downing Street has announced that the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, will resign at the end of the year. Here is the letter he sent: Dear Colleagues I wanted to let you know that I am announcing my retirement today, after over six years as Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service. I
“I don’t believe that wrongdoing did occur”, said Liam Fox in his apology yesterday. With today’s front pages dripping with accusations, Fox has some work to do to substatiate that claim. The Guardian reveals that “Political lobbyists were paid thousands of pounds to help a Dubai-based businessman arrange a secretive meeting with Liam Fox”: “an
It’s been quite a week for Republicans deciding they’re not interested in entering the White House in 2013. First, Christie closed the door on a presidential bid on Tuesday. Last night, Sarah Palin followed suit, saying: “After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination
The broad narrative of the Republican primaries has essentially been “the search for an alternative to Mitt Romney”. And that search looks set to continue with another potential candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, set against running for president. Romney has been the favourite to win the nomination pretty much since the 2008 election. But he
If Theresa May took Ken Clarke up on his wager that no one has avoided deportation because they had a cat, as May claimed in her speech earlier, she should pay up. According to the Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow, a spokesman for the Judicial Office has explained: ‘This was a case in which the Home Office
Get ready for more Quantitative Easing. This week, Reuters found that economists think there’s a 40 per cent chance the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will announce another round when they meet on Thursday. And even if they hold off now, it’s unlikely to be for long. Weak growth and the worsening outlook
A couple of weeks ago Mitt Romney used Winston Churchill – or his bust, at least – to attack Obama. This week, he used the former Prime Minister to defend his flip-flopping. Or at least, he thought he did. Here’s what he told a town hall in New Hampshire on Wednesday: ‘In the private sector, if you
Just over six weeks into his Presidential campaign, the sheen is coming off Rick Perry. Having entered the race as the favourite, he quickly established a double-digit lead over the rest of the Republican field. But now, especially after the candidates’ latest debate last week, the momentum has shifted. Here, to illustrate Perry’s fall, is
Parliament’s reputation seems to have recovered from its nadir during the expenses scandal. According to the government’s “citizenship survey”, the proportion of people trusting parliament fell from 34 per cent in 2008-09 to 29 per cent in 2009-10, while the European Commission’s “Eurobarometer” showed an even bigger drop: from 30 per cent in November 2008
It’s safe to say that Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg don’t get on. Even before he was elected leader, Miliband told the New Statesman he would never work with the Lib Dem leader: “Given what he is supporting, I think it is pretty hard to go into coalition with him.” He refused to share a
In a word: badly. Ed Miliband has now led Labour for a full year, but has made no progress with regards to its standings in the polls. When he took over, the Labour party was at 37 per cent in the polls, according to Ipsos MORI. Considering that 60 per cent give the Coalition government
In his speech today, Ed Balls proved himself worthy of the “Son of Brown” tag, slipping in more than a few “Brownies”. I thought CoffeeHousers would be interested in some of the figures behind his claims… Balls claimed that “we went into the crisis with lower national debt than we inherited in 1997”. That is
In July 1990, Nicholas Ridley told Dominic Lawson that monetary union was “all a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe”. He was immediately forced to resign from the Cabinet. In this week’s
When Nick Clegg speaks today, he can – as usual – rely on a good deal of support from those in the hall. According to YouGov, current Lib Dem supporters support him by a 2-to-1 margin. That’s stronger approval than Miliband gets from Labour voters, although nowhere near the popularity David Cameron enjoys with his
Back in June, Melanie McDonagh wrote that “the Tories are desperate to regain the female vote”. Today’s Guardian scoop, a government memo on the need to better appeal to women, proves she’s right. In places, the document reads as if it were written by a group of men to whom women are very much from
Today’s inflation figures remind us of the trouble the Bank of England will have if – as most analysts suspect – it embarks on another phase of Quantitative Easing. CPI inflation was 4.5 per cent in the year to August, and RPI at 5.2 per cent, both up a touch from July. CPI inflation has
Today marks the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. Here is the article Matthew Bishop wrote for The Spectator in response: Spirit of the Blitz, Matthew Bishop, 15 September 2001 New York People walk a lot in Manhattan. Its streets are always crowded. But never before like this. An hour after
This Sunday marks the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. Here is the article Stephen Glover wrote for The Spectator in response: “The terrorists want us to believe the world has ended. We must not fall into their trap.”, Stephen Glover, 15 September 2001 As those who are old enough remember
Just under a year from now, Republicans will meet in Tampa, Florida for their National Convention, at which their candidate to take on President Obama will be nominated. So too will that candidate’s running mate: the man or woman hoping to oust Joe Biden and become the 48th Vice President of the United States. The