Let’s keep the question mark in the headline for now, but it does sound as though Colonel Gaddafi’s elusion from his opponents may have come to an end. Representatives of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) are claiming that the deposed dictator was captured in Sirte this morning, and is possibly now dead. There has been
Did you realise that today is the first anniversary of the government’s Spending Review? Neither did I until the politicians started making a fuss about it, starting with Vince Cable on the TV last night. We’ll post video footage of the Business Secretary’s performance when we can, but this write-up here just about covers it.
Adjust your calendars, CoffeeHousers. The parliamentary vote on an EU referendum is no longer set for next Thursday. As the Mail’s James Chapman revealed this evening, Downing Street has moved it forward to Monday so that David Cameron and William Hague can both attend. They would have been away on government business otherwise. What to
“7m caught in tax blunder,” trumpets the cover of this morning’s Daily Mail. “After a series of errors, six million will get an average £400 rebate, while a million face demand to pay £600.” It’s a good story — but it’s also sadly, wearily familiar. Rewind the tape to last November, and the Telegraph was
PMQs, 19 August 2011
It isn’t over. That’s the abiding impression after reading Gus O’Donnell’s report into the Liam Fox farrago. I mean, the outgoing Cabinet Secretary basically admits as much in the opening paragraph of the document: “more allegations about Dr Fox’s conduct have arisen,” it observes, “many of which will be the responsibility of others to answer,
Gus O’Donnell’s report into Liam Fox, Adam Werritty and all that has finally been released. You can read all ten pages of it here. We shall have more on it shortly, but, for the time being, here’s Liam Fox’s statement in response: “I am pleased that the report makes clear that the two most serious
Woah. We’re used to Mervyn King’s monthly letter to explain the latest inflationary overshoot by now — but this, this is still quite something. CPI inflation rose to 5.2 per cent in September, a 0.7 percentage point increase on the month before and equal to the previous record level set in September 2008. RPI inflation,
CPI inflation at 5.2 per cent in September, a three-year high. RPI inflation 5.6 per cent, the highest for twenty years. UPDATE: More from me here.
George Osborne’s allies may be filtering across government, but what of the man himself? He was at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Paris yesterday, and trying to maintain a difficult balance over the imploding eurozone. In part, our Chancellor was firm about Europe’s troubles — the area, he said, “remains the epicentre of
It is as you’d think: a sea of news coverage and commentary about Liam Fox’s departure. Some of its currents are merciless, such as the Mirror’s front cover. Some are more circumspect, such as an excellent pair of articles by The Spectator’s own Matthew Parris (£) and Charles Moore. But, on the whole, there is
It is, you may have heard, Margaret Thatcher’s 86th Birthday today. By way of a congratulatory toast to the Iron Lady, here’s a thought-filled article that T.E. Utley wrote about her politics, for The Spectator, some 25 years ago: Don’t call it Thatcherism, T.E. Utley, The Spectator, 19 August 1986 There is no such thing
So, CoffeeHousers, are Eds Balls and Miliband a gruesome twosome or the most sparkling partnership since Torvill and Dean? I ask only because they’re really pushing the double-act shtick today. There’s their first-ever joint interview in the Evening Standard, for instance, in which they reminisce about the Shadow Chancellor’s 30th Birthday party, among other things.
PMQs, 12 August 2011
A flurry of news yesterday evening, among it Slovakia’s rejection of the euro bailout and even more ado about our Defence Secretary. But nothing nearly as striking as the alleged Iranian plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Drugs, money, geopolitics, potential mass slaughter — this is a web of the most tangled and
Another deluge of awkward news stories for Liam Fox this morning, with almost every paper providing new details for our consideration. The Observer has video footage and emails which suggest that Adam Werritty was indeed a close participant in the Defence Secretary’s meetings with foreign dignitaries and businessmen. The Sunday Telegraph quotes Fox as saying
This is one Fox who doesn’t have the benefit of a hole to bolt into. He is on open ground, and exposed even more this morning by fresh revelations surrounding his relationship with Andrew Werritty. A business card and a self-aggradising title, that certainly smelt of impropriety. But now we’re talking about sensitive business meetings
Remember when Alistair Darling said that we faced the worst financial crisis for sixty years? Now Mervyn King has trumped that piece of doom-mongery by telling Channel 4 last night that “This is undoubtedly the biggest financial crisis the world economy has ever faced” (see video above, three minutes in). The Governor of the Bank
Leadership, leadership, leadership. You couldn’t miss it. Leadership wasn’t just the clearest theme of David Cameron’s speech to the Tory conference just now, but also one of its most common words. By my count, it popped up around 30 times. “I’m proud to lead this party,” he said in the very first paragraph. “It is leadership
After Gove, a minister whose agenda has gone less smoothly — and it showed. Andrew Lansley’s speech to Tory conference was part re-re-restatement of the case for reform, part massage for any residual tensions left over from the summer. Here’s a five-point summary of the things that stood out to me: i) An appeal to
