As Clint Eastwood celebrates his 80th birthday, Peter Hoskin salutes his artistic legacy My life at the movies began with Clint Eastwood about a decade ago. Channel 4 was screening A Fistful of Dollars (1964) one night, and my brother insisted that we stay up and tune in. I didn’t know beforehand that it was
There it is: Winder, one of the most imposing peaks across all the Howgill Fells. Whenever I visit my brother, a teacher at Sedbergh School, we make a habit of climbing it. Up you march, through grass kept short by wild horses and paths kept alive by other walkers, until you round back on yourself
Surprise, surprise – Menzies Campbell doesn’t sound 100% taken with the coalition in interview with Andrew Neil on Straight Talk this weekend. This is, don’t forget, the man who encouraged the Lib Dems to seek a deal with Labour at the last minute. And here he claims that he “would have found it very difficult
David Cameron’s speech today was, in many respects, the one he needed to make: the clean-break speech, which trashed Labour’s record on the economy while also outlining how the coalition would deliver us to the sunny uplands. As it happens, it was also quite effective: a blend of policy specifics and punchy rhetoric. And while
Wondering why David Laws put in such a convincing performance when defending the government’s cuts at the dispatch box on Wednesday? This little detail from Allegra Stratton’s excellent profile of him might help explain: “A friend confirmed that for the past six months, as the official Lib Dem party line decided on by Vince Cable
All kinds of hoohah about last night’s Question Time, for which Downing St refused to put up a panellist because of Alastair Campbell’s involvement. If he was replaced with a shadow minister, they said, they would happily get involved. But, as the excutive editor of Question Time explains here, the Beeb wasn’t prepared to go
Was the delayed ballot in Thirsk and Malton a referendum on the coalition government? If so, the result released in the early hours of this morning will greatly reassure David Cameron and Nick Clegg. The Tory candidate Anne McIntosh won the seat with 52.9 percent of the vote (up from 51.9 percent in 2005), and
Yesterday, it was Michael Gove’s schools agenda. Today, it’s the other main reason to get behind the coalition: IDS’s plans for fixing the welfare system. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has given a speech outlining them this morning. You can read it here, and I’d certainly encourage you to do so. There
So, did Cameron say anything particularly noteworthy during his interview on the Today programme? In truth, not really. Most of the answers were of the “let’s wait and see what in the Budget” variety. The ratio of spending cuts to tax rises: wait and see. Plans for hiking capital gains tax: wait and see, and
The arduous process of reforming our country’s education system begins today. After two school reform bills were announced in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, Michael Gove is writing to all English primary and secondary schools inviting them to cut loose from local authority control and become academies. This is but stage one of the reform process: changing
One of the mildly diverting features of the Labour leadership contest so far is this nominations counter on the party website. Ed Miliband was the first to pass the crucial 33 nominations barrier yesterday, while David Miliband managed it earlier today. Ed Balls is still lagging behind on 14, Andy Burnham has 8, and poor
The initial exchanges of the Queen’s Speech Debate have just come to a close – and, I must say, it was all rather jolly. Harriet Harman came prepared with gag after gag about the Tories’ “marriage” to the Liberal Democrats, while David Cameron had a few about Harman’s actual marriage to Jack Dromey. There was
Today’s the day, I suspect, when it will really hit home with Labour that they are now in Opposition. Attacking a government’s legislative agenda isn’t something they’ve had to do for 13 years. And while you could say that the Brown machine acted as an opposition in government – geared to destroy its rivals –
Via PoliticsHome: HER MAJESTY’S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT TUESDAY 25 MAY 2010 MY LORDS AND MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS My Government’s legislative programme will be based upon the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility. The first priority is to reduce the deficit and restore economic growth. Action will be
The sun is filtering through the garden at 22 Old Queen Street, and a brass band is marching around St James’s Park: we’re getting the light and the pomp in equal measures for today’s Queen’s Speech. As for the actual policy, well, we largely know what it’s all about. There will be proposals for scrapping
This feels like a watershed moment: a national newspaper devoting its cover to an image of the country’s “debt mountain,” with a small shaded-off area showing how little of it is covered by yesterday’s cuts. The paper in question is today’s Independent. And while the cover may not perfectly depict what’s going on with our
So it turns out that John Redwood’s uncertainty was well-placed. According to Jonathan Isaby over at ConservativeHome, the Tory chief whip has decreed that ministers won’t be able to vote in 1922 Committee elections after all. They will only be able to attend meetings, which, as Jonathan says, “no-one ever really had a complaint about.”
So, the number-crunchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies have worked their magic and delivered their verdict on today’s spending cuts. You can find their summary here, although the standout line is that the £5 billion in reduced borrowing implied by today’s cuts is “less than a tenth of the fiscal repair job that Alistair
Here, via the Guardian Data Blog, is what each department will be contributing to Osborne’s £6.2 billion package of cuts this year: Department Contribution to cuts in 2010/11, £million % of department’s overall 2008/09 spending Business, Innovation and Skills 836 54.60 Communities and Local Government 780 2.12 Devolved Administrations 704 1.09 Transport 683 4.44 Education