Meanwhile, back at the Tory party, they are still looking for a new leader. Thanks to the perceived brilliance of the Prime Minister — he has fed Africa, secured the 2012 Olympics and now crossed the Rhine in what the editor of this organ prefers not to call the war on terrorism — many Tory
The agenda for the G8 is now clear: economic revival through better trading conditions; the elimination of corruption; the humbling of dictators; possibly even regime change. Yes, most of the G8’s member nations are in an almighty mess, and until they show the will to sort themselves out, you can forget their doing anything useful
If we political pundits were truly blessed with the gift of accurate prophecy, we would not be writing about one of the most sordid subjects known to man. We would be earning shedloads of money as astrologers, with premium-rate telephone lines conveying our charlatanry to the masses, and conveying the masses’ money back to us.
From the timing of Michael Crick’s book on the Leader of the Opposition we can surmise that the author, like most of the rest of us, has made his mind up already about the result of the imminent election. There will be nothing significant to add after 5 May. The Tory party will not win
Ours would be a grim age if we were to deny millions of people cheap and satisfying entertainment, and so, therefore, perhaps we should be especially grateful to the Prince of Wales and Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles as they approach their wedding day. Few people in Britain seem to welcome the happiness the couple clearly
A friend of the royal family’s lamented the other day that the Princess Royal, for reasons about which he could only speculate, has declined her mother’s offer of a dukedom and, therefore, a place in the nobility for her son and his heirs. This does seem an extreme act of self-effacement by one who, unlike
I wonder whether our Prime Minister is historically minded enough to have compared himself lately with Stanley Baldwin? When Mr Blair was told that the Prince of Wales intended to marry Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles, would his first thought have been of what starchy old Stan went through in 1936, when a King of England
Simon Heffer deplores the fashion for dressing down. It’s ugly and disrespectful and leaves men looking like idiots We all know that life under the Blair Terror can be pretty grim, but I am beginning to fret about the increasing signs of a collapse in national morale. I do not refer to the well-documented exodus
Since it is probably as well that those of us who earn a living by political punditry should occasionally have a spasm of humility, let me share one of my own with you. I know in my heart that Labour is likely to win the next election, but I cannot for the life of me
Simon Heffer on the insidious new taboos that govern society — and how those who break them risk their careers and credibility It is hard to imagine that at the time when Britain entered what is now called the European Union, in 1973, there would have been such a fuss about the religious beliefs of
For some time it was not polite to utter the phrase ‘core vote’ at a Conservative party gathering, or within earshot of those loyal to the leadership. It referred, after all, to people who believed taxation was theft, who despised the European Union and all it stood for, who venerated the monocultural society and saw
We have been told from time to time that one reason why the Prime Minister has been so slow in ‘reforming’ the House of Lords is that he feels it is important to have it, but he cannot decide what form it should take. It is important, it is said, for all those reasons why
Russia’s continuing brutality in Chechnya is the root cause of the Beslan massacre. So why does Blair grovel to Putin? The answer, says Simon Heffer, is oil Were any of us unlucky enough to be Vladimir Putin, we too would be keen to make the rest of the world think that what happened in Beslan
Whenever I feel psychotically depressed about this country — which, as I contemplate another nine years of Labour rule, is more and more often — I find myself being thankful that I do not have as my head of state President Chirac. I have come to believe that he is the price France pays for
It’s not good enough for the Tories to pinch Labour policies, says Simon Heffer. They must appeal to the people on the economy, education, drugs, immigration and Europe A shadow minister said to me last week, ‘We might have a more credible leader now, but we have less credible policies.’ We were talking after the
Since it was a prime social manifestation of the industrial revolution, the Victorian city more than merits serious attention by historians. It became the symbol of the de-ruralisation of the British (or more specifically, English) poor, and was the vehicle for the rise of the middle classes. These themes and others are discussed in detail
Over the next few days we shall see countless images, in photographs and on film, of the men who won the second world war. The D-Day generation can claim to have been the last that had a genuine measure of greatness. These were not, for the most part, professional warriors, for whom the services had
The last time I wrote about the deranged, unEnglish and presbyterian socialism which Gordon Brown longs to inflict upon us, I had a letter from a doctor. He said my piece was basically worthless because it had missed the fundamental point. ‘Mr Brown,’ the doctor wrote, ‘has Asperger’s Syndrome.’ Not being a medical man, I
For the 500 or so at the Thatcher jubilee dinner it was, if not the high point, certainly one of the more important. Having cheered themselves hoarse at the entry of the lady herself, and roared their joy at a gem of a speech by Norman Tebbit, the diners applauded Michael Howard. He said he
On the eve of the 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 general election triumph, Simon Heffer says the Iron Lady has a new spring in her step In her 79th year, widowed after a long and happy marriage, and having endured indifferent health, Lady Thatcher might seem to some to have become vulnerable, damaged and