The Spectator

Might Brown’s tea-time stunt backfire?

On Thursday I thought that Gordon Brown had pulled off a masterstroke by inviting Margaret Thatcher to tea at Downing Street, but now I’m not so sure. Marina Hyde’s column is a good guide to the shifting reactions to it and is well worth reading. As Hyde writes, “This piece of gesture politics – even

Only a Lib Dem could get it this wrong

Sir Menzies Campbell’s call for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU is a desperate bid to preserve party unity on the eve of what may be his last conference as Lib Dem leader. No less than Harold Wilson in 1974-5, he seeks to avert a party split by backing a plebiscite. The trouble

Vote for honesty

The long quest to find a purpose for the Lib Dems is the modern equivalent to the probably apocryphal story about the child asking his mother about Lord Randolph Churchill: ‘What is that man for?’ The long quest to find a purpose for the Lib Dems is the modern equivalent to the probably apocryphal story

The pick of the weekend’s films

If you’re planning a visit to the cinema this weekend, I recommend you bypass the  cold, albeit visually impressive, ‘Atonement’, in favour of  Julie Delpy’s first effort as an actor, writer and director, ‘2 Days in Paris’.  The premise is simple: a couple round off a tour Europe by spending two days with the girl’s

Old is the new new

The old Latin rite of Mass is officially reinstated today. It’s not easy to explain the significance of this to non-Catholics (or even to Catholics under the age of 50), but it’s as though Rome had closed all the great cathedrals of Europe and stripped them bare and had now decided to re-open them and

Bush on Iraq

President Bush’s speech on Iraq last night showed how reliant he now is on others for credibility on Iraq. Take the two key paragraphs that set out the shift in policy: “Because of this success, General Petraeus believes we have now reached the point where we can maintain our security gains with fewer American forces.

Gordon’s new ad message: I’m not Tony

Back in May, the American pollster (and Spectator contributor) Frank Luntz advised Gordon Brown to make a virtue out of his reputation for being boring. The Prime Minister has today taken this advice. The new Labour logo is to be “Not flash, just Gordon”: precisely the right message. But this message will work best in

Brown invites Thatcher into his ever expanding tent

Margaret Thatcher is taking tea with Gordon Brown, Ben Brogan has the scoop. This is just about the last thing that David Cameron needs today as he tries to defuse the Gummer Goldsmith report. He’s now bound to get questions about whether he feels snubbed and if he’ll be inviting her round for a cuppa

Did the anti-war movement just save the Iraq mission?

When you hear people talk about the importance of the NetRoots in left-wing politics in the US they’re largely talking about MoveOn.org which was founded to try and get the country to move on from the Monica Lewinsky affair and the Clinton impeachment. It has now become a powerful voice in Democratic party politics and

Toby Young’s new column starts this week

Do not miss Toby Young’s new weekly column Status Anxiety, starting in tomorrow’s magazine. As any fule kno, Toby is the laureate of metropolitan angst so it seemed only fair to give him a weekly slot in which to fret publicly. His first despatch from the psychic borderlands of West London is a beauty, too,

The coming Lib Dem leadership battle

A book has just landed on my desk with Chris Huhne’s beaming, discoloured face on its cover. The LibDem environment spokesman is carrying a placard saying “green taxes now”. So yes, it seems the Liberal Democrat leadership contest has begun. My political column tomorrow is on the LibDem wake/conference next week, and how it will

Who would follow Musharraf?

On the list of things that should keep us up at night, Pakistan has to be pretty high. It is a phenomenally unstable state with nuclear weapons. Much as I worry about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Pakistan is currently the country that terrorists would be most likely to get a bomb from. So I was actually

Exercise is not great

If you want a giggle, do read this account by Christopher Hitchens of his time at a health spa. The hard drinking, chain smoking Hitch is pretty much the last person you can imagine being wrapped in seaweed but he even provides photographic proof of the experience. 

RIP Anita Roddick, inspiration for the new Conservatives

Anita Roddick, implausible as it may seem, deserves a footnote in future histories of the Conservative Party as well as the annals of ‘ethical consumerism’ where her place was already secure. Long before Fairtrade coffee, barn-fed eggs in Tesco and organic everything, she had spotted and mapped out the psychological terrain where the ethics of

Boris’s first full length TV interview of the campaign

Tonight on 18 Doughty Street, Iain Dale has a half an hour interview with The Spectator’s official candidate for Mayor of London. You can watch the entire thing here.   One point that Boris makes that is well worth pondering the next time you’re sitting waiting for a tube train that is delayed or stuck in