ConservativeHome’s regular survey of Tory activists, the same one that got the leadership result pretty much spot on, shows that David Cameron’s popularity with the grassroots has been badly dented by the grammar school debacle with his net satisfaction down from +49% to +22%. David Willetts is bearing the brunt of the party’s displeasure, though.
Following the Coffee House debate a few days back on the lunacy of referring to “gangs” as “groups”, I was delighted by the revelation in today’s Mail on Sunday that an Islington primary school has decided that the headmaster should now be called the “lead learner”. What would Thomas Arnold have made of that redesignation,
Major achievements Sir: I enjoyed and applauded Matthew Parris’s piece (Another voice, 26 May). It is indeed time that Sir John Major’s legacy was recognised and that he be remembered for those two acts that will leave what I hope will be an indelible mark on our daily life. Having been involved with cultural institutions
To John Self, Charles Highway and Keith Talent must now be added another unforgettable Martin Amis character: Tony Blair. Today’s must read is the author’s eyewitness account in the Guardian of the PM’s last days. There are plenty of classic Amis phrases. I particularly enjoyed ; “the white-lipped and bloody-minded persistence of the question of
Why has the Tory grammar- school row raged for so long? It is glib to suggest, as some have, that it is simply filling a news vacuum as the political world awaits the ascension of Prime Minister Brown and averts its gaze from the slow car crash of the Labour deputy leadership contest. The truth
Paris Hilton’s coming incarceration and Lindsay Lohan’s trip to rehab creates an opening for a new party girl to keep the paparazzi employed though the summer, the red tops in copy and the rest of us entertained. New York Magazine have done us all a service by providing a guide to the runners and riders
Bewildered rage has greeted Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s announcement that abortion is a bad thing and that Catholics should be against it. He has been accused of using threatening and inflammatory language and of “punishing” pro-choice Catholic politicians by seeking to exclude them from the Church. He has done no such thing. In a sermon at
Wales scored a first in the modern political history of Britain this last month. It became the first area of the UK to survive-quite happily-without an elected government. For over three weeks after the inconclusive elections to the Cardiff Asembly the parties squabbled on who should form a coalition. Meanwhile, schools, hospitals and transport systems
Sergeant Pepper always cheers me up because – aside from its musical brilliance – it is slightly older than I am. Today’s papers are full of readable celebrations of the album’s anniversary, including a Guardian leader and a “where is she now?” piece in The Times on the Lucy of “Lucy in the Sky with
Now that Big Brother’s returned for its summer run what does it tell us about the political mind of Britain? Leaders-and deputy leaders-come and go, manifestos get launched,opposition spokesmen are sacked and ministers do u-turns. But it’s the cultural mood which decides whether a party’s time is up or not. Brown’s arrival and Brady’s departure,Blears’s bid
The Portuguese police are now using, of all things, tip-offs from mystics in the search for Madeleine McCann. It is hard to remember a police operation that has been so comprehensively or publicly bungled.
The Evening Standard has the latest twist in the grammar school row. Dominic Grieve, the shadow A-G, has backed building more grammars in Kent seemingly in contradiction of the party’s no new grammars policy. But CCHQ is spinning that Grieve isn’t going against the party line as more grammars can be built to “maintain the
Nothing better sums up everything that is wrong with this country and our culture than Big Brother. Yet, the public is still fascinated by it and the idea of having an all-female house has won the show acres of space in the red tops. This morning on the tube the majority of people in
It seems strange that Nice has agreed that the NHS should pay for Champix, the new anti-smoking drug, while at the same time refusing to endorse, for example, Aricept, Exelon and Reminyl for those in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and Avastin and Alimta for cancer. Cost-effective arguments don’t really wash — how does one
Stephen has a good post on really bad films. I have never understood the appeal of the dreadful Dirty Dancing, nor its passage into Rocky Horror-style cult status. So this Guardian piece about staying in Baby’s cabin is my idea of the naughty step times a thousand: a sort of cultural Guantanamo Bay. Will someone
The Republican presidential field just got even more crowded with the news that former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson is jumping in. You probably know Thomspon’s face, if not his name, as he’s been in a whole slew of movies including The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard 2 and In the Line of Fire. His
A work of meticulous scholarship has appeared entirely devoted to the 1943 musical and it sets new standards of accuracy in what has been a gossipy milieu. From the distinguished publishers Yale, it is written by Tim Carter who is David G. Frey Distinguished Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department, University of
Those disappointed that the initial instalments of the Campbell memoirs won’t be dishing up the good stuff might like to turn their attention to those of Bob Shrum, the veteran US political consultant who effectively ran the Gore and Kerry campaigns and is now close to Gordon Brown. His autobiography No Excuses is designed to wound two of the Democratic front-runners,
The race to be the next John Prescott is getting serious with the six contenders debtaing on Newsnight last night, watch it here. So, who won? Here is Martin Vander Weyer’s ranking of the form, let us know what you think in the comments. Hazel Blears (she may be small but she’s hot) A length
Alan Milburn is one of my favourite politicians. But even he won’t persuade me to drink Pepsi. As he likes to say: “We’re not daft”.