Spies will be sent out to inform upon people smoking in public places, including bus shelters and office doorways, under plans by Miss Caroline Flint, the minister for public health, who advocated ‘an intelligence-led approach to enforcing the law’. Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, borrowed £8.735 billion in May, the highest amount
Sixth sense Anthony Seldon is quite right about exams (‘More exams, less education’, 18 June). A-levels since 2000 have encouraged hoop-jumping, no more so than in his own subject, history. But he is wrong to be so resigned about AS-levels; contrary to assumptions made by leaders in the overwhelming majority of schools, there is no
If this Labour government deserves to be remembered for anything at all, it will be for the systematic stamping out of freedoms that have been enjoyed in this country for centuries. Smoking in public is now all but certain to be banned. Habeas corpus has been curtailed by Charles Clarke’s grotesque ‘control orders’. This week
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, flew to Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin, then to Berlin, Luxembourg and Paris, in preparation for the European Union meeting later this week. A bone of contention was Britain’s £3 billion rebate of its contributions to the EU budget, which President Jacques Chirac of France said Britain
Let them smoke dope Eric Ellis is way way off in his piece (‘The whingers of Oz’, 11 June). Why are the Australians angry? I would think it’s because the 20-year sentence passed on Schapelle Corby for smuggling marijuana is savage. No doubt Eric Ellis has never smoked any marijuana, but it is a harmless
When Ruth Kelly became Education Secretary last December, one of her female colleagues, angry at having been passed over for promotion, denounced her as a ‘cow’ who insisted on skipping Commons debates in order to spend time with her young children. In fact, in her dedication to family life, Ms Kelly seemed a refreshing change
Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, speaking in the Commons about the promised Bill to hold a referendum on the European constitution, said, ‘Until the consequences of France and the Netherlands being unable to ratify the Treaty are clarified, it would not in our judgment now be sensible to set a date for a second
Good value Ross Clark says that NHS Trusts are ‘stuffed with local worthies drawing generous salaries and pensions’. I object. Like all other non-executive directors of NHS Trusts, I received last year just over £6,500, and no pension whatever, for my part-time work (‘The worst of both worlds’, 4 June). As a daily rate this
A bunch of ageing rockers belting out their old hits for the supposed benefit of Africa’s poor (not to mention the hope of reviving fading careers) is such a tempting target for parody and scorn that it would be easy to dismiss Bob Geldof’s Live 8 concert on 2 July as a grotesque irrelevance. But
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, on holiday in Italy, called for ‘time for reflection’ after the French referendum’s rejection of the proposed European constitution. ‘What emerges so strongly from the French referendum campaign,’ he said, ‘is this deep, profound, underlying anxiety that people in Europe have about how the economy in Europe faces up
ID charade You seem to believe that Conservatives have spent the last four years ‘standing up for local and national democracy, and against the tendency of the government to centralise power’ (Leading article, 28 May). But thanks to the efforts of both main parties there is little now left of local government to defend. The
This magazine has a good record of opposing the centralising treaties of the EU. Alone in the media, The Spectator came out in 1985 against the Single European Act, which marked the first big expansion of the qualified majority vote. With a growing pack at our heels, we then opposed the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam,
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, unveiled a £1 billion scheme to help first-time buyers purchase shares of new homes. He also announced plans to ‘cut red tape’ by merging 29 regulatory bodies into seven. It was revealed that four out of ten prisoners released early end up back in jail after reoffending. The
French lessons Peter Oborne (Politics, 21 May) finds it curious that British and French opponents of the European constitution find precisely opposite faults in what it would impose upon their countries. As he correctly observes, the French see it as the imposition of Thatcherism on France while the British see it as the imposition of
Conservative MPs and candidates have spent the last four years campaigning against two connected evils of the Labour style of government. In innumerable speeches and press releases, they have stood up for local and national democracy, and against the tendency of the government to centralise power and to hand it over to quangocrats, bureaucrats and
At the state opening of Parliament, the Queen said, ‘My government is committed to creating safe and secure communities, and fostering a culture of respect.’ For the next 18 months 45 Bills were scheduled. An Identity Cards Bill would be introduced; Sinn Fein said this would undermine the rights of Irish citizens in Northern Ireland.
More prisoners, less crime Douglas Hurd pointed out that the prison population increased from 44,000 in the 1980s to over 75,000 today (‘Does prison really work?’, 14 May). If ‘“prison works” in reducing crime,’ he says, ‘then obviously a sensational increase in the number of prisoners should produce a sensational reduction in crime. But it
If Michael Howard were a football manager, he would be entitled to some very bitter post-match expletives. Tony Blair’s respectable-sounding majority of 67 cannot cover for the brutal geometry of the election result. Labour, with a mere 36 per cent of the popular vote, lower than any previously commanded by a British government, secured 356
Labour won a majority of 67 in the general election, securing 356 seats (of the 645 contested), 47 down, with 9,556,183 votes, 35.2 per cent of the total; the Conservatives won 197 seats, 33 up, with 8,772,598 votes, 32.3 per cent of the total; the Liberal Democrats won 62 seats, 11 up, with 5,982,045 votes,
Tories must be less strident Simon Heffer tells us that what the Conservative party now needs, above all, is ‘stability’ (‘The way ahead for Conservatives’, 7 May). But it cannot have escaped his notice that the level of success we have enjoyed in the last decade has been all too ‘stable’, and that this is