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
They are Achilles and Patroclus. They are David and Jonathan. They are Wallace and Gromit. Not since the emergence of the youthful Blair and Brown has there been a pair of politicians who have been so evidently close in ideology and outlook, and who have so captivated spectators by their general voter-friendliness. In making George
Britain held a general election, except in South Staffordshire, where the death of the Liberal Democrat candidate after ballot papers had been sent out required the holding of a by-election later. More than five million requests for postal votes had been met. The Conservatives had hoped that the result would be unexpected in the same
Made in Britain ‘Today, the Mother of Parliaments has lost half its power, with Brussels making half of British laws,’ says Anthony Browne (‘Parliament of eunuchs’, 30 April). My Conservative opponent in Rotherham goes further. His election address says that 70 per cent of UK law is now made in Brussels. The truth is more
The Spectator appears as the electorate goes to the polls, and any analysis of the outcome must therefore be hypothetical. Some points can be made with assurance. The first is that if Michael Howard wins, he will be rated a miracle-worker. Never in the history of magic would so colossal a rabbit have been pulled
The Mail on Sunday claimed that before the war on Iraq, Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, had warned Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, in a 13-page letter that it was questionable whether Britain could legally attack Iraq under UN Resolution 1441. A nine-paragraph summary of the Attorney General’s advice, containing no such caveat, was
Deadly recipes Andrew Gilligan takes a characteristically certain view on what the headline describes as ‘Ricin certainties’ (23 April). Mark Easton researched the background to the trial over several months, travelling across Europe and pressing reluctant police and intelligence officials to talk. The BBC also attended every single day of the court hearings. Mark’s report
Given that most readers will have voted by the time this magazine next appears, we have no hesitation in now urging them to vote Conservative. This is no time for dwelling on any deficiencies in Tory personnel or programmes. Nor is it a time for bashing Mr Blair and his clapped-out, deceitful, nannying and discredited
Kamel Bourgass was sentenced to 17 years in prison for conspiring, with one named fellow terrorist and others unnamed, to cause a ‘public nuisance’, a common law offence said by the Crown in this case to have involved plotting to use poisons to cause ‘disruption, fear and injury’. Bourgass, an Algerian, had been an ‘illegal