Ed Miliband’s last-minute holiday to Ibiza was hardly the way in which the former Labour leader had envisaged spending the week after the election. Still, a week on the party island with his wife Justine is hardly a bad way to commiserate his failure at the polls. Now he is on his way back to
‘The NATO Commander in Eastern Afghanistan has said that this year 54 foreign bases have already been closed…’ Last December Channel 4 aired a documentary entitled Billion Dollar Base: Deconstructing Camp Bastion, the predominating ‘takeaways’ from which were a) what phenomenal amounts of money we’d spent on our eight-year operation in and around Helmand Province,
The Tories barely talked about the NHS during the election campaign. It was an area of Labour strength, and one Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham were keen to talk about as much as possible. But now they’re back in with a majority, the Conservatives are keen to start talking about the health service again, and
Drink-driving is back. Which isn’t to say it’s on the rise – quite the contrary –but it’s high on the agenda at every level of government. The Department for Transport has recently stopped offering an alternative to the notoriously inaccurate roadside breathalyser. In Scotland the limit was reduced last year from 80 milligrams of alcohol per
Despite her early entry, Liz Kendall’s leadership campaign is failing to keep up with rivals when it comes to noise and backers. Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham have emerged as the early favourites, while some are wondering if Kendall can persuade the necessary 35 MPs to back her — particularly if Tristram Hunt runs and
If you think it’s tough being a Tory voter in 21st-century Britain, try being a ‘No’ voter in this week’s Irish referendum on gay marriage. Sure, Twitterati sneering at all things right-wing might have turned some Conservatives into Shy Tories, hiding their political leanings from pollsters. But in Ireland, to be a naysayer in relation
David Cameron is wisely using his first 100 days to tackle the biggest challenge of this parliament head on: the EU referendum. This morning’s papers report that a new referendum bill will be a core part of next week’s Queen’s Speech and Cameron is keen to accelerate the vote to 2016. The logic behind this
With Downton Abbey drawing to a close after the next series, Mr S suspects that, in the interest of historical accuracy, it may be for the best that it bows out sooner rather than later. After it initially began in 1912, the show has raced through the years at such pace that it has now spanned over a decade
From ‘A National Government‘, The Spectator, 22 May 1915: We are not going to say anything about the mistakes of the past. They are not merely dead. They are buried. We have got to think only of the future. It is obvious that the construction of a National Government, however ideal in appearance, will be
Some exciting news about the future of medicine was announced today. Unfortunately, you really need a degree in biochemistry – which I certainly don’t have – to understand it. But we’d better get used to that, because the eradication of nasty diseases is increasingly a project for geneticists whose findings are difficult to grasp (but
As far as endorsements go, Andy Burnham is winning the Labour leadership contest hands down. He has managed to recruit Dan Jarvis – someone who has gained huge respect and admiration despite the fact no-one knows very much about him – as his latest backer. Jarvis tells the Mirror that Burnham ‘has the strength, experience
Any new party leader needs legitimacy, an acceptance that they won the contest fair and square. Ed Miliband didn’t have this because he lost in two of three sections of Labour’s electoral-college and that meant he couldn’t act decisively in his first 100 days, that crucial period in which the public tend to decide whether
The Labour leadership candidates are starting to release lists of names supporting them, with more announcements on the way. So far Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham, who reckon they have 100 names between them, have been the most vocal about the levels of support, and there is some concern in the party that between them
With an increasing number of Twitter accounts for politicians and celebrities run by staff rather than the subjects themselves, the PR-y tweets can often make for a dull read. So Mr S is happy to report that President Obama has set up his own personal Twitter account today. Obama, who already has an account run by
As a gynaecologist, I was appalled to read this story about a supposedly ‘groundbreaking’ treatment to stop premature births in the Mail (I read it on the online Mail site but in fact the culprit is The Mail on Sunday). Let me quote from it before telling you what it gets utterly wrong. Note my emphases
In today’s Guardian, Matthew D’Ancona warns that David Cameron may face a successful rebellion from the ‘Runnymede Tories’ if he tries to repeal the Human Rights Act, led by David Davis. Not only would that be a major blow to his authority, it would make remaining in the EU a less attractive option in the
While new MPs are sitting through tedious induction classes to teach them the rules of the House of Commons such as never clap in the chamber or call another member ‘you’, down the road another political institution is laying down the law. The Kennington Tandoori has been a home-from-home to politicians for decades, with numerous
John Bercow has just been re-elected unopposed as Speaker of the House of Commons. Those who had been hoping to get rid of Bercow decided not to pursue this to a vote this week, and so he is back in the chair. In his speech, he cracked a joke at the expense of Labour, saying
The British government’s relationship with Russia is somewhat frosty since David Cameron ordered 75 British soldiers to Ukraine earlier this year to help the country defend itself against Russia. With diplomatic relations at a low, Cameron may now have new reason for Russian woe. Word reaches Steerpike that Cameron’s unofficial biographers Lord Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott recently travelled to Moscow on a
GPs are the very personification of the description ‘jack of all trades, master of none’. Following so-called ‘specialist’ training, they emerge as the ultimate generalists, requiring additional input to manage any kind of medical complication, lacking the in-depth knowledge and experience required to manage comprehensively many of the common medical conditions. And they’re a drain on the