Politics

William Hague was on Steve Richards’ GMTV show at 6am this morning (amazing what baby care does to your viewing habits) and asked The Question ahead of tomorrow’s debate: what would a Tory government do about a ratified EU Reform Treaty/constitution? He answered in almost the exact same words Cameron used on Marr last week. “In our view too much power would have been transferred from Westminster to Brussels, that it would lack democratic legitimacy for the reasons we have discussed, and that we would not let matters rest there and that is a position that Conservative MPs, as far as I can see, are very, very supportive of.” The

On Tuesday, the Spectator’s Clemency Burton-Hill wrote an impassioned post on how the Arts Council of England’s recent funding settlement could spell death for numerous theatrical companies across the country.  Many media outlets have run similar pieces – pleading the case for this theatre or that – but few have been as persuasive as Richard Morrison’s excellent article in this weekend’s Times ‘What’s On’ section. Morrison reveals that the funding settlement will almost certainly put an end to the Birmingham Opera Company.  Under the direction of Graham Vick, this company has become a major critical darling but, more importantly, it defies the argument that opera – or even art more

In last week’s Spectator, I disclosed, that Indian’s government was stuck for ideas as to what to give Gordon Brown as a present for his visit and ordered Delhi University to deliver an honorary PhD – for “Public services and academia.” When I spoke to No10 before that piece, they were unable to confirm that the award would go ahead. I speculated that this was because it may invite awkward questions such as “what as Brown ever achieved in the public services?” But the true controversy, according to The Hindu newspaper, is that the University academics are strongly against the plan – and of the 280 people present, just 15

The Lib Dems are deeply split on the question of whether there should be a referendum on the European Constitution, as they promised in their manifesto. As Fraser explains in this week’s magazine, Ming Campbelll came to a compromise with the pro-referendum forces in the party where the Lib Dems committed themselves to a referendum but not on the constitution, or as we are now meant to call it the Lisbon Treaty, but the whole question of whether or not Britain should stay in the EU. Nick Clegg has decided to stick with this position as he has no desire to disturb the uneasy calm in the Parliamentary party over

I was at a lunch this week to talk about the state of further education, in view of the Government’s plans to extend the school leaving age. It was generally agreed that further education and training are in a bit of a mess. “Does Gordon Brown actually know what vocational skills are?” someone asked. Who knows? But his Government could start showing that they understand the problem they need to tackle in non-academic terms by using the right language.  “Vocational” is the extraordinary term that has slipped into the vocabulary of politicians and educationalists to mean what we used to call practical, manual, technical skills. (That was before the expectation

Is there anything more depressing in an age of prosperity, choice and freedom than the spectacle of an old fashioned public sector rationing system doing its bleak work? The criticisms levelled by Jim Knight, the schools minister, at the best schools over the implementation of the statutory admissions code are a horrible revival of the language of a bygone era when public goods were controlled by rigorously enforced queuing. And, in keeping with Fraser’s warnings, this is another example of the Brown government undoing the public service reforms of the Blair years (such as they were). The decision to make the admissions code statutory rather than advisory was a sop