All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
It’s St George’s Day today, and presumably Labour’s Emily Thornberry is out looking for ‘amazing’ houses draped in English flags. To help her out (in a way), her Lib Dem rival in Islington Terry Stacy has decided to put this about as his election address: Mr Steerpike is very keen for any other election candidates
One of the main risks of wheeling Boris out this week was that he was never just going to be asked about this election in interviews. The Mayor and candidate for Uxbridge ended up saying ‘in the dim and distant future, it would be a wonderful thing to be thought to be in a position
This morning when George Osborne defended the way the Tories were fighting the election campaign, there was something slightly odd about what he said in response to John Humphrys’ first question: ‘We’re two weeks to go to this election and it’s coming down to a very clear choice on the economy, and on 8 May
Ukip kicked off St George’s Day by pledging to make today a national holiday. Although early morning press conferences have been abandoned by the other political parties, Ukip turned out the media bright and early to talk about patriotism and promised to make St George’s and St David’s Day national holidays. The party’s cultural spokesman
Should David Cameron be showing more passionate in this election campaign? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss their interview with the Prime Minister in the magazine this week and whether Cameron is feeling optimistic about his reelection chances. Was the PM open about his apparent failure to sell the
From ‘Soldiers of Italy’, The Spectator, 24 April 1915: It is winter in Florence. The sun shines, but snow lies low on Monte Morello, and the tramontana blows cold as ice, out of a piercingly blue sky. The streets and squares are crowded. Bells are ringing, bands playing, troops marching. The soldiers are coming back from
The Ukip fox may have entered the Westminster henhouse but how many more chickens will it kill? ComRes has released a new poll revealing that Ukip is trailing in third place in ‘ten Conservative-held seats which Ukip have targeted’. Across the polled seats, the Tories are on 39 per cent, Labour on 28 and Ukip
Senior Labour figures have looked uncomfortable during this campaign when speaking of their own party’s policy on balancing the books – the day-to-day spending books, that is. But this afternoon Chris Leslie gave an endorsement of the pledge that is as clear and enthusiastic as voters are likely to get. Challenged by Andrew Neil on
Nigel Farage has fought off accusations that he’s an invisible candidate in South Thanet, claiming to have held more public meetings than all of the other candidates put together. But are Ukip getting ahead of themselves in the ultra-tight race on the Kent coast? Mr S hears that invitations are already circulating for an election
The Tories’s not-so-secret weapon has finally been deployed. Boris Johnson hit the campaign trail with David Cameron today, solving a jigsaw puzzle, painting with some children (above) and exuding a bonhomie missing from the campaign so far. But the dangers of letting Boris loose were also seen in an interview on Sky News. When asked,
In this week’s Spectator, out tomorrow, James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson have interviewed the Prime Minister David Cameron. He discusses why even his closest colleagues think he needs to show more passion and warns that Nicola Sturgeon wants the next government to be a ‘car crash’. Here is an extended preview… David Cameron is sitting underneath a sign
Ed Miliband might not like to talk about an SNP-Labour coalition but the SNP aren’t so shy. In fact, they seem to be revelling in the Tory message of ‘Vote Labour, get the SNP’. Alex Salmond, the former leader of the SNP, has been filmed saying that he is going to be ‘writing the Labour
A day after the BBC admitted to misquoting David Cameron on foxhunting, the broadcaster made another admission of error last night over the numbers of people using food banks. A Newsnight package on welfare initially declared that ‘numbers using food banks will hit a million this week’, but this figure was clarified with a short correction at
I’m looking forward to tonight’s Spectator debate in which Fraser Nelson, William Cash and I will be taking on Owen Jones, Jack Monroe and Molly Scott Cato MEP over the issue of whether the rich should pay more in tax. One thing I’m sure Owen and his colleagues will do is point to figures released today from
I am sure, as Isabel says, that Tory warnings about the horrors – the horrors, Mabel – of a Labour-SNP arrangement at the Palace of Westminster are, as they say, cutting through with voters south of the border. It’s not as though the Tories have been pushing their own uplifting, positive, cheery, message for the country.
Are the Tories having a bad campaign? It certainly doesn’t seem to be as slick and upbeat as some had expected. Many Tories had expected the polls to stay right where they are until polling day, but others had assumed that there would at least be some signs of a public panic about Ed Miliband
British chess Grandmaster Nigel Short has form when it comes to explosive statements. Competing in a tournament in France some years ago as a junior player, he was asked during an interview ‘what do you hate most in life?’ His answer – ‘the French’ – failed to win over his audience. Short’s latest foray into contentious self-expression came
This afternoon something rare will happen in this election campaign. David Cameron will campaign in London. While bus-ing and jetting all around the four countries that make up the United Kingdom, the capital has all but been forgotten by the Prime Minister during the short campaign. Like so many aspects of this general election campaign, Wednesday’s event
The general election campaign is beginning to feel a little staid. Maybe there was too much excitement over the attacks and TV debates, or maybe the parties are running out of big policies. But there are still some announcements: Labour will continue its ‘NHS week’ with promises of more health care spending while the Tories
From ‘The Menace of Drink’, The Spectator, 24 April 1915: Some depressing influence is at work among the very poor which is not poverty, something which makes the full effort after the highest civilization attainable to them seem not worth while. That depressing influence is, as we believe, drink. “Oh, hold your tongue!” we hear
Last week, the Department of Health announced that patients would have to produce their passport when registering for their first hospital appointment as part of the clampdown on health tourism. On 17th November 2014, I wrote the following to Mr Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health: Following a GP referral to hospital, patients are sent details of
You have to hand it to the Liberal Democrats: they know how to put out a press release. Following accusations in the Guardian that Grant Shapps or someone ‘under his clear direction’ has been editing Wikipedia pages of his rivals, the Lib Dems have put out a press release dripping in sarcasm from Paddy Ashdown:
Philip Hammond was noticeably keen this afternoon to show the government isn’t standing idly by while migrants drown in the Mediterranean – especially as the refugee crisis is the global story of the moment; the pictures and reports severe enough to have momentarily knocked the election campaign off a number of front pages. Appearing on today’s
Tonight Russell Brand took part in a live Q&A to celebrate the launch of his new documentary The Emperor’s New Clothes. The film looks into the effects of capitalism and it has been widely noted that its release is timed conveniently close to the election. During the Q&A Brand was surprised and initially very pleased to find
So both the BBC and Andrew Marr have admitted to misquoting David Cameron as having said that foxhunting was his favourite sport. But what did Cameron himself think of Marr’s self-described ‘cock up’? Well, The Spectator caught up with the Tory leader earlier today and asked him about it – and here’s his answer: ‘The
Nigel Farage may see himself as the quintessential British politician, but is he modelling himself on a national comedy treasure? Mr S’s colleague Sebastian Payne noted that in Lord Ashcroft’s latest focus groups, voters reckoned that the Ukip leader ‘would only watch British comedies’ in his spare time, such as Only Fools And Horses. One
First let’s look at this chart. That’s Scotland’s fiscal position relative to that of the UK according to the latest IFS projections. It’s not a particularly bonny position though, of course, it is only a projection. Nevertheless, the picture is quite clear: fiscally-speaking Scotland gets a pretty good deal from the UK. An above-average contributor?
I spoke at a Guardian debate on free speech before an audience of students at King’s College London last night. I’ve argued with racists and Putinists in my time and – to put it as mildly as I can – these little bastions of academia were up there with them in their contempt for basic
Last week the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors warned that uncertainty over the mansion tax has caused property prices to rise as fewer homes are put on the market until the election outcome is known. Still, it’s not all bad news for estate agents. In a brazen ‘Good Luck in the Election’ email sent to all parliamentary
Given that Samantha Cameron and her sister Emily Sheffield have both forged successful careers of their own in varying fields, sibling rivalry is unlikely to have ever been an issue for the pair. This could explain why Samantha’s sister has taken offence over the manner in which Ed Miliband became leader of the Labour party. After the
A few months ago I was in a pub on a quiet night and overheard a young couple having an argument about politics. They were both, I’m guessing, young white London liberals and although I couldn’t hear everything they were saying, the gist was this: he was arguing that Islamic violence was a particular problem
Complain all you like about the way the Tories are campaigning at the moment, but it’s getting the message across. The party has hit on the SNP, which is fascinating the media anyway, as the best line of attack to undermine Labour. Tory candidates report being pleasantly surprised by how much cut-through the Labour-SNP message is
Last month over 100 British business leaders signed a letter backing the Conservatives’ economic policies. The letter, which was published in the Daily Telegraph, was seen as damaging to Labour as it claimed that the Tories’ business plan was working and any change in that plan could put the UK’s economic recovery at risk. Miliband can
In the 1970s, there was a big difference between bullies and cry-babies. Your mum would have preferred you to hang around with the latter, but sometimes the former had a twisted charisma so strong that you found yourself joining in the taunts of ‘Onion Head! ’ at some poor unfortunate creature sporting a cranium of