All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
When in power, authoritarian regimes can look immovable – even when, in hindsight, they turn out to have been brittle. This seems to have been the case with Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s Tunisian regime. Weeks ago, nobody would have believed that the Tunisian strongman, who has held power for more than 23 years, could have
Today saw the latest Cameron Direct event, and the Prime Minister defended his government’s position of bankers’ bonuses and Europe, and he devoted a section to profess the fortitude of the coalition itself. But Cameron realises that he needs to offer positive news, both to a country acclimatising to austerity and to a party that
Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson introduces an Austrian perspective on the crash, and has the exclusive that Lord Adonis supports Michael Gove’s reforms. James Forsyth considers David Cameron’s party management, and says that Alan Johnson is running out of lives. Peter Hoskin has five more
It is fashionable to ridicule David Miliband’s search for a post-political career. But in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph the former Foreign Secretary showed that – for all his mistakes in office – his intellect, and judgement on a number of key issues, including how to bring the Afghanistan War to an end, was, and remains, razor-sharp:
Sayeeda Warsi’s attack on the ‘right wing’ of the Conservative party has had a predictable impact. There is fury that the party chairman is attacking a section of the party, it is something that a considerable number of Tories will never forgive her for. It is also being pointed out that there were a lot
The Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election now raises the distinct possibility that Labour could win the next election by default. People on the left have been wondering for some time what could unite the multiple and often contradictory tribes of the Labour Party and it looks like “Tory cuts” and “Lib-Dem broken promises” could do
After the result, the spin. We got the first drafts of each party’s response to the Oldham by-election in the dark hours of this morning – but the picture is solidifying now that the sun has risen. What’s clear is that both Labour and the Lib Dems are having an easier time putting on a
And all on a turnout of 48.1 percent. So far as the Lib Dems and Labour are concerned, these numbers probably met expectations. Overall support for Elwyn Watkins has held firm since the general election, but he was always going to struggle to get within 103 votes of Labour once again. While a 10-point victory
As wars begin to end, arguments about their conduct begin. Such is the case with the British campaign in Helmand. In a submission to the Foreign Affairs Committee, the former British ambassador in Kabul – and one of the best diplomats of his generation – Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles blasted the Army: “Almost by definition, good
Greetings from Omaha, Nebraska, where the temperature is colder than it was in the Arctic Circle. I flew out from Heathrow with Delta Airlines, via Detroit. However, I missed my connecting flight because we were held on ground at Heathrow for two hours while some Asians were kicked off the plane. There were seven of
Andy Sparrow is reporting on his live blog that the Lib Dems have conceded defeat in Oldham East and Saddleworth. We won’t have a full result for a couple of hours yet. But all the signs are that Labour’s majority will be substantial, well over the 1,000 mark that Lib Dems were talking about earlier
The May 5th date for the AV referendum is under threat because the bill paving the way for it might not get through the House of Lords in time. The problem is that the referendum bill is linked to the plan to equalise constituency sizes which Labour is steadfastly opposed to. So Labour lords are
The latest issue of The Spectator is out today, and I thought CoffeeHousers might like to read the cover story by Nick Cohen. Its theme is brilliantly captured by Jonathan Cusick’s cover image (left) of the yellow Lib Dem bird shot through its heart with a Tory arrow – but there’s more to it than
David Cameron made significant waves yesterday both at Prime Minister’s Questions and in a Sun article about reforming Britain’s antiquated trade union laws. He was responding to a favoured tactic of the new wave of militant trade unionists: threatening action at times that most inconvenience or imperil the safety of the general public. We have
Guido and Benedict Brogan have already drawn attention to Paul Waugh’s latest post. But a story this good deserves repeating, at length: “Tory MP Mark Pritchard is not one to swear. In fact he’s ribbed by colleagues in the Tea Room for saying “Schmidt” instead of sh*t. But today, he exploded when the Commons Speaker
Much of Ed Miliband’s Grand Confession on the economy is wearily familiar. I mean, we’ve known his take on the deficit for some time: that the drop in tax receipts from a crumbling financial sector was to blame, rather than Brown’s spending. And to have him argue that Labour should have made the economy less
There is, as you would expect, lots of good stuff in Nick Cohen’s article on the Lib Dems in this week’s edition of the magazine (subscribe today!) Among the several notable passages there’s this: Leaving the disputes between pollsters aside, not even Nick Clegg’s closest friends deny that he is the most hated politician in
If Mervyn King and his team are trying to deal with Britain’s debt crisis by letting inflation rip, I do wish they would just say so – rather than go through this monthly farce. Yet again, base rates have been left at an absurd 0.5 per cent, in an economy expected to grow by a
President Obama rode to power on his rhetoric. Yesterday, for the first time in months, he rekindled that initial spark to speak to the nation – and the world – about loss, democracy and the compassion that is needed for a society to work. You can watch the full speech above. To me, though, this
Thanks to at least a dozen interruptions the whole address lasts 34 minutes but if you don’t want to watch it all then skip straight to the last six or seven minutes. This was Obama at his best and perhaps his finest speech since he won the Presidency. True, the bar had been lowered by
Since Labour are all set to prevail in the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election (as was always likely) the government, and specifically the Deputy Prime Minister, will need a line to sell. It’s made a little awkward by the fact that this unecessary election is the consequence of a lawsuit brought by the defeated Liberal Democrat
Tomorrow’s vote in Oldham East and Saddleworth is the first big event of the political year. It is a marginal seat that Labour just held at the last election, beating the Liberal Democrats by a touch over a hundred votes. But the by-election has been caused by the Lib Dem candidate taking the Labour MP
Is Michael Gove’s school reform a hideous distortion of the Labour Academies programme, as Ed Balls put it, or the fulfillment of that agenda? Until now Lord Adonis, the architect of the Academies programme, has kept silent on the issue. But he’s interviewed in The Spectator tomorrow by Matthew Smith, editor of Attain magazine. Here
With the Labour party motioning to unseat him, and David Cameron and Ed Miliband speaking out against him, it was always likely to end thus for Eric Illsley. The receipt offender has just issued this statement: “I would like to apologise to my constituents, family and friends, following my court appearance, for the distress and
The first PMQs of the year was a bad tempered affair. The Prime Minister had clearly decided that attack was the best form of defence, hurling insult after insult across the despatch box. He accused Ed Miliband of being a ‘nothing man’, told him that his Shadow Chancellor can’t count and that he doesn’t count
VERDICT: Woah. If you ever needed a PMQs to brush away the last morsels of festive cheer, then this was it. Every question and answer came laced with some sideswipe or other, and it made for a scrappy exchange between the two party leaders. Both struck blows against each other, but both were also guilty
A potent Tory tag team in the Sun today, as David Cameron and Boris Johnson join pens to take on the unions. The tone of their article is as blunt as anything we’ve heard from them on the matter, particularly the Prime Minister. “Let’s call these threats what they are,” it says about the prospect
Why vote Lib Dem? Even Nick Clegg is now asking that question. After 8 months of broken pledges, deep cuts and atrocious polling (due to reach its nadir tomorrow in Oldham East and Saddleworth), Clegg worries that his party is losing its identity. Speaking to the Guardian, Clegg reveals that he hopes to arrest decline
Wow. Dave had a real wobble at the start of PMQs today. Ed Miliband stood up, looking as mild as a puppy, and asked about the ‘tip’ of two million quid recently paid to the boss of Lloyds. ‘In opposition,’ said Ed, ‘the prime minister promised, “where the tax-payer owns a large stake in a
I hope one can still use cooking metaphors in this new age of low-key rhetoric, right? Anyway, this has been another Bad Week for Palin Inc. She’s been traduced this week and the statement she’s released today, while typically punchy, isn’t likely to change anyone’s opinion. Nevertheless, the fall-out from the Tucson shootings has damaged
The trouble over the European Referendum Bill rather sums up the current state of the relationship between the Conservative party leadership and its more truculent backbenchers. The Bill was meant to be something to cheer up the troops. But it has ended up going down so badly that the whips have been left tearing their
After David Chaytor’s conviction last week, the dominoes just keep on tumbling. Today, it was Eric Illsley’s turn to confess to his expenses-related sins – and he did so by pleading guilty to three “false accounting” charges in Southwark Crown Court. Given that he’s still MP for Barnsley Central – although now as an independent,
Britain is avowedly eurosceptic. But euroscepticism is not homogeneous; there are different tones of disgust. Many decry further political integration; others oppose Europe’s penchant for protectionism; some are wary of the EU’s apparent collective socialism; a few are essentially pro-European but believe too much sovereignty has been ceded; others hope to redefine Britain’s cultural and
The EU Bill is back in parliament today, amid speculation that Cameron has a Europe-fuelled rebellion on his hands. Despite the talk, the chances are that the Bill will go through Parliament wholly unscathed in its first test. Today’s debate is about the so-called ‘sovereignty clause’ – or Clause 18 – within the EU
