All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Inspired, perhaps, by The Spectator’s list of the top 50 political scandals, Bloomberg has run a list of the ten best American ones. I have to say, these prudish Americans just don’t do scandal like us. The list has a common theme: moralising politician caught having an affair! Please. Where are the Russian spies, the society
So, a ComRes poll for the Daily Politics has Cameron leading Brown on the issue of which party leader would be more honest about spending cuts. It echoes a poll that we conducted a few days ago; the results of which we figured we’d share with CoffeeHousers, before our work experience at the Speccie comes
Kevin Maguire’s Commons Confidential column in the latest New Statesman contains this intriguing little snippet: “Home Secretary Alan Johnson was a picture of innocence during the plot to oust Brown and replace him with a former postie with the initials A J. Not so his entourage. It has come to the attention of No 10
Though Nick Clegg has greater pre-existing international experience than either David Cameron or Gordon Brown (having worked in Brussels), he cannot help but see international affairs through a narrow political lens. Last year it was Israel’s targetting of Hamas, now it is Nato’s Afghan mission. Clegg wants the British troop contribution to ISAF either massively
Here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the past week: Matthew d’Ancona reports on a poetic evening at 22 Old Queen Street. Fraser Nelson reveals why the Tories’ Californian strategy should be taken seriously, and marks a welcome rejection of assisted suicide. James Forsyth notes the waning authority of the Iranian regime,
Watch out: it’s security review season. The Brown government is about to issue a second version of its National Security Strategy. You can expect Pauline Neville-Jones to put out a revised version of the paper she did for the Tories a while ago. The Obama administration is set to launch a new “Quadrennial Diplomacy and
We all know Labour has failed to run an efficient economy or public services, but what’s little discussed is its failure to achieve even its own goals. Had Brown bankrupted the country but, say, made the poorest much better off, then Labour members might not be facing such an existential crisis. As it stands they
Although Andrew Lansley’s “10 percent” gaffe may have worked out alright in the end, I can’t help but think he’s pushing his luck with his latest comments: Andrew Lansley has called on the Government to come clean about their spending plans after it was revealed that the NHS has been asked to plan for efficiency
After the news that there won’t be a new police investigation last night, the second thing the Tories feared most hasn’t happened either: neither the Guardian nor any other outlet has anything to further implicate Andy Coulson in the phone-hacking scandal this morning. Indeed, the Guardian’s main story concerns how a private investigator working for
Christopher Caldwell’s New York Times Magazine profile of David Cameron has finally been published; Caldwell first interviewed Cameron for it last year. I expect the Tories will see it as an important non-electoral milestone for them, a sign that the American establishment expects Cameron to be the next Prime Minister. The piece is, as you
Some useful insights from PR Week’s David Singleton, who reveals that Labour are planning a concerted effort to paint Andy Coulson as a “sleazeball” ahead of – and perhaps during – the next election campaign. Here’s a snippet: “One senior Labour source in regular contact with Gordon Brown’s inner circle told PRWeek: ‘Cameron wants to
There was a wonderful outbreak of wit and erudition at Parliament this morning. The sketch-writers Simon Hoggart and Matthew Parris appeared before the Public Administration Select Committee to discuss the perils of political jargon. Simon Hoggart kicked off by imagining Churchill’s war-time speeches re-written by a local government wonk. ‘We will fight on the beaches’
So David Cameron has said that Andy Coulson’s job isn’t endangered by the News of the World wire-tapping allegations in this morning’s Guardian, and you can see where the Tory leader is coming from. After all, there are very few – if any – new revelations about Coulson in the Guardian piece. We already knew
So, yes, little blogging. Blame a combination of Ashes cricket and an infestation of family… Hiatus will continue as I shall be at the cricket in Cardiff on Friday. Talk amongst yourselves and deliver your verdict on whether Kevin Pieterson is just a tube or merely something else… See you on Sunday* or Monday…. *We’re
Some good news for Andy Coulson and David Cameron with Yates’s statement that there will be no new police investigation into the matter. It’ll be fascinating to see how much play this story gets in the papers tomorrow.
Over at the FT’s Westminster blog, Jim Pickard picks up on an important comment from Stephen Timms, the Treasury minister, speaking at a committee meeting this morning. Timms suggests that Treasury hasn’t ruled out a public sector pay freeze, as recommended by the Audit Commission’s Steve Bundred. Here are the minister’s words: “It’s certain
There was great excitement here in Old Queen Street when Lord Carlile, the Government’s own adviser on anti-terror law, announced that Alan Johnson can and should help poor Gary McKinnon. McKinnon is the computer nerd who hacked into the Pentagon looking for evidence of UFOs, but who is soon to be extradited and tried as
Sir Hugh Orde, the new president of ACPO, has predictably come out against elected police chiefs. Andrew Sparrow has the key extract from his speech: “If people seriously think some form of elected individual is better placed to oversee policing than the current structure, then I am very interested in the detail of how that
Brown’s away at the G8, so it’s a Harman-Hague-Cable match at PMQs today. Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1202: Here we go. Harman leads with condolences for the servicemen killed in Afghanistan over the past week. She adds condolences to those killed in the fire in Camberwell. The first question comes from Malcolm
Brace yourselves. According to some great research by David Herdson at Political Betting, Gordon Brown could refrain from holding a general election until 2013. The loopholes by which he could manage it are a bit arcane and convoluted – so I’d suggest you read Herdson’s post in full – but this snippet gives the idea:
From its founder Joseph Addison – a poet of some significance – to its present poetry editor, Hugo Williams, the Spectator has always had a rich association with the poetic art. Indeed, an editorial by J.D.Scott in 1954 was widely regarded as the founding text of the so-called “Movement” of that decade; Vita Sackville-West, Sassoon,
Today’s White Paper on financial regulation avoids introducing some unnecessary regulatory changes at the expense of failing to introduce some necessary ones. In particular, it fails to recognise the abject failure of Gordon Brown’s “tripartite” framework, in which prudential supervision of the banks was taken from the Bank of England and given to the FSA.
I know Harriet Harman is not supposed to be taken seriously, so I’m prepared to believe that she just struggles with numbers and didn’t knowingly mislead MPs today. But it’s worth correcting the record on one crucial point. “We have paid down debt,” she says. Actually, if you take the last Budget into account –
I disagree with Helena Kennedy on a whole host of issues, but her speech last night in the Lords debate on assisted suicide was fantastic. Here’s the opening section of it: “Although I am a great believer in individual liberty and in the autonomy of the individual, I also believe strongly in the symbolic nature
I’d be tempted to call it listless. But everyone was reading from lists. At today’s rather sleepy PMQs I counted six MPs who recorded their sympathy for those affected by the recent tragedies in Afghanistan and Camberwell. The Speaker needs to act or these sessions will turn into Prime Minister’s Condolences. Gordon Brown’s in Italy,
Presidents Obama, and Medvedev (and Prime Minister Putin) seem to be having a good summit. Nuclear talks look like they have gone well, there has been mention of expanding NATO’s transit for its Afghan mission through Russia, and the mood – crucial at any summit – has been reasonably good. Nobody stared into any one
Hm. Seems like Alan Johnson has chosen the day that Gordon’s away in Italy to write another comment piece on voting reform. Like his article for the Times a few months ago, it pushes the AV+ version of proportional representation. And, like his Times article, it goes out of its way to mention Brown (“I
The government’s dire warnings that if the amendment passed all income taxes collected this tax year would have to be repaid, seems to have deterred many of the rebels.
The thing that jumps out from Nick Clegg’s speech on families today is how aggressively – if, ultimately, unconvincingly – it sets about attacking the Tories. Yes, he also criticises Labour – but the attack on the Tories comes first and is more bitter in tone. Here’s a snippet: “David Cameron’s social policy is focused
Via Tom Harris, I see that the new Speaker is contemplating “modernising” the House of Commons by dropping the convention that MPs refer to one another as the “Honourable Member” and “Right Honourable” and so on. If John Bercow thinks this will do anything to help the public understand the supposedly arcane and baffling Westminster
A characteristically interesting column from Rachel Sylvester in The Times today, in which she describes how the Tories are looking to how the Liberal Party in Canada managed to slash public spending a decade ago. As Sylvester describes it, our Canadian friends lopped 20% of their public spending bill and dismissed as many as a
So, what does today hold in store for Gordon Brown? Howabout another 10p tax rebellion marshalled, as always, by Frank Field? A bunch of around 30 Labour rebels have prepared an amendment to the Finance Bill, by which the last Budget couldn’t pass into law until everyone who lost out from the 10p tax fiasco
I’m delighted that Lord Falconer has just failed in his attempt to legalise assisted suicide for people sending friends and relatives to Swiss death clinics. This is a topic which I suspect even CoffeeHousers will be evenly divided on, but to me the whole idea is just wrong – and it goes straight to the
The restaurant-wrecker A.A. Gill has attacked the Spectator, accusing our cartoons (and those of the New Yorker) of failing to make him laugh. Well, you can go for me, A.A. – but when you go for my cartoonists, I’m bound to react (see above). Next time pick on someone your own size, beach bully!