After working for Bill Clinton, the political strategist James Carville said he had changed his mind about where power really lies. ‘I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the President or the Pope,’ he said. ‘But now I would like to come back as the bond market.
Home The country went to the polls. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, prepared by going around with his sleeves rolled up. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, said that his pledges had been cut into an eight-foot slab of limestone. Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, took a bus for John O’Groats. Stuart Gulliver, the chief
I am writing a play about Dr Johnson and his Dictionary. It will be performed in Scotland later this year. Five out of the great man’s six helpers were Scots (the only Englishman, V.J. Peyton, was considered a fool and a drunkard) and it’s timely to think of all those Scotsmen working away to consolidate
Whatever the result of the election, it has become clearer by the day that our ‘democracy’ is run by politicians not in the interests of the dêmos but of themselves. If the polls have been right, the most egregious example is even now unfolding before our eyes: the attempts to stitch up a coalition, which
Party packs Is it possible to form a stable coalition with more than one political party? The Conservative/Lib Dem coalition of 2010– 2015 was in fact unique in being the only British coalition featuring just two parties. — Lord Aberdeen’s coalition on 1852–55 was made up of 11 Whigs, six Peelites and one Radical, Sir
From ‘War by Poison’, The Spectator, 8 May 1915: By the consent of all men who are not savages, the use of poison is ruled out in war, and has been prohibited by custom for centuries. And war by poison is being practised not only in Europe; in German South-West Africa the Union troops, as we
Bees vs Belgians Sir: To answer Rory Sutherland and Glen Weyl’s question: yes, everyone should vote and no, just because someone is more interested in politics, his opinion should not count more heavily (‘Plan Bee’, 2 May). Belgium has had compulsory voting for over a century. The troubles that follow every general election may seem
