Anne McElvoy spots a new political type: the ‘Labrators’ who have more in common with Cameron than Brown, and may co-operate with a Tory government The Labrators are coming: cross-bred symbols of shifting political times. Labour by background and allegiance, they empathise with many of the New Conservatives’ aims and obsessions. As for the political
Melissa Kite says that the PM is ill at ease with female colleagues. No surprise that it was the women — Blears, Flint, Kennedy — who rebelled while the men hid under the table Remember the Brown Bounce? Yes, there really was one. It was back in September 2007 and Gordon was riding high on
Irwin Stelzer says the PM should seize the opportunity presented by this stay of execution: plot a path to fiscal sanity, cut red tape and restore Britain’s stature on the world stage Now that Gordon Brown is determined to go down with the Labour ship, or to sink it, if you believe his harshest critics,
So, why the great shock? Why the hand-wringing? It’s not as if they weren’t warned. Why all those metropolitan journos disembarking at Barnsley station on the 11.47 from King’s Cross and gingerly approaching the local Untermensch with a sort of disgusted awe: what is it about this ghastly place that resulted in 17 per cent
Matthew d’Ancona says that, by sticking with Brown, Labour has opted for a mad collective delusion. The party is still in thrall to the trio who invented New Labour and cannot think beyond the Blair-Brown era — an incapacity for which it will pay a terrible price In Westminster this week, I have felt like
Before boarding the flight to Moscow, it dawned on me that I might have somehow contracted swine flu from Michael Nyman. What was I to do? This is not what I had in mind when I decided to bring a taste of Britain to Russia. I felt embarrassed. But stranger things have happened in my
Which of the many MPs accused of defrauding the taxpayer by fiddling their expenses is the worst offender, do you think? We need some clarity on this issue. In the public mind I have a feeling that they are all beginning to merge as one composite beast drawn from ancient mythology — a hydra-headed pig
Tom Bower talks to Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, at Opec’s meeting and is struck by how this master manipulator escapes censure in the great oil blame game Speculators are back in favour, especially the fund managers bidding up the price of oil. Cursed last year for tipping the world into recession, the same
Douglas Eden reveals the extraordinary penetration of the 1970s Labour movement by pro-Soviet trade unionists and the extent of Callaghan’s toleration of the hard Left Thirtieth anniversaries have been in vogue this year. So far, there have been seminars and conferences to commemorate the notorious 1979 Winter of Discontent and the subsequent election of Margaret
In an exclusive interview, Dick Cheney tells Daniel Collings that Obama is wrong to say sorry for waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques. The former Vice-President turned critic-in-chief has no regrets: if he upset Blair, he was ‘just doing his job’ Richard B. Cheney, the 46th Vice-President of the United States, is back. Though he left
Rod Liddle takes issue with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and otherdoom-mongers: Kim Jong-il’s nukes are quaintly amateurish Apparently it’s now five minutes to midnight. I am referring not to the actual time, but to the figurative clock of the apocalypse which tells us how long it will be until we are all annihilated.
William Hague responds to David Miliband’s claim in The Spectator that the Tory EU policy is suicidal and says the government’s own strategy has been an abject failure Three weeks ago in these pages David Miliband bravely took up the challenge of defending Labour’s record on Europe and claimed that the Labour government has been
A venal House of Commons, a time of economic dislocation, an unpopular PM: Siân Busby sees eerie resonances in the strange case of Daniel McNaughten When Daniel McNaughten, a young Glaswegian wood-turner, shot Edward Drummond Esq on a freezing January afternoon in 1843, the widespread reaction was dismay but not astonishment. Such atrocities were only
Angela Wallace is one of a new breed of wavering voter. ‘I’m disgusted with all of the parties,’ she says, peering suspiciously at the men with clipboards on her doorstep. ‘MPs are not like they used to be. Now they’re all as bad as each other.’ The political activists I am accompanying have a ready
In Ireland, some 2,000 adults who gave evidence of assault at the hands of Roman Catholic priests and nuns are, probably correctly, spitting tacks. The inquiry into their treatment when in children’s institutions has ruled that, although they did indeed suffer, no charges may be brought, no names shamed and, for what it’s worth, no
I once gave the Conservatives their biggest ever donation, yet I recently took the difficult decision to support Ukip for the European elections on 4 June. So I have been expelled from the Tory party. I am not an observant person but I do not seem to have been cut by anyone since then; rather
Monday morning, on the Baltic Air 137 to Riga. I finish a taut John Grisham thriller, dip into Kilcullen’s brilliant thesis on counter insurgency, The Accidental Guerrilla, then ponder my editor’s benevolent but searching comments yesterday on the book which I have written with Ed Young on British foreign secretaries. Nearly three hours well spent.
It’s true there are signs of an economic recovery, says Martin Vander Weyer, but we should also beware a ‘third wave’ of destruction It’s springtime in North Yorkshire, which traditionally means lashing rain and temperatures like February. But however unseasonal the weather, nature knows when it’s time to wake up: in the first few days
Though the moral fabric of Parliament is in tatters, its architecture remains an inspiration. Stephen Bayley celebrates Pugin’s crazy, magnificent clock tower Boing. That most familiar sound is now 150 years old. Because I am fortunate enough to live near Westminster, I often hear it during solitary moments at night in the bathroom. But, like
Rod Liddle says that Sarah Teather, the righteous young Lib Dem MP who refused to claim for a second home, proves that it wasn’t mandatory for MPs to fleece us The worst case of expenses fraud I ever encountered as a journalist came when I worked for the BBC and a foreign correspondent claimed a