To listen to Greek government ministers addressing the outside world during their breaks from negotiations with eurozone leaders this week, it would be easy to form the impression that Greece had a mighty economy upon which all other eurozone countries were pathetically dependent. ‘Europe is going through the difficult process of understanding that Greece has
Britain is forfeiting its position on the world stage. With no national debate, we are surrendering our claim to be a major player in international affairs and undermining the Atlantic alliance that has kept Britain and Europe secure for 65 years. In these circumstances, it is easy to understand why Barack Obama has felt obliged
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_5_Feb_2015_v4.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson discuss the plans for 50+ new free schools” startat=1694] Listen [/audioplayer]For those who assumed that the removal of Michael Gove as Education Secretary marked the end of the Conservatives’ scholastic reforms, this month may hold a surprise. More free schools are coming, The Spectator understands: at least 50
The Green party has been likened to a watermelon: green on the outside and red on the inside. But that is to do a huge injustice to generations of socialists and communists. Misguided though they were in many of their ideas, nobody could accuse them of actively seeking to make society poorer. That, however, is
Campaigning in Putney in 1978, Mrs Thatcher famously took out a pair of scissors and cut a pound note down the middle, telling her audience that the remaining stump represented what was left of the pound in your pocket after four years of Labour and high inflation. David Cameron may soon be able to repeat
Last Sunday, David Cameron marched through Paris in solidarity, so it seemed, with those who stand up for free speech. Anyone who thought he meant it must now be crying out, ‘Je suis un right Charlie!’ Hardly had the march finished than the Prime Minister had rediscovered his other side: the one which reacts to
The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo lambasts, attacks and lampoons absolutely everybody. Its targets include all religions, all identity groups, minorities and majorities. In recent years it has been most prominent for its refusal to apply different treatment to Islam. It knew that carrying on with satire, in the name of free expression, carried a
Almost exactly five years ago, the Conservatives fired the starting gun for a general election — and shot themselves in the foot. ‘We can’t go on like this,’ said the poster, next to a picture of an airbrushed David Cameron. ‘I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS.’ What on earth did it mean? No one
We are living longer, healthier and more prosperous lives than ever — it’s one of the greatest advances of our time, and yet our politicians prefer to see it as a disaster. ‘We are facing a time bomb,’ says the Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb, a health minister. He presents the numbers as if we are supposed
When George Osborne first became Chancellor, he asked to be judged on his ability to reduce the deficit. He does not make that request any more. This year’s deficit is almost three times higher than the £37 billion he originally planned, but he understandably glossed over this point when delivering his Autumn Statement. He has
An official end to the Cold War was declared at a summit between President George H. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev on a Soviet cruise ship moored at Malta on 2 December 1989. It is only a matter of time before western governments will have to admit that it has recommenced. While the rhetoric against Islamic
Anyone listening to the BBC this week could be forgiven for thinking that the musician Bob Geldof had just emerged from Africa, like a latter-day Dr Livingstone, the first westerner with news of a deadly new virus. He and his makeshift band of celebrities have adopted Ebola, their song blazing from the radio while Geldof
For decades, interventions of the Archbishop of Canterbury in national debate were like a sporadic bombardment of small pebbles against the door of Downing Street. Justin Welby has changed all that. This week, payday loan companies are facing reform (or in some cases oblivion) as new caps on interest payments come into effect. That the
Imagine if, in one of her first acts as First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon announced that, in spite of the result of September’s independence vote, Scotland was to declare independence anyway, on the basis that opinion polls now showed a majority of people in favour of independence and therefore there was no need for
In the 2005 general election this magazine supported the Conservatives, with one exception — we urged voters in Medway not to vote for a deeply unimpressive Tory candidate by the name of Mark Reckless. Our then political editor, Peter Oborne, went so far as to write a pamphlet in support of the Labour rival, Bob Marshall
George Osborne has declared victory over Ed Balls, the IMF and all the others who warned that his austerity measures would throw Britain back into recession. But his triumphalism obscures a huge failure: his inability to contain the national debt. While the UK economy has been growing strongly (it is currently the fastest-growing of any
Turkey has long been a bridge between the West and the Middle East. Its record on free speech may be lamentable and it treats its Kurdish minority shoddily, but against that stands a genuine will to improve its human rights record and an ambition to become a modern, free and prosperous state. This has long
There is something depressing about the fact that it has taken a sick Spanish nurse to put Ebola back on the front pages. Since the summer, some 3,400 West Africans have died, but interest in the story here had waned. So long as the disease did not make the nine-mile leap across the Straits of
If the Labour party conference in Manchester felt like a funeral, the Conservatives’ gathering in Birmingham had the air of a wedding. It had jazz bands, champagne bars and a near-universal mood of celebration — which is odd, given that every opinion poll and bookmaker reckons the Tories are on course to lose power next year.
It is a mark of the uncertainty of our policy in the Middle East that just over a year ago Parliament was recalled to debate whether to launch military strikes in aid of rebels in Syria. This year, it has been recalled to discuss whether the RAF should join the strikes against the rebels in
