If there is such a thing as e-panic, New Labour is in its grip. Alarmed and caught off guard by the 1.7 million people who have signed an online petition against national road-pricing, the Prime Minister has written a response to them, hastily explaining that the government’s blameless intention is to reduce congestion, rather than
The Shatt al-Arab hotel in Basra offers arguably the most wretched four-star accommodation in the Arab world. It has flushing toilets, but that is where the luxury ends. Its swimming pool is now a rubbish tip, and water has not passed through its taps for months. It has long been unclear to its only guests,
First, let us not submit to the self-indulgence of moral panic: there has never been a time when British children have been less afflicted by poverty, disease and malnutrition. The new Unicef league table for ‘child well-being’ across 21 industrialised countries, for all its disturbing statistics, gives little sense of historical perspective. Much of the
The 2018 World Cup is, by every measure, a long way off. Fifa intends to take three years to decide on which continent the tournament should be hosted, and only then start thinking about a specific country. Even the Football Association (which would submit a bid for England) has not yet come to a decision.
The tragic death in Iraq of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull under US ‘friendly fire’ in March 2003 has become a bleak parable of the flaws at the heart of the US-UK ‘special relationship’. Only now, and only thanks to a leak to the Sun of a classified recording of the conversation between two
It is a strange form of bombardment. Days, sometimes weeks, can pass without any movement from the Metropolitan Police and it seems as if the all-clear is about to be sounded above the Downing Street bunker. Then, from nowhere, comes another arrest, a fresh revelation, and the turmoil starts again. Even the sadist in Gordon
In a free society, people are at liberty to gamble, much as they are at liberty to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and engage in other practices which, if indulged to excess, can have terrible consequences. Gambling has wrecked lives and enlivened others. The morality of a casino is in the eye of the beholder: one
If nothing else, Lord Levy has at least learnt the etiquette of being investigated by police. When he was first detained last July, he contemptuously accused officers of using ‘totally unnecessary’ tactics. On Tuesday, he emerged from the police station without a word — and said, through friends, that he was feeling ‘on very good
The best passage in President Bush’s penultimate State of the Union address on Tuesday was an admission of the transience of his own administration and of the newly composed Congress he was addressing. ‘The war on terror we fight today,’ he said, ‘is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and I have
Just after the 2001 election, the triumphant Tony Blair had a plan: he would split the Home Office in two. The PM had been appalled by its performance in New Labour’s first term and had already decided to move Jack Straw to the Foreign Office. But the problem, he feared, could only be solved by
The 300th anniversary this week of the Act of Union between England and Scotland has been a depressingly defensive event rather than a festival of celebration. In the Daily Telegraph, Gordon Brown — that indefatigable champion of ‘Britishness’ — warned against the ‘Balkanisation of Britain’. The Scottish National Party is poised to form the largest
How much does a hamburger really cost? Within this question, as one of David Cameron’s senior advisers explained to me, lies the Conservatives’ new driving philosophy. A Big Mac costs £1.99. But if children guzzle too many they become obese and inflict a burden on the National Health Service. The taxpayer funds this treatment —
If a week is a long time in politics, then 13 years is a positive eternity. In 1994 it emerged that the new Leader of the Opposition, Tony Blair, had sent his eldest child, Euan, to the London Oratory School — a school that had opted out of town hall control under a Conservative policy
The news bulletins over the Christmas holiday were dominated by the vengeful execution of the deposed leader of a ruinous country. The leader, of course, was Nicolae Ceaucescu, the country Romania and the year 1989. That Romania, together with Bulgaria, has just made the then unthinkable step of joining the European Union — the conditions
It is clear from the Prime Minister’s new year message (issued somewhat surreally from the Florida home of the Bee Gee Robin Gibb) that he has already entered elder statesman mode. His theme was that Mr Brown must continue along the path which Mr Blair claims to have set: ‘[Labour] is dominating the battle of
One thing is certain about the political year ahead: No. 10 will have a new occupant well before the end of 2007. Not since Eden’s long struggle to replace Churchill has an heir-apparent had to wait as long as Gordon Brown, and the sheer duration of his battle to dislodge Tony Blair has taken a
It is hard to describe the Slave Trade Abolition Bill 1807 as a Labour victory, given that it predates the party by a century. Still, this does not deter Tony Blair or Gordon Brown from staking their claim to it. ‘The reactionaries told us that to abolish slavery was an impossible cause,’ the Chancellor recently
The juxtaposition of the sacred and the unholy is always shocking. This week, as we attend carol services, decorate our trees and prepare for Christmas with a levity of spirit, the news from Ipswich provides an unbearably horrible counterpoint. In the first ten days of this murder investigation, the bodies of five women were discovered
Monday Now I know why they call it the unhappiness agenda. Am suicidal. I never want to have anything to do with ‘social justice’ again. I shouldn’t have even been at the press conference, but Dave was nervous after things went a bit nuclear at the weekend, so nothing left to chance. Captain Smithy —
Iain Duncan Smith must have dreamed about the moment he would stun the Blair government into silence. Derision was the government’s main response to his interventions when he was Conservative leader and, even a year after his ‘quiet man’ conference speech, Labour MPs still amused themselves by saying ‘sshh’ when he rose to speak in