Meanwhile, back at the Tory party, they are still looking for a new leader. Thanks to the perceived brilliance of the Prime Minister — he has fed Africa, secured the 2012 Olympics and now crossed the Rhine in what the editor of this organ prefers not to call the war on terrorism — many Tory
The bombs in London last week killed people of all races and religions indiscriminately — as of course they were intended to. The terrorists who planted them were not interested in distinguishing between kinds of people: they simply wanted to kill as many of us as possible. The police now believe that the killers were
The agenda for the G8 is now clear: economic revival through better trading conditions; the elimination of corruption; the humbling of dictators; possibly even regime change. Yes, most of the G8’s member nations are in an almighty mess, and until they show the will to sort themselves out, you can forget their doing anything useful
For those who are fed up with the guff-filled platitudes of European diplomacy, there was something magnificent in the remarks of M. Chirac about British cuisine. Not since Edith Cresson said that most British men were poofters, or since a Scandinavian environment minister called John Selwyn Gummer a drittsekk, or scumbag, has there been so
Imagine, for a moment, you are an international terrorist. Not a leading one, mind you, who might have his picture on cigarette cards if such things still existed, but your ordinary, bog-standard warped fanatic who can’t get a girlfriend and who is therefore looking for something to spice up his life. Having joined the freemasonry
It seems increasingly plausible that among the many Britons to have had their identities stolen is one T. Blair of London SW1. Perhaps it was an application for a platinum card, carelessly discarded in the Downing Street dustbin, which allowed the criminals to strike; perhaps it was a greasy teenage boffin who hacked his way
The recent death of Hugo Young, while still at the peak of his powers, has left an unfilled hole in British political discourse. Nobody has since emerged to match Young’s combination of soaring ideals, substantial argument and Olympian grandeur. But this week the loss of the great Guardian commentator has been felt with an especial
If this Labour government deserves to be remembered for anything at all, it will be for the systematic stamping out of freedoms that have been enjoyed in this country for centuries. Smoking in public is now all but certain to be banned. Habeas corpus has been curtailed by Charles Clarke’s grotesque ‘control orders’. This week
For more than 100 years one overriding principle has governed British public life: the fastidious separation of public and private interests. Those who have worked for the state — whether in the armed forces, the Civil Service, as MPs, or in some other way — have never used their office for private gain or any
When Ruth Kelly became Education Secretary last December, one of her female colleagues, angry at having been passed over for promotion, denounced her as a ‘cow’ who insisted on skipping Commons debates in order to spend time with her young children. In fact, in her dedication to family life, Ms Kelly seemed a refreshing change
The biggest point about last month’s general election was not really that New Labour won, but that democracy lost. The low turnout, debased calibre of debate and half-hearted result amounted as much to a repudiation of politicians as an endorsement of Tony Blair. Government ministers and opposition spokesmen despairingly agree that they have forgotten how
A bunch of ageing rockers belting out their old hits for the supposed benefit of Africa’s poor (not to mention the hope of reviving fading careers) is such a tempting target for parody and scorn that it would be easy to dismiss Bob Geldof’s Live 8 concert on 2 July as a grotesque irrelevance. But
There is a weirdness about the Conservative predicament. The Conservative party has won all the great intellectual and political battles of the last quarter-century. It has defined — and continues to define — the public argument over the role of the state, the acceptable level of taxation, the nature of the economy, the power of
This magazine has a good record of opposing the centralising treaties of the EU. Alone in the media, The Spectator came out in 1985 against the Single European Act, which marked the first big expansion of the qualified majority vote. With a growing pack at our heels, we then opposed the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam,
In the normal course of events the start of a new parliament is marked by a strong sense of energy and purpose: new MPs finding their way about; freshly appointed ministers awash with ambition and ideas; a revalidated government secure of its democratic mandate and determined to drive things forward. But the start of this
Conservative MPs and candidates have spent the last four years campaigning against two connected evils of the Labour style of government. In innumerable speeches and press releases, they have stood up for local and national democracy, and against the tendency of the government to centralise power and to hand it over to quangocrats, bureaucrats and
The situation in France is very perplexing, especially if you are British. The French people may well vote Non in the constitutional referendum next Sunday, which would be a development with incalculable consequences for the future of Europe. But the French will vote Non for reasons that make no sense at all in Britain. The
If Michael Howard were a football manager, he would be entitled to some very bitter post-match expletives. Tony Blair’s respectable-sounding majority of 67 cannot cover for the brutal geometry of the election result. Labour, with a mere 36 per cent of the popular vote, lower than any previously commanded by a British government, secured 356
They are Achilles and Patroclus. They are David and Jonathan. They are Wallace and Gromit. Not since the emergence of the youthful Blair and Brown has there been a pair of politicians who have been so evidently close in ideology and outlook, and who have so captivated spectators by their general voter-friendliness. In making George
As The Spectator went to press this week, the Conservative party hovered on the edge of the greatest electoral catastrophe of its history: a third consecutive election defeat and the certain prospect of 12 years in the wilderness. Nothing like this has ever happened before. It was not nearly so bad after the famous reverses