The intelligent case for voting for Tony Blair in 1997 and 2001 was simple and very compelling. Only New Labour could bring about deep-seated reform of British public services. The argument went as follows: the Tories would never be trusted to tamper with the NHS or the social security system. Their motives were suspect. The
On Monday the Employment Equality Regulations 2003 came into force, making it an offence, subject to an unlimited fine, for employers to discriminate against their staff on the basis of their religious belief or sexual orientation. On Tuesday the Norwich Union announced that it was cutting 2,300 call-centre jobs in Britain and moving them to
Six years into the Thatcher government, and there was no question about who the Prime Minister was, what she stood for and where she was going. There was already a substantial body of achievement. Not so Tony Blair. Halfway through his second term he remains a rudderless and curiously negligible figure. If he vanished one
When former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing referred to the writing of the proposed EU constitution as Europe’s ‘Philadelphia moment’, he was presumably referring not to the composition of the United States’ constitution in 1787, but to the popular brand of processed cheese. What emerges from the first two months of the year-long negotiations is
Normally the leaves are still on the trees, full of their autumn glory in russet and brown, when Parliament rises ahead of the Queen’s Speech. Not this year. For reasons no one can quite explain, this session has stretched on towards winter. It has been marred by squabbling and drift. Wednesday night’s venomous rebellion over
By the time this magazine hits the streets it will be jostling for space with about a million marchers. It is important to be fair to those who have turned out to parade their hatred of the American President. Some of them may be inspired by principled objections to, say, the treatment of prisoners in
The Queen’s state carriage has carried some pretty rum types over the years. Nicolae Ceauscescu took a break from murdering his countrymen to take a ride down the Mall in June 1978. In 1994 it was Robert Mugabe’s privilege and in 1979 Kenya’s President Daniel arap Moi — at a time when Moi’s corrupt administration
Last week’s display of virtuosity by Michael Howard was immaculate, ruthless, perfectly executed: high politics at its purest and most beautiful. His clarity of vision, contemptuous facing down of opposition, cunning, efficiency, resolve, above all the compression of eight weeks’ weary business into 90 minutes’ decisive action, combined to clear the battlefield with a single
It is too much to hope that by the time all our subscribers have received this week’s magazine there will have been a change of government. Nevertheless, world events may have moved on substantially. The Royal Mail has admitted that it will take three weeks to clear the backlog of post created by last week’s
Tory MPs have decided to get rid of their leader in what are, on the face of it, surprising circumstances. The party is ahead in the polls by as much as 5 per cent. The recent Blackpool conference generated a host of new policies on health, education and welfare, most of which attracted favourable notices
It has been a week of stagnation and drift in Westminster. MPs have almost nothing to do in the Commons. On Monday night party managers put Conservative MPs on a one-line whip; in other words told them that they might as well go home, a decision that was only partly inspired by the forlorn hope
Almost forgotten among the hubbub over the Iraqi war is the last bout of diplomatic fisticuffs between Europe and America. On 5 March 2002, George W. Bush issued Presidential Proclamation 7529, placing tariffs of 30 per cent on imported steel in an attempt to protect the fading American steel industry. At the time, this magazine
Three events counted at Westminster this week. The first, and by far the most important, was the dramatic testimony given on Monday to Lord Hutton by Kevin Tebbit, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence. Tebbit confirmed that Tony Blair chaired the crucial meeting at which the ‘naming strategy’, designed to bring the identity of
At Alfred Roberts’s grocery store in Grantham in the 1930s, husband, wife and daughters all took their turn behind the counter. For any Conservative, the decision to employ other family members in one’s business ought to come across as an act of pragmatism. Indeed, the efficiency of such an arrangement is appreciated not just by
When the House of Commons returns next week, Iain Duncan Smith will face a personal and political decision that must rank as among the most challenging of his career. He has to decide how the Conservative party handles Iraq. Iain has a special responsibility, both to the nation and to the party. Some time before
No country can be expected to sit idly by while its citizens are slaughtered by suicidal fanatics, as those of Israel are. Moreover, virtually by definition, the fanatics themselves cannot be deterred, since they court death rather than fear it. It follows that only the sponsors of the fanatics can be deterred, for they are
There are times when there is no alternative but to throw up one’s hands in despair and just confess that one is not up to the job. A plumber, sent to investigate a problem with the drains, is doing his client a favour if he admits that he cannot identify the cause of the problem.
Sir Ian McKellen’s visits to Downing Street were supposedly to discuss gay rights. To study the Prime Minister’s conference speech at Bournemouth, though, suggests another possibility: that our foremost Shakespearian actor has been giving Tony Blair some voice training. The trembling, impassioned delivery, the pregnant pauses: while most retired prime ministers these days are assured
For a long period in the late 1990s I worked for the Daily Express, a paper which vigorously supported the New Labour government. Once every six months or so Alastair Campbell, sometimes accompanied by Tony Blair, would turn up to give us our marching orders. At the end of one of these meetings I asked
Readers may feel they have had almost enough of The Spectator’s 175th anniversary. Enormous and flattering articles have appeared in newspapers, including the Guardian. Spectator staff have been deployed on the airwaves, plugging merrily away. If the thought were not so appalling, one might even wonder whether there were some public-relations campaign, to ‘plant’ favourable