The coalition is taking it to the MoD, Whitehall’s most intransigent department. The FT’s Alex Barker reports that Bernard Gray has been appointed Chief of Defence Materiel. Gray is a revered and original defence specialist with a history of criticising the MoD in plain terms. Resentment persists over his savage report into procurement, which exposed
Joy. It will be a campaigning Christmas, now that the Oldham by-election is likely to be held on 13th January. The Labour party is much exercised. The permanently outraged Chris Bryant says it is a ‘disgrace’ that politics will sully the ‘major Christian festival of the year’ – the lapsed cleric seems to have forgotten
Our colleagues at the magazine have kindly allowed us to republish the books of the year columns. Here’s the first installment. Anita Brooker Society is composed of two classes: the patrons and the patronised, and a change of status, the migration of the one to the other, is a subject well worth studying. Michel Houellebecq,
VERDICT: A quiet PMQs by recent standards. Miliband’s delivery is improving, slowly, but the content still fails him. Cameron’s commitment to the NHS is clearly very personal, but it pays a tactical dividend also in that the government is immune from the criticism Miliband made. Likewise, Labour’s jibes on the economy fall flat: Miliband has
Here is a brief selection of the best offerings from the world’s literary pages: Whilst the chattering classes are reverberating to Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, Jon Michaud of the New Yorker isn’t: ‘I breathed a sigh of relief and held up my hands like a distance runner breaking the tape. Though “Freedom” is sizable enough at
After months of whispered asides, Theresa May cut loose yesterday and expressed what may on the Tory right (not to mention Labour’s authoritarian elements) feel: Ken Clarke’s prison proposals are potentially disastrous. Prison works. Tension has built to its combustion point, but there is no apparent reason why May chose this moment. Perhaps she was
Political Betting carries this table on the breakdown of the tuition fees vote. English Lib Dems were noticeably more loyal than their Celtic counter-parts (only 16 of 43 voted against the bill), which reflects the left-wing political focus in those regions and perhaps the divide in the Liberal Democrat party itself. But, clearly, the West
John Reid made a bruising and quite extraordinary appearance on the Daily Politics earlier today. He demolished the Labour leader. Reid’s analysis was concise: there has been a vacuum at the heart of Labour since Tony Blair’s departure. Gordon Brown was divisive, at best, and clearly not up to the demands of leadership. And, Reid
The BBC is reporting that the embattled Silvio Berlusconi has survived confidence votes in both of Italy’s Houses. The vote in the second House is understood to have been particularly close; apparently, there were just a couple of votes in it. Theoretically, Berlusconi could soldier on. But his governing coalition is extremely fragile, and
Gibbon wrote that the Roman Empire collapsed under the weight of its own stupendous fabric. So too is the Ministry of Defence. An investigation by the Times (£) has revealed that bureaucratic intransigence has cost the taxpayer £6bn and several servicemen their lives. We have been here before with the Nimrod disaster and the subsequent
It seems strange for Ed Miliband to veer from offensive to charm quite so quickly, but it’s a decent ruse nonetheless. Miliband deliberately cites David Cameron’s famous ‘comprehensive offer’ and many disenchanted Lib Dems will be swayed by his three point-plan, especially after the recent Grayson intervention. Disingenuous? Yes. Opportunistic? Very. Coherent and well-defined opposition
Free from the cares of office, Andrew Motion has been busy. In fact, he has been a frenzy of activity. His output on Bob Dylan, Philip Larkin and the like has been well publicised; however, the Motion Report into poetry in schools is less well-known. I still have dreams about my short-trousered self standing
‘He has no house.’ Volislav Jakic’s epigraph opens In a Strange Room, Damon Galgut’s acclaimed novel. Donne’s ‘No man is an island’ would have served just as well. This is the story of one rootless man, Damon, and his fear of commitment. Ostensibly, travel is Galgut’s subject. Hope and desire are thwarted by chance and
The late twentieth century was blessed with brilliant academic historians whose writing had a common touch; Tony Judt was one of them. Postwar was his crowning achievement. As Europe’s divided halves were conjoined politically and economically after the Cold War, Judt united their conflicted histories. For instance, 1968 was about more than students in Paris
I doubt that Philip Larkin has ever been out of fashion, but after the 25th anniversary of his death and the publication of his letters to Monica Jones – beautifully reviewed for the Spectator by Philip Hensher – his star is well and truly back in the ascendant. T.S. Eliot, who was hardly renowned for
David Laws has responded to Andrew Adonis’ partisan review (no link apparently) of 22 Days in May. Laws’ account of the formation of the coalition and its infancy in government. Laws denies Adonis’ charge that the Lib Dems had a ‘right-wing agenda’ and, to prove the point, drops a wonderful quotation from Peter Mandelson during
The Tories have the evil gene – that was the subtext to Ed Miliband’s jibes about the complacency of the children of Thatcher. Labour’s former General Secretary, Peter Watt, disagrees. In an important post for Labour Uncut, Watt observes: ‘But there is an arrogance at the heart of our politics that is going to make
Alas, Gordon Brown’s Beyond the Crash was just too late to qualify for this month’s Spectator Book Club book of the month. What a sadness. Instead, I’ve picked a book to inspire goodwill in all men: Lucky Jim. The Spectator originally described Kingsley Amis’ campus classic as ‘that rarest of rare good things, a very
Here is a brief selection of the best offerings from the world’s literary pages: Writing in the City Journal, Christopher Hitchens asks why Capitol Hill has been stolen by the pot-boilers: ‘The days of the Georgetown hostess are gone; the hostesses themselves are gone, too. Their reign began to close years ago, when senators started
Andrew Lansley’s rhetoric is strident: ‘It’s time for politicians to stop telling people to make healthy choices. Rather than lecturing people about their habits we will give them the support they need… we will support leadership from within communities.’ One could be forgiven for thinking that the Health White Paper will inaugurate a completely new
