Ed Balls has a reputation as a master of subterfuge and vicious smear – undeserved I’m sure. But the Shadow Home Secretary is right, incontrovertibly so, when he says that Andy Coulson is innocent until proved guilty. One can understand Chris Bryant’s fury that his phone was tapped by one of Coulson’s more furtive underlings.
Andy Coulson had a chat and a Bath Oliver with the Met recently. Rejoice! The News of the World phone tapping story continues. The allegations against Coulson do the government no favours. But, even if, in a hypothetical drama, Coulson were to be charged I doubt many would care. I don’t deny the seriousness of
After a summer of sporadic announcements, IDS’ welfare reforms will be published in a white paper next week. As in 1997, when Tony Blair urged Frank Field to think the unthinkable, there is consensus on the need for radical welfare change. IDS has earned respect as a moral and pragmatic reformer, and he attracts goodwill
Monday is eagle day for the overhaul of government machinery. Ben Brogan explains how the publication of 20 departmental business plans will enable the public to chart the progress of government reform – inaugurating a revolution is transparency, that meme of the moment. I’ve always wondered why the Tories are so keen on touting ‘transparency’.
An intriguing argument from the Economist’s Bagehot this week: the government’s liberal prisons policy will force Coalition 2.0 to tack to the right on Home Affairs. ‘If the Lib Dems’ sway on these issues was foreseeable, so are its political dangers. One is Tory anger. Even some of the Conservative MPs who agree with the
This week, there have been calls for certain public sector strikes to be made unlawful, Tube strikes and, today, the firemen have called off their strike having ‘listened to the concerns of the public’. It is all so 2002. Go To Blazes, The Spectator, 26 October 2002 Any public sector union contemplating a strike is
The question at the bottom of this shoddy leaflet must surely join John Rentoul’s famous list. Who on earth will stand by the egregious Phil Woolas now? As with the Tower Hamlets debacle, Ed Miliband is taking eons to make a straight forward statement: the Labour leadership condemns the actions of Phil Woolas and hopes
Hysteria has lapsed into disaffection: it was a bleak night for President Obama. But, despite the apparent immediacy of a ‘conservative moment’, there is caution in Republican circles this morning: both Clinton and Reagan won from similar positions in 1982 and 1994. The G.O.P’s leadership knows that elections are not won from the extremes, as
… defending his decision to commission two aircraftless carriers. Hat-tip: Guido
When it comes to pomp, Britain and France are still superpowers. The entente très cordiale has brought out all the plumage of 400 years of professional soldiering – bearskins, ostrich feathers, mink, gold leaf, thorough-bred horses, billowing capes and vibrant shades of scarlet and blue. Waterloo must have been a hell of a fashion show,
After 6 years of resistance, the British government has submitted to the European Court of Human Right’s judgement that prisoners have the right to vote. It will use a case in the Court of Appeal to make the announcement and then prepare itself for compensation suits. Understandably, the government is furious that it has been forced
The government’s developing a tension headache over Control Orders, and there have been two noteworthy interventions. First, Theresa May lambasted Ken Macdonald. The former Director of Public Prosecutions, who is a now a Lib Dem peer overseeing an independent inquiry into counter-terror legislation, has made clear that he ‘will go ballistic’ if the Home Office
Welfare is fast becoming this parliament’s Ypres Salient – strategically critical, it is constantly contested. £20bn on social housing, £100bn on out of work benefits and £billions on universal benefits: welfare reform is where spending cuts are most conspicuous. A rhetorical confrontation is building and various tactical dispositions are being made. The Staggers’ George Eaton
As Julian Glover notes, Jack Straw let the cat out of the bag. ‘Never, ever, downplay the possible consequences,’ he says. The coverage of the recent bomb plot has largely ignored that it was foiled. That, by any definition, is a success, a vindication of our security services. Independent inspector Lord Carlile is right that
I wonder what they’ll come up with for Uncle Vince? Nick Clegg is a closet Tory (nice homophobic overtone there), and Danny Alexander reminds anti-persecution supremo Harriet Harman of a ginger rodent. Alexander deigned to respond, saying: ‘I am proud to be ginger and rodents do valuable work cleaning up the mess others lead behind.
David Cameron sold himself a hospital pass in Europe this week. His failure to secure a budget freeze has revealed that Britain’s clout has been wildly exaggerated. The likely 2.9 percent budget increase is mildly inconvenient for Cameron politically, but it is immaterial in the grand scheme of the next round of budget discussions and
Dressed with his effortless prose, Matthew Parris has a point (£) that proves why he is the leading commentator of the last two decades. Housing benefit reform is his subject and he urges his readers reject the legends that have accrued around the issue – not Boris, not Polly Toynbee, not shrill councils, not rapacious
Labour’s Shadow Europe Minister, Wayne David, has been busy castigating David Cameron for his apparent failure to secure an EU Budget freeze. He says, ‘It is imperative that we do have a freeze on the EU budget’. Quite so, why then did Labour MEPs vote against an amendement to freeze it?
The Big Society, in so far as it can be defined at all, envisages an empowered people taking responsibility for their local communities. The little platoons’ efforts could determine the atmosphere of a place, by helping to deliver public services, founding employment schemes, running activities that unite the rich and the dispossessed, and exercising more
Russia and Nato are now allies, or birds of a feather at least. The Independent reports that the twentieth century’s opposed spheres will work together for stability in Afghanistan. The attendant irony is blissful. Two years ago, machismo raged between Nato and Russia over Georgia. Why the sudden accord? There are two schools of thought,
