Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
It’s being reported that Gordon Brown has decided not to fight the next general election. Odd timing, you might think, he’s had almost five years to make up his mind – so why bail now, just four months away from the dissolution of parliament? Such a delay puts his successor at a distinct disadvantage, with only
Rochester is not a freak. It has given us a glimpse of what bookies now believe to be the lost likely outcome of the next election: that no one wins. I look at this in my Daily Telegraph column today. ‘All bets are off,’ said Nigel Farage after Mark Reckless prevailed in yesterday’s by-election. But
I have the honour of having my Ch4 Dispatches documentary, now available online, reviewed by Michael White in the Guardian today. I think he was expecting me to lay into Labour, and critiques the show as if I did. In general, I seem to be charged with being in possession of opinions about inequality while being right-wing. I plead
At 8pm tonight, I’m presenting a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on inequality, entitled How The Rich Get Richer. In 27 fact-filled minutes, I go through a lot of things – arguing that inequality is about more than tax receipts, and tackling it means more than complaining about rich people. In fact, I’d argue that the
(Update: you can now watch the documentary online here) Inequality is rising up the political agenda right now, but the debate usually descends into clichés about wealth, bankers and tax. On Monday, I try to look at the subject more broadly in a Dispatches documentary for Channel 4 entitled How the Rich Get Richer (clip
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_13_Nov_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Julie Bindel debate the inequality of marriage” startat=1048] Listen [/audioplayer]In the digital era, those looking for soulmates can be brutally clear about who need not apply. There are websites like Blues Match, for alumni of Oxbridge and Ivy League universities only. Then come the smartphone apps: Tinder, for straightforward dating,
After spending so many years pointing out Gordon Brown’s tricks and deceits, I had hoped for a bit of a retirement when George Osborne took office. No such luck. The Chancellor seems to have learned too much from his old nemesis and seems unable to resist stretching the truth – sometimes until the elastic snaps. So
George Osborne will tonight return from Brussels bringing peace with honour. He says he has agreed to hand over just £850 million to the EU, rather than the £1.7 billion it asked for, as a penalty for having the fastest economic growth in Europe. If true*, how did he wangle it? I have a theory. He could have told
A sell-out crowd gathered at this evening’s Spectator event: Boris Johnson in discussion with Andrew Neil about his book on Winston Churchill. Here is my summary of BoJo’s main points:- listen to ‘The Churchill Factor with Boris Johnson’ on audioBoom
Alistair Darling has told tomorrow’s FT that he won’t be seeking re-election and is off at the ‘relatively young’ age of 60 to try something new. He backs the also-departing Jim Murphy as leader of Scottish Labour but will do so as a member of the public. Darling’s decision doesn’t surprise me: there were rumours that
David Laws is an honourable, clear-thinking politician – but looming general elections (and, in the Liberal Democrats’ case, threatened extinction) can have strange effects on a man. Hence his comments about the school curriculum today. He starts off with what sounds like a liberal complaint: politicians ought not to interfere with education. The school curriculum
It’s great to read David Cameron’s article in The Times today making the moral case for tax cuts. It’s tough for him to do so, given that his Chancellor has pushed back the date for balancing the books until 2018/19, a decade after the crash. But he has been doing some maths, which makes its
The brilliant Matthew Parris writes in his Times column today about Margaret Thatcher using the word ‘swamped’ in relation to immigration in 1978. We had been averaging 500-700 letters a week when, discussing immigration in a TV interview, Mrs Thatcher used the word “swamped”. In the following week she received about 5,000 letters, almost all
WANTED: a fall guy to oversee the Scottish Labour Party’s greatest Westminster electoral setback in May 2015 – and be blamed for it afterwards. Seven-month fixed contract. It seems that Hutchie boy Anas Sarwar doesn’t fancy the job, having ruled himself out this afternoon. But Jim Murphy hasn’t (yet), which has made him the bookies’ favourite. I’m not tempted
Now that Johann Lamont has quit as leader of Scottish Labour, bookies are now taking odds on her successor. Four of the eight most likely candidates are Westminster MPs and third-favourite is Gordon Brown himself. He’s struggling to find a role nowadays, and there’s not much demand for him in the international speaker circuit. His role in the referendum
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_January_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Charlotte Leslie and James Forsyth join Sebastian Payne to discuss the NHS.” startat=1410] Listen [/audioplayer] As someone who believes that a Labour government would be a calamity for Britain, I ought not to mind the recent fuss about NHS Wales. Yes, it is a disaster – as the Daily Mail has been cleverly
Ever the insurgent, Nigel Farage decided to give his post-Clacton interview to BBC Sunday Politics today rather than Andrew Marr show. He would have regretted fairly soon: the line of questioning was all about Ukip policies, which are notoriously flimsy. What about Patrick O’Flynn’s idea for a SamCam tax on luxury goods? Farage dropped it,
listen to ‘Podcast: Ukip’s Clacton victory’ on audioBoom
At its peak, the Stasi employed one agent for every 165 East Germans. Spying was a labour-intensive business then — you needed to monitor telephone calls, steam open mail, plant a bug, follow suspects on shopping trips and then write reports for the KGB. The advantage was that, human nature being what it is, the
Every Conservative should wish the Liberal Democrats a successful conference in Glasgow this week and not from any misplaced sense of coalition loyalty. The poor souls are on a pathetic 7 per cent in the polls, against 23 per cent in the general election. The Tories’ embrace has proven toxic for them. Yes, it was
