Whenever I worry that my instinct for pluralism and debate is drawing me to listen to siren voices, I am reminded of the idiocy of the authoritarian alternative. This week I had the honour of being singled out by the Islamist fellow-travellers of iEngage after I dared to write that such a sectarian organisation should
It really has been the strangest of weeks and it has left me feeling curmudgeonly. On Monday I heard David Cameron give an eminently reasonable speech to Conservative Friends of Israel. Surrounded by people my teenage self would have despised, I realised that this was a speech Ed Miliband could not have made, although there
It’s quite something when the editor of The Spectator concedes that revolting students (if not the rioting ones) have a point. Fraser makes a persuasive point that no government department should have been immune from cuts. The political fallout from the decision to slash university budgets and hike tuition fees will continue long after the
I was astonished by the Guardian’s story this week about the lack of British African-Caribbean students at Oxbridge colleges. If we weren’t quite so blinded by the Wikileaks blizzard, I’m sure more would have been made of this. Hats off to David Lammy for raising the issue. I suspect this is as much an issue
This has to be the ultimate Jewish conspiracy theory story. Why have the Wikileaks disclosures been so soft on Israel? Here is Tariq Shahid from the Palestine Think Tank. I’m hoping it’s a spoof but here’s my favourite section: “Browse through all the news sources available on the latest Wikileaks revelation, and try to find
Isn’t he a character that Julian Assange? With his shades, white hair and globe-trotting antics, the founder of Wikileaks is the perfect 21st century villain or hero depending on which side of the embassy cables debate you find yourself. I have met Julian a few times and worked with him on stories concerning the Iraqi
I have just received some answers from the Foreign Office about the Bangladesh war crimes tribunal. I asked if William Hague had sent a letter to his counterpart in Bangladesh saying that there were no war criminals from the 1971 independence war in Britain. A spokesman said that while they did not comment on leaked
News reaches me from Bangladesh that the British government may have written to the Bangladesh foreign ministry asserting that there are no war criminals from the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 resident in Britain. If true, this is a catastrophic error of judgement. For the UK to pre-judge the present war crimes trials taking place
I realise the title of this post looks like an open invitation to every lunatic conspiracy theorist on the web. But I’m afraid there’s no avoiding this. Israel and the radical right (be that of the Islamic variety or the most traditional sort) are taking up a lot of my thinking time at the moment. Anyone
We Spectator bloggers are now living under a new regime. Rather than posting our blogs ourselves, we now have to go through the Spectator.com editors. This is all very sensible. Libel is a serious business and you can’t be too careful these days. The Spectator has been a stalwart defender of freedom of speech and
Andrew Rawnsley has done well to identify the problems the coalition is having deciding its line on national security. His column today is a colourful evocation of the deadlock David Cameron and Nick Clegg face over control orders and 28-day detention without charge. He calls it “alarmed semi-paralysis”, which is about right. Now they have seen
For the second year running, my politics class at City University has voted for Ann Treneman as the best parliamentary sketch writer (Quentin Letts won in 2008). I like to have an early session on the parliamentary sketch writer’s art. This is especially useful for foreign students, to whom the concept of the sketch is
A hoary old foreign correspondent once advised me on how to report on a new country when parachuted in during a crisis. I was about to be sent to Russia to cover the rouble collapse, when it looked like the whole country was about to implode. I was more than a little nervous. “When you write your
Congratulations to Sir Simon Jenkins for winning the top gong at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards. This is a well-deserved prize for a journalist who seems to get angrier with every passing day. As if to prove the point, the swashbuckling journalistic knight used his Friday column in the Guardian to have an almighty tilt at the government, the Arts Council and the
As we prepare for the Big Society to mop up where the Big State used to be and ministers call for a culture of philanthropy to replace the hand out culture, I have a suggestion for the millionaire axe men of the Coalition government. After the Comprehensive Spending Review, David Cameron should order each government
Lots of discussion of ITV’s Downton Abbey on Radio 4’s Broadcasting House and in the Sundays. There is a fascinating piece by Simon Heffer in the Sunday Telegraph extolling its virtues. It turns out that two of his friends are involved: writer Julian Fellowes and actor Hugh Bonneville. He concludes that the acting is excellent and the
No one would begrudge Ed Miliband the plaudits for his fine first performance at PMQs. He has made a good start and seemed to take David Cameron by surprise. The Labour leader has a small, under-resourced team, which has been devoted much of the last week to preparing him for the task of his first
So Ed Miliband told the Parliamentary Labour Party that he and they need to show humility. He is right, but this is easy to say and much, much harder to do. We shall see whether he has managed it at the despatch box tomorrow when the tackles David Cameron at his first PMQs. The feeling
The real problem for the Labour Party with the election of Ed Miliband is not the man himself, who is easy to like and, by instinct, a centrist politician from the New Labour tradition (however hard he tries to disown it now). No, the difficulty is the oddness of it the whole business. If the
It’s no surprise that the Coalition’s plans to take child benefit away from higher-rate taxpayers is dominating the news. It’s the boldest move the government has made so far and may yet prove to be the most reckless. So far, this attempt to sell social justice to the Conservative base has spectacularly backfired. I am