Columns

Saturday

James Forsyth

Politics: What Dubya taught Dave

When you think of George W. Bush, ‘philosophical influence’ isn’t the first phrase that springs to mind. When you think of George W. Bush, ‘philosophical influence’ isn’t the first phrase that springs to mind. But the former president has as good a claim as anyone to be a philosophical influence on the Cameron project. Although the intellectual debt was never acknowledged because of Bush’s unpopularity in this country, David Cameron adopted a great number of Bush’s tactics as he tried to detoxify the Conservative brand. Bush had shown Cameron how the right could win in a post-cold war era when the great economic questions appeared to have been settled.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Let councils take the decisions – and the blame

Let councils take the decisions – and the blame If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, the coalition wants you to call ‘bureaucracy busters’. This may sound like an irritating bit of alliterative spin, but it’s actually one of the government’s most radical proposals. The idea is to help individuals and community groups overcome the regulations and government restrictions that stand in the way of innovation at a local level: in other words, to clear a way for the big society. Bureaucracy busters is the brainchild of Greg Clark, the minister for decentralisation. Clark has a degree from Cambridge and a doctorate from the LSE, and is astute enough to have grasped that politicians can’t do things alone.

Matthew Parris

Take it from a former MP – popular outrage is wrecking parliament

Paradoxical I know, but I must first explain that there’s little point in my writing this, and somebody else should. Paradoxical I know, but I must first explain that there’s little point in my writing this, and somebody else should. The column it’s futile for me to write sounds a warning about the mess we’re making of MPs’ pay and allowances; and the danger not only that we discourage capable men and women from considering a political career, but that we relegate the status of politics and its practitioners in a way that may reverberate through generations to come. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), paralysed by the hysteria over MPs’ expenses that gave birth to it, is behaving with bone-headed insensitivity.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Politics: The coalition gets away with a sneaky power grab

On Monday night, David Cameron and Nick Clegg succumbed to the temptations of power. On Monday night, David Cameron and Nick Clegg succumbed to the temptations of power. They went against the spirit of their pre-election commitments to restore trust in politics. While the press concentrated on the government’s strategy for the economy, they sneakily expanded the government’s future powers of patronage. The coalition quietly whipped its MPs into voting for an expansion of the power and influence of the executive (government) over the legislature (parliament).

Hugo Rifkind

I must have had a reason to march against tuition fees. But I don’t know what it was

The first time I saw my name in print, in almost its own right, was in late 1997, after a person who was a friend, but isn’t one any more, called up Londoners’ Diary and told a young journalist who would later become a friend, but wasn’t one at the time, that I’d helped to organise a Cambridge student demonstration against tuition fees. The first time I saw my name in print, in almost its own right, was in late 1997, after a person who was a friend, but isn’t one any more, called up Londoners’ Diary and told a young journalist who would later become a friend, but wasn’t one at the time, that I’d helped to organise a Cambridge student demonstration against tuition fees. Obviously it was really about my dad, but I had a starring role.

James Delingpole

Life’s too short to be nice to lefties

Now I know why so many people hate me. It came to me in a flash during dinner with a group of bright, articulate, well-balanced sixth-formers from Roedean girls’ school. I was banging on in my rabid right-wing way about the importance of free markets and the shortcomings of feminism and suchlike when I happened accidentally to vouchsafe that the proudest achievement of my life had been teaching my children to read. And it was as if, all of a sudden, I’d waved a magic wand and sprinkled myself in fairy dust. The mood softened. You could almost see the thought bubbles above the girls’ heads, saying: ‘Aaah!’ and ‘Gosh maybe he isn’t, like, so totally evil after all.’ ‘Blimey!’ I thought to myself.

Martin Vander Weyer

Funding: Local heroes

I was acting and directing at Helmsley Arts Centre last week, in a little piece of ‘café theatre’ performed in the bar to an audience of only 50. But it was a sell-out every night and, I hope, a light-hearted distraction for the citizens of my Yorkshire town from all that gloomy talk about cuts, more cuts — and who deserves to be cut most. I was acting and directing at Helmsley Arts Centre last week, in a little piece of ‘café theatre’ performed in the bar to an audience of only 50. But it was a sell-out every night and, I hope, a light-hearted distraction for the citizens of my Yorkshire town from all that gloomy talk about cuts, more cuts — and who deserves to be cut most.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Politics: After the cuts, a growth strategy – this is an electoral as well as economic plan

On Monday night, all new Conservative MPs were summoned to a meeting with the chief whip in Portcullis House. On Monday night, all new Conservative MPs were summoned to a meeting with the chief whip in Portcullis House. The chief, a former miner who couldn’t be more different from the gilded youth of David Cameron’s A list, impressed on them the line for the week: the Conservatives do not want to be making these cuts — they are a matter of regrettable necessity. This reminder was largely unnecessary. The new MPs know the script. It is not the whole truth, though. Talk to almost any Conservative MP and they’ll tell you that the cuts will, ultimately, be good for the economy, that they will spur higher growth.

Rod Liddle

Sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll is a thoroughly conservative philosophy

The guitarist Keith Richards is perhaps most famous for having constructed a short and very simple rhythmic musical phrase, over the top of which his colleague Mick Jagger expressed an increasing irritation at being unable to acquire, in both general and specific terms, any kind of ‘satisfaction’ — despite, as he proceeded to explain, repeatedly attempting to do so. The guitarist Keith Richards is perhaps most famous for having constructed a short and very simple rhythmic musical phrase, over the top of which his colleague Mick Jagger expressed an increasing irritation at being unable to acquire, in both general and specific terms, any kind of ‘satisfaction’ — despite, as he proceeded to explain, repeatedly attempting to do so.

Matthew Parris

Toddlers know what ‘fair’ means. Do politicians?

Two words have been everywhere touted during this political season: ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’. Two words have been everywhere touted during this political season: ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’. By the time you read this, after Wednesday’s comprehensive spending review, occurrences of the first will have reached epidemic proportions. Let us examine both. Among Western nations an understanding has dawned that our long-established global economic preponderance is floundering; so we can afford less of the luxury of concern for the weakest in society, a drag on economic competitiveness. From the French revolution’s trio of goals, égalité is being quietly dropped.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Liberal Democrat ministers are discovering the Conservative facts of life

The evening before the government was formed, I walked back from the television tent city on College Green to the House of Commons with a man who was about to become a cabinet minister. The evening before the government was formed, I walked back from the television tent city on College Green to the House of Commons with a man who was about to become a cabinet minister. Conversation turned, predictably, to the forthcoming coalition. He argued that one of the major advantages of it for the Conservatives was that it would drag the Liberal Democrats rightwards, tipping the balance in the party in favour of its liberal wing and against its social democratic one. His rationale was simple: the reality of government takes politicians to the right.

Hugo Rifkind

All I’m asking for is coherence of abuse

This morning, on the way up to my desk, I bought a croissant. In doing so, I immediately penalised almost everybody who sits anywhere near me, because I had one and none of them did. And I didn’t even feel particularly guilty about it. I’m a right bastard, me. And that’s not all. I came into work by Tube, using my Oyster card. In doing so, I now realise I was penalising all those people out there who would be just as good at doing my job as I am, but can’t afford the £2 to get to Wapping. If I had any decency, any soul, I’d forgo Transport for London altogether, and my bike (which I penalised bikeless people by buying), and walk to work, thereby creating a level playing field. But I don’t. A bastard, like I said.

James Delingpole

I’m sure Richard Curtis doesn’t really want to kill my children. Well, I say that …

For some time now I’ve had this idea for a running gag in a comedy sketch series. For some time now I’ve had this idea for a running gag in a comedy sketch series. It would star a character called Unfunny Observational Comic. Each week we’d see him dying a death with his ‘Have you ever noticed...?’ comedy of recognition before an appalled audience. He’d say things like: ‘You know how it is, when you’ve broken into your neighbour’s house to rummage through her knicker drawer...?’ and ‘Gerbils. Just what is it about gerbils that makes us all want to shag ’em?

Saturday

The Spectator

Barometer | 9 October 2010

Family politics Although elder siblings are often claimed to be natural leaders and second children natural rebels, none of the last seven prime ministers have been eldest siblings. Family politics Although elder siblings are often claimed to be natural leaders and second children natural rebels, none of the last seven prime ministers have been eldest siblings. —David Cameron is third of four children. —Gordon Brown is middle of three sons. —Tony Blair has an elder brother and younger sister. —John Major is younger of two brothers; Margaret Thatcher younger of two sisters. —Jim Callaghan and Harold Wilson both had elder sisters.

James Forsyth

Politics: If Cameron is heir to Blair, Osborne is heir to Brown

In many ways, Gordon Brown and George Osborne are opposites. In many ways, Gordon Brown and George Osborne are opposites. When Brown became chancellor, he moved into the smallest, dingiest office on the Treasury’s ministerial corridor — eschewing the grand office that had been used by his predecessors. He also made great play of turning down Dorneywood, which was left to John Prescott. Osborne has restored the natural order of things. He has moved into the best office in the corridor and sent one of his advisers to work in Brown’s old room. He has asserted his claim to Dorneywood, leaving William Hague and Nick Clegg to country-house share. Indeed, Osborne is so keen on his grace-and-favour estate that he went there late last week to work on his conference speech.

Matthew Parris

This week’s journalistic lesson: never let a cow get in the way of a good rant

Let me first say that I would have written exactly the column about the dead cow that my friend and Times colleague Alice Thomson wrote, if she hadn’t pipped me to the post. En route to Labour’s conference in Manchester, Alice had been stuck on a railway paralysed by a dead cow on the line. I had heard about the cow from dozens of people at the conference, and planned a rant at safety-first attitudes — until I learned that Alice was already penning such a rant. So, making a virtue of necessity, I decided on a more in-depth investigation of how and why these idiocies come about. And the more I learned, the less idiotic they seemed. There now follows the tale that ran around the media hothouse that is a 21st-century political conference.

Rod Liddle

The Tories’ lost leader

David Davis is the ghost at the coalition’s feast And then, somewhere behind the arras, there is David Davis. Every Conservative party conference has an arras, and this year’s arras is a very pretty one, embroidered in sky blue and a pale yellow the shade of stale egg yolks, hardly yellow at all, depicting a touching scene from the award-winning homoerotic film Brokeback Mountain. David Davis, a twice-failed leadership candidate, but a man somehow still in touch with the soul of the party, is somewhat less the focus of dissent right now than some expected him to be, although these are early days, of course.

Saturday

James Delingpole

How I provoked the wrath of Mumsnet

James Delingpole says You Know It Makes Sense Apparently I’m in the doghouse. It’s because of a piece I wrote in Tatler which asked the question: ‘If you had a boy and a girl and could only afford to educate one of them privately, which would you choose?’ All other things being equal, I foolhardily argued, it should be the boy. This is the kind of article guaranteed to grab the attention of the termagants’ website Mumsnet. And so it came to pass. Friends kept forwarding me links to the discussion going on about me, in much the same kindly, helpful way they email links to unpleasant reviews of my books I might otherwise have missed. But I’m afraid I was too squeamish to investigate.

Saturday

Matthew Parris

It may be time for a collective mea culpa from the media

Matthew Parris offers Another Voice It so happened that last Friday, before my partner and I set off from Derbyshire for the Lib Dem conference in Liverpool, he drove over to Cannock, to report a meeting called to discuss the consequences for South Staffordshire of looming spending cuts. He (his name is Julian Glover) writes for the Guardian and wanted to describe the meeting for his column that Monday. This, inter alia, was what he wrote: ‘Education spending in Staffordshire this year is £805 million, or £4,078 per pupil — 63 per cent up on the level of 2003 to 2004. In just three years, South Staffordshire Primary Care Trust’s resources limit has risen from £663 million to £888 million: up 44 per cent.’ Great Scot.