It being All Saints’ Day on Tuesday, we sang ‘For all the saints’ in church: ‘Oh, may thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,/ Fight as the saints, who nobly fought of old/ And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.’ Meanwhile, the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral were falling apart because most
When, roughly 60 years ago, Aneurin Bevan described the Conservatives as ‘lower than vermin’, Tory supporters all over the country formed a Vermin Club in proud response. Now it is time to form a Graffiti Club. On the Today programme on Monday, the day of the referendum vote in Parliament, William Hague foolishly compared his
• Lord Wolfson the Younger (both father and son are life peers) is public-spiritedly offering £250,000 for anyone who, in 25,000 words, can answer the question ‘If it becomes necessary for one or more member states to leave the euro, what is the best way for this to be arranged?’ At dinner with Simon Wolfson
Fox-hunting, as Lord Burns famously put it, ‘seriously compromises the welfare of the fox’. Everyone agrees that the welfare of Dr Fox, the Defence Secretary, has been seriously compromised, so I suppose everyone is right. But amid all the aerating about standards in public life and ministerial codes, no one seems to worry who now
Manchester ‘Beer-battered sustainable fish’, said the menu in the Palace Hotel: this great city tries to combine its incontestable northernness with its growing, but still insecure modernity. Everything has to be ‘sustainable’ now of course, which will prove difficult if the present European banking system cannot be sustained. The government’s new ideas about planning are
No opposition leader’s party conference speech is complete without a ‘This is who I am’ passage. On Tuesday, Ed Miliband said that, because of his family’s background as refugees from Hitler, he had ‘the heritage of the outsider’, but because of his own career, he had ‘the vantage point of the insider’. I wonder if
‘Up for Grabs’ shouted a notice at the ticket office at Sissinghurst. It was not easy to buy a ticket without signing the National Trust’s petition which the slogan advertised: ‘For decades our planning system has protected much loved places from harmful development. Now the government’s reforms turn this on its head, using it primarily
Ever since the Franco/British-led intervention against Gaddafi in March, the Guardian and the Daily Mail — whose foreign policy in all matters relating to the Muslim world is oddly similar — have been droning on about the Libyan ‘quagmire’. Ever since the Franco/British-led intervention against Gaddafi in March, the Guardian and the Daily Mail —
If it is any consolation to David Cameron, the last really big nationwide outbreak of riots was even worse for the prime minister than this lot. This occurred in 1981, when Mrs Thatcher faced maximum danger from her Cabinet colleagues and from public opinion because of the toughness of her economic policies. The riots spread,
In the ‘peace camp’ in Parliament Square last week, a man sat with a placard which said ‘NORWAY Jew Mafia Job’. In the ‘peace camp’ in Parliament Square last week, a man sat with a placard which said ‘NORWAY Jew Mafia Job’. I wonder if police would have tolerated it if it had replaced the
Why do those of us who support capitalism use that word? It was designed by our enemies. Capital, of course, is a vital component of an economy, and capitalism could be defined as the separation of the provision of capital from its management — a good idea in principle since it makes it possible to create
Before we leave the subject of the News of the World, I must take issue with the idea that its closure is necessarily a loss to the cause of a free press (however sad it may be for its staff). For as long as I can remember — which is roughly since Rupert Murdoch bought
Here are two things to bear in mind when reading about the News of the World phone-message hacking. The first is that all tabloid papers are even more disgusting in their methods than people realise. They act like a privatised secret police. To them, there is nothing more thrilling than a pretty, underage, murdered girl,
It is well known that, from next year, tuition fees will rise to a maximum of £9,000 per year. It is well known that, from next year, tuition fees will rise to a maximum of £9,000 per year. What is less well known is that the loan rates, for most students, will also rise enormously.
Do think-tanks make any difference to anything? I ask because I stepped down this week after six years as chairman of the centre-right think-tank Policy Exchange. In a moving ceremony in the garden of Nick Clegg’s old school (Westminster), David Cameron marked the handing over of the reins from myself to the brilliant and witty
‘The intellect of man,’ Yeats famously wrote, ‘is forced to choose between perfection of the life, or of the work.’ Patrick Leigh Fermor, who has just died aged 96, managed to refuse this choice and achieve both. ‘The intellect of man,’ Yeats famously wrote, ‘is forced to choose between perfection of the life, or of
This week, for the first time, the Union flag will fly above the Department for International Development. Gordon Brown, when Prime Minister, decreed that all public buildings should fly the flag; but DFID somehow evaded his command. When challenged about this — and about why there was no portrait of the Queen in the reception
It remains a risky thing to say, but is it possible that, in Libya, the West may be about to have a foreign policy success on its hands? Criticism of the Nato bombings has been based on the idea that the allies had no real knowledge of what they were doing. It remains a risky
Making a speech in Scotland at the weekend, I met scores of people who want their country to remain in the Union, but do not know what to do about it. They complain that they have no leadership. Unionism is probably still, by some way, the majority view, but it is decades since it was
The Americans committed an extra-judicial killing this week, violating the sovereign territory of a friendly power, and reaching bin Laden’s lair because of information obtained outside legal process at Guantanamo Bay. The Americans committed an extra-judicial killing this week, violating the sovereign territory of a friendly power, and reaching bin Laden’s lair because of information