Fraser Nelson

Ken Clarke reveals today that three-quarters of convicted rioters aged 18 and over had previous convictions. Hence his term about a "feral underclass" – strong language, which politicians usually reserve for describing the media. But is this the whole story? One of the reasons that I wanted an inquiry into the riots, as Ed Miliband suggested, is that we could learn more. How many of those convicted finished school? How many were brought up in a workless household, how many by a lone parent, how many in one of London's welfare ghettoes? Did their racial composition match that of their neighbourhoods (I suspect it did, and that race is not a factor in the riots). How many are deemed to have belonged to a hardcore, and how many swept along with the mood?

As the Lib Dem conference approaches, we can expect some briefing from their spin doctors claiming to have "wrecked" all manner of Tory policies. It's a petty and ugly phase of the coalition. Last year: nuptial bliss. This year: one partner throwing china at the other. The next phase is divorce, which is why I'm surprised to see the Lib Dems accelerating the process by today's divisive briefings. Especially on something as self-defeating as school reform. We are told that "Nick Clegg defeats bid by Michael Gove to let free schools make profits". This is nonsense. As I write in this week's Spectator, Gove is not pushing for profit-seeking schools, to the disappointment of some inside Number 10.

You read it here first – four years ago. The Conservative Party looks like it will finally enact its plans to split, and the Scottish Conservatives will dissolve – at least if Murdo Fraser wins the leadership. The Sunday Telegraph has the news tomorrow: "Murdo Fraser, who is favourite to become leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, will announce that he plans to wind up the party if he wins a ballot of members next month. He would follow disbanding the party by launching a new Right-of-centre party that would contest all Scottish elections — council, Scottish Parliament and Westminster.

George Osborne was right to boast in the Commons that Britain has the “second highest rate of net job creation in the G7”. Coffee House recently pointed out that all of the increase is accounted for by foreign-born workers. But what if you narrow the definition to foreign nationals? We put in an information request to the Office for National Statistics and the below information came back. It is quite striking. Over the 12-month period to which Osborne refers, 90.1 per cent of the extra employment amongst the working-age population can be accounted for by an increase in foreign nationals working in the UK. Here are the figures. The phenomenon of pensioners returning to work is fascinating, but separate.

Poor David Cameron. He pledged to reduce annual net migration from the current 240,000 to the "tens of thousands" and what happens? Net migration in 2010 was up by 21 per cent from 2009. In a way, he deserves the flak he'll get because this was a daft target that could only have been set by someone poorly-advised about the nature of immigration. And the target allows success to be presented as failure. The inflow to Britain has stayed steady (see graph below), but the number emigrating from Britain has fallen. This is a compliment to Cameron: the most sincere vote people can make is with their feet. And in our globalised world, countries have to compete for people. Britain is as attractive as ever it was to immigrants, and more natives are staying put.

If David Cameron breaks his holidays yet again, you'll know it's because he expects Gaddafi to be a goner pretty soon. It's been a busy old night in Tripoli, with Twitter reports suggesting that Gaddafi is already dead. Mind you, William Hague et al have learned to treat Twitter reports with a mountain of salt. Let there be no doubt: Cameron pushed for the Libyan intervention, averting what looked certain to be a massacre in Benghazi. The Prime Minister took a principled stand. In so doing, he reminded the world that the West can still intervene when it so chooses and will not stand by to watch slaughter. This was a decisive moment. Averting a Benghazi massacre was in itself a victory.

I have interviewed Iain Duncan Smith for tomorrow’s Spectator. In print, space is always tight and we kept it to 1,500 words. One of the beauties of online is that you can go into detail in political debate that you never could with print: facts, graphs (my guilty pleasure) and quotes. Here is a 2,300-word version of the IDS interview, with subheadings so CoffeeHousers can skip the parts that don’t interest them. I’ve known him for years, and remember how hard it was to get out of his room four years ago when he started on the subject of gang culture and the merits early intervention. Now, he’s in the DWP, able to enact all he spoke about. He believes the riots will transform Cameron’s premiership in the same way that 9-11 did Blair’s.