Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.

The single best reason to vote Tory

There can be fewer more powerful untapped resources in Britain than the desire of parents to place their children in a good school. Every Sunday, pews of school-sponsoring churches are filled with atheist mothers and their kids. You read stories of parents giving up their kids to live with their aunt and uncle just to

Because of Blair, Britain will now be shaped by the world

It’s striking how Tony Blair, the most successful election winner in Labour party history, is now so despised in the country that gave him three landslides. This matters politically, because he has – I fear – poisoned the cause of liberal interventionism. I look at this in my News of the World column today. Blair’s

The return of IDS

What to do with Iain Duncan Smith? The Sunday Telegraph tomorrow says  he will be given a Department for Children and Social Justice – an idea that has been in the pipeline for a while now. At first, I was against IDS returning to the front bench given what amazing influence he has had as

A tale of two FTs

The Spectator isn’t in favour of many taxes, but we are calling for a mandatory insurance premium for banks. Depending on which version of the FT you picked up today, it seems the banks are agreeing to this too. But are they agreeing to a tax, or a fee? Even the FT isn’t sure –

As Basra slid towards hell, Blair looked the other way

It’s a mistake to focus on the dodgy dossier, says Fraser Nelson. Blair’s real crime was to invade Iraq with no strategy, no understanding of the Islamist factions and no qualms about leaving Iraqis to the mercy of death squads There has always been a faction of the Labour party that wanted Tony Blair in

Blair wants to tell Iranian tales

Iran. That’s the news story which poor Mr Blair is trying to spin to the panel – but they don’t pick up on his hints. It would have all been all right in Basra – he’d like to say – if it hadn’t been for those pesky Iranians. As Prime Minister, if he blamed Iran

A composed and calculated Blair takes round one

So, what do we make of round one? Blair looks younger, in a strange way. A shorter haircut. But all those thespian mannerisms that I had forgotten about are still there – and are being used to full effect. A complete mastery of his facial expressions – which, for Blair, do the communicating. He can

Blair's real crime

As Tony Blair prepares to sit in the dock tomorrow, I suspect he knows he’ll walk it. The focus is on the case for war and how it was spun – which will be his Mastermind specialist subject. Nor will anything new be uncovered. As one of the journalists whose summer holiday was eaten up

An election victory is only the start of the battle for Cameron

The News of the World has done its poll of marginal seats today (story here, Anthony Wells here) – a hugely expensive operation, but worthwhile because British elections are decided in marginal seats. National polling, while interesting, can be a misleading indicator of outcome. The result is that the Tories have a safe lead of

Rompuy wants the EU to slither onto the world stage

Well hello there, Rompuy. We haven’t heard much from the new EU president so far – he was upstaged by Barroso at the Copenhagen conference, showing that the EU stage only has room for one super-ego*. But with the Lisbon Treaty ratified, in defiance of public opinion in Britain (and Labour’s manifesto pledge), he now

Osborne looks to Sweden, but let's not turn Japanese

The Tories have said plenty to dismay me in the last few weeks, so I was delighted to pick up the FT today to see George Osborne talking sense – and boldness. Given that we have to increase taxes, it’s an obvious one to raise. The “too big to fail” principle means that the state

Surprise, suprise, inflation's on the rise

Oops! Britain’s inflation is heading back to 4 per cent territory ­ as you’d expect with the Bank of England printing money and using the debt to finance government spending. If you create more money, you reduce the value of the money. Citi has done another brilliant research note, which it is putting online, laying

The cost of saving the Army

We have led the magazine this week on coming Tory defence cuts, with a brilliant piece by Max Hastings. Look closely at the cover image (our second by Christian Adams) and you can see the guillotine blade will hit he RAF and Navy guys before the Army. This, Hastings argues, will be the effect of

Both sides of the divide

Sky has again given the BBC a lesson in how to produce documentaries. Ross Kemp in Israel last night was superb: not just grippingly produced, but actually balanced. Yesterday’s episode opened with Kemp on a tour with an Israeli taxi driver, who talks about the Palestinian terror attacks, the effects it has on his community

Cameron has the positioning right - but fiscal questions remain<br />

Here, CoffeeHousers, is my take on this morning’s Cameron interview: 1. General demeanor: excellent, articulate, confident. The complete opposite from Brown. It does make you think that he should wipe the floor with Brown in the TV debates. 2. “Last week we saw William Hague and George Osborne going to Afghanistan together. First shadow Chancellor,

A message to subscribers

One of the joys of living in Britain is watching the country fall apart when some snow falls. Trucks laden with your copies of The Spectator are, alas, no exception to this ­ and we gather that many of our readers could face delays before receiving their magazines. So we have decided to put the

What's it all about, Dave?

This morning, I drove past one of the Cameron adverts – “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS” – and that Bacacharch & David song came into my head: “What’s it all about, Alfie?” It’s been in my head, in fact, ever since his Oxford speech last weekend. Just what is the Big Idea? We

Losing the plot | 6 January 2010

There are German operas that lasted longer than today’s Hoon-Hewitt plot. Launched at 12.45pm, given legs by the fact that ministers hate Brown too much to interrupt their lunches for him. But dead by 6pm due to Mandelson texting Nick Robinson. (Again, you can’t fault Mandy for drama). You feel the Tories should take Labour