Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
All hail, Jeremy Hunt, the axe man. Cameron’s first tax cut will be a licence fee cut* – and Hunt is planning to axe some stations to pay for it. Hunt is thinking of axing 1Extra, apparently, with BBC3 and BBC4 already under threat. Also under Hunt’s axe would be the National Lottery’s runnng costs.
So, what is The Spectator coming to? Dishing out trophies to Harman and all these Labour types? Has the editor’s chair made me crawl up to people like Harman and Darling? Am I angling for a political seat? The comments to my earlier blog post raise some excellent points – about politics, polemic and The
Harriet Harman as the Spectator/Threadneedle parliamentarian of the year? When the judging panel started our deliberations, we had no idea we’d end up giving the top laurels to Harperson and Mandelson. Well, Mandelson as politician of the year was a no-brainer: you don’t need an explanation. He just is. He took over a government single-handedly.
A week after David Cameron ruled out a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, hardly a squeak of protest has been heard from Eurosceptics in his party. It’s not because they have accepted defeat, says Fraser Nelson, but because they are deadly serious about victory Anyone who believed last week’s talk of the death of Tory
The Times tempted fate today with its splash boasting about the confidence and the strong pound. Fitch Ratings has today said that Britain’s AAA debt rating is more at risk than that of any other major nation because it needs “the largest budget adjustment” – ie, the most cuts – because Britain has the largest
Gordon Brown’s suggestion for a Tobin tax would, if implemented, crucify the City of London. We are the largest foreign exchange centre in the world and that Brown is seriously suggesting hitting this industry is a sure sign he does not expect to be in government after the election. It is the proposal that a
How close were Labour and the Soviets during the cold war? At the time, many newspapers were on the hunt for links – but allegations were hard to prove. Today, the Spectator tells the story from the horse’s mouth – Anatoly Chernyaev, the Kremlin’s link man with Labour in the 70s and 80s. Unbeknown to
So David Cameron will let it rest there after all. And in fairness to him, he can do nothing else. Thanks to the Blair/Brown stitch up, Britain has no options left. It never did. Cameron knows that and today’s speech was just a longwinded way of saying it. He is right not to promise what
I’m midway through the Andrew Marr show – did the papers and am going back on in a bit to nod appreciatively at Sting – and the main topic is Miliband as EU Foreign Secretary. That Banana boy is being spoken of is not a compliment. The person they want in that job will be
Today’s Mac cartoon in the Daily Mail is, for me, a cut out and keep. It epitomises everything that has gone wrong with policing in Britain – a copper running past thieves to nick an old lady who has wrongly parked. And it touches on a wider theme: this is why regard for the police
Is it legitimate to discuss the strength of the link between HIV and Aids? It’s one of these hugely emotive subjects, with a fairly strong and vociferous lobby saying that any open discussion is deplorable and tantamount to Aids denialism. Whenever any debate hits this level, I get deeply suspicious. Which is why the below
First question on the Second World War. Is it fair BNP hijacked Churchill? Straw says in the war Britain defeated a party based on race like the BNP. The BNP defines itself by race – that distinguishes it from every other party. All other parties have a moral compass. Nazism didn’t and neither does the
The first results from Question Time are landing. An audience member has just told me that Griffin was “humiliated by the whole panel”. All of them “did well”, I am told. And Jack straw accused him of being the Dr Strangelove of UK politics: a fantasing conspiracy theorist. More follows
As far as the BNP is concerned, Nick Griffin has already won this Question Time debate. It’s not about whether he does badly or well – he simply wins from the publicity. He’s been on Channel Four news, got an interview in today’s Times, all will be splashed all across the tabloids tomorrow – and
Visitors to London are now given an extra special welcome when they arrive at our stations, thanks to the Metropolitan Police’s latest advert (pictured). It is advising commuters that, if they hide a gun for someone else, they will go to prison too. That’s told ‘em. But when I walked past, I did wonder
I have long been depressed about Tory health policy, or lack thereof. The News of the World today does a head-to-head about whether Andy Burnham or Andrew Lansley would be better to run the NHS – and I give my verdict. The answer, I say, is neither of them. The patient should become the consumer,
Up to now, MEPs can use Westminster’s facilities; but, yesterday, Nick Brown tabled a deplorable motion in the House of Commons – to ban Nick Griffin from parliament. Just in case there were any doubt, Andrew Dismore spelled it out, saying Brown’s motion would “mean that the newly elected British National Party members would not be allowed
I was at the Editorial Intelligence Comment awards this morning, where the Cultural Commentator of the Year, Johann Hari of The Independent, said that all commentators are only as good as their sources – the people who have the honesty and energy to bash you when you’re wrong, and give you tips so that you
One strange side-effect of the car crash that was the Liberal Democrat conference is that no one dares say the word “cuts” anymore. Since Nick Clegg promised “savage cuts” – alarming his base in the process – we’re back to the normal euphemism of “efficiencies”. This, like so much in life, will have Gordon Brown
What is the true price of Gordon Brown’s economic incompetence and inept bank regulation? The soaring national debt is one. And if you own a mortgage, you’ll find that you’re paying another. The gulf between the Bank of England base rate and the average mortgage rate is now at a huge high – as banks
