Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
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The only flaw in Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful World is the line “I see babies crying/I watch them grow/they’ll learn much more/than I’ll ever know.” Education, it turned out, did not progress like science, transport, medicine and pretty much everything else has since the song was written. And today we are told that literacy standards here
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Cameron again handled the immigration issue well today, and is linking it to welfare reform. Why do we have so many vacancies in Britain, asked Humphrys? Because of the perverse incentives of our welfare state, he says. While this may perplex the pollys of this world, it will make sense to the majority. It’s what
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Just in case anyone was wondering, the Tories would like to hint (ever so gently) that Cameron socked it to those hand amputators in his meeting with them today. Or, in diplomatic language of a spokesman, “Most of the 45 minute meeting was spent discussing co-operation between Britain and Saudi Arabia on counter-terrorism matters, including
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Gordon Brown has today handed a huge advantage to the Conservatives. His speech on education shows he has no ideas for it. There will be a five year plan to eradicate failing schools (if only they’d thought of that in 1997, eh?) and our Dear Leader will ask all pupils to consider apprenticeships. Has Brown
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Have we had the full story about foreign workers? Peter Hain has admitted the figure of those arriving here since 1997 is 1.1 million, not 800,000, and Caroline Flint said on the radio she would like to “acknowledge” that this makes up 8% of the workforce. As many newspapers observe today, this means of the
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A very good speech on demography from Cameron, I thought. Perhaps, the clearest and widest-ranging one delivered by any frontbench politician so far. “Demographic change” is better than the I-word (as Jon Cruddas says). The “atomisation of society” is a major factor in housing pressure, and shows the relevance of his pro-family stance. It was
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I had thought David Cameron would shy away from immigration. That the scars of the 2005 campaign would keep him away from it just as Letwin’s 2001 disaster left him too traumatised to ever consider tax cuts again. Yet today at 11.15am at Policy Exchange, Cameron will give a keynote speech on immigration – the
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Once, Alistair Campbell would have spotted and filled the news vacuum which sucks away at the papers this weekend. Instead it the Tories have scored a spin coup. They have grabbed headlines by re-announcing their longstanding “English votes for English laws” policy which (as Jonathan Freedland said in July) is “not new but in their
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One of the benefits of doing Question Time is being taken to task on the blogosphere for days afterwards, and my comments on welfare and immigration have been reproduced and critiqued. Here’s my offending quote: “Right now we don’t really notice that we have 14% of the population on benefits, a huge figure. But if
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At the Labour party conference in Bournemouth, Tony Blair was airbrushed out of the picture. But this week Blair’s ghost has returned to haunt Gordon Brown with a new biography of the ex-PM, sniping from the disaffected and the evidence of Yates of the Yard on cash for honours. The challenge now for Gordon Brown
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While preparing for my first Question Time last night, talking to former panellists, I discovered a strata of politics I didn’t know existed. With five million viewers it’s the most-watched political TV programme and is taken incredibly seriously by all parties. Blair expected his Cabinet to do it, and face the public (although one G.
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One of my favourite themes is the power of metrics. The party who chooses the right yardsticks shapes the debate: something Labour understood early on, with their specific definition of “child poverty,” hospital waiting times and unemployment. An example jumps out at me today with the abortion debate. The Times strikingly visualises what we’re talking
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More Labour glum faces today, and much for them to be glum about. Cameron opened on a good theme: Brown’s plans to confiscate budget surpluses accrued by prudent schools. Cameron used this as an allegory for Brown’s statism, versus Tory localism. “Why does he think he knows how to use the money better than the
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I’m just out of the Public Administration Select Committee meeting with John Yates. No revelations, but a clear clash of cultures – and philosophies. Tony Wright, the PASC chair, said that cash-for-honours has been going on for years. “It’s the way of the world,” he said at one point. So why, they wanted to know,
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Imagine a new city the size of York or Portsmouth being built every year for 30 years. This, according to the Office of National Statistics, is what’s happening for the foreseeable future with immigration: forecasts are up from 145,000 to 190,000 a year. That’s net immigration, so the actual number of newcomers will be over
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Just out of the Lions for Lambs premiere in Leicester Square. It is the latest of Hollywood’s celluloid attacks on the White House, and a call to arms. The plot: Tom Cruise is a senator with presidential ambitions giving a reporter (Meryl Streep) an exclusive on his latest strategy in Afghanistan – ongoing as they
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I’d like to put on record my strong support for Tony Blair as a future European President. What better way to ensure that Brown does not co-operate anymore with Brussels? Or to revive that anti-Blair feeling should Brown go to the country on the same day as the June ’09 Euro elections? But Le Monde
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Does politics imitate rugby? I just heard Martin Corry on Sky saying how England pulled itself together midway through the tournament. Heading for defeat, the players brainstormed with the coach, had what Nick Easter called a “clear the air meeting” changed their style, and at the last minute found their strengths and got to the
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Hilarious insights from Anthony Seldon, a Blair biographer, in his new book which looks at the tumultuous final year of Blair’s tenure. Ed Balls referred to Blair as a “moron” and (deliciously) to Brown as “a bottler” after he refused to make a leadeship putsch after last year’s local elections. At another stage Blair declared:
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A perennial problem in politics is whether you pay miscreants to behave if the cost of treating them is higher. Why not pay drug addicts to go clean, given that the cost of handling their eventual addiction could be several times the payment? The answer comes down to one of morality. Why should junkies be