Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
What will free schools mean for the quality of education — in the new schools, and in the old ones they compete with? In Sweden, they don’t have to guess. They have almost 400 free schools, and data from millions of pupils. The latest study has just been published, and has strong results that I
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How strong is the Conservative commitment to liberty? Today’s Guardian front page holds the answer. A long line of Tory MPs have written to the newspaper, calling for the Prime Minister to seize a ‘once-in-a-generation’ opportunity to regulate the press. It is surprising as it contains several of the names I would had put down
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America is now mourning the loss of at least 80 lives taken by Hurricane Sandy, including those of two boys swept from their mother’s arms. The pictures of the destruction of Staten Island are staggering, and the city’s marathon has been cancelled because Mayor Bloomberg accepted that it would, after all, have diverted resources from
From our UK edition
The presidential debates are over, and Mitt Romney is within touching distance of the White House. Barack Obama was the better candidate – just – in last night’s third and final presidential debate, on the attack and with his trademark eloquence restored. But he needed to deliver a knockout blow to Mitt Romney, and failed.
From our UK edition
The Scottish National Party conference in Perth ought to have been a festival of ideas, showcasing solutions that only be applied by independence. Instead it has reminded everyone that the SNP is bereft of ideas* – and why the union is not in as much danger as Alex Salmond makes out. Salmond’s speech laid into
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Ed Miliband has adopted a rather simple strategy: do nothing, and wait for your opponents to screw up. It’s lazy, but undoubtedly effective. The Tories are playing along perfectly. The last week has given plenty ammunition for his new theme — which he repeated during his union Sponsored Walk yesterday — ‘they think they are
From our UK edition
Andrew Mitchell’s resignation does not leave David Cameron looking weak, as Labour is claiming tonight. The weekend press will have plenty fun with all this. But in the longer run, it’s the best option – and for everyone involved. The Prime Minister had an unattractive choice: he could cut his Chief Whip adrift, and give
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Coffee House was this morning named Best Online Comment Site at the Editorial Intelligence awards. We fought off stiff competition from three excellent rivals: the Guardian’s Comment is Free site, the New Statesman’s ever-improving blog and the Sunday Times’s own unmissable site. Our Coffee House editor Isabel Hardman collected the gong, but there was no speech. Which is just as well
From our UK edition
Obama edged this one, but I’d say it was a pretty low quality debate. The president’s performance would have done nothing to reassure voters who wanted to know more about what he’d do with four more years. He was eloquent but, at times, vacuous. Romney, for his part, started to ask questions of Obama directly.
From our UK edition
I used to be a barman in a pub in Rosyth, where David Cameron is visiting today, and it’s hardly a hotbed of separatism. Its dockyard is not just a reminder of the many defence jobs the Union brings, but of what happens when the work shrinks and the jobs go. Many of the locals
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When the unionists were looking for a hero to fight Alex Salmond, no one really thought of grey old Alistair Darling. He was the human fire extinguisher, sent into blazing departments to make them so boring that no smoke – or anything else – ever emerged. But now, he is taking a torch to Salmond’s
From our UK edition
One of the highlights of the Paul Ryan vs Joe Biden debate last week was Ryan attempting to explain that you can lower tax rates and increase tax revenues. “Not mathematically possible,” snapped back Biden. “Never been done before.” It has, replied Ryan. “Jack Kennedy lowered tax rates and increased growth.” An incredulous Biden said:
From our UK edition
Britain’s national debt is rising faster than any of the basket-case Eurozone countries that George Osborne is so fond of disparaging but here’s the thing: only 16pc of voters realise that debt is going up. Why? Are they all thick? Or could it be that our political class is systematically misleading them? I’m inclined towards
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The great paradox of British politics is that the left moan about inequality, but it’s the right who will remedy it. Ed Miliband is proposing the restoration of the old order, where the poor get the worst schools and the rich get the best (and the opportunities that flow from it). Labour plans to tax
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This was one of David Cameron’s optimism speeches, a recession-era variant of his ‘let sunshine win the day’. It was pretty short of announcements, which is understandable given the lack of any good news. Instead he focused on essential optimism of the Conservative message: that this is a party which places faith in people, not
From our UK edition
The notion of “the mood” of the Tory party conference is harder to judge nowadays, when only one in four people here are actually Tory activists. But those I do speak to are quite upbeat. They shouldn’t be, really: the polls are pretty grim, the IMF has today underlined the depressing economic situation. But this has
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I’m interviewing Iain Duncan Smith today for a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference, hosted by the Centre for Social Justice. I will be able to grill him for an hour. It’s been quite a week for him, with this rapprochement with George Osborne and continued questions over the viability of his Universal Credit.
From our UK edition
The IMF’s growth downgrades will make tomorrow’s newspaper headlines but the more striking point is its decision to massively rewrite British economic history. As Citi’s Michael Saunders notes (PDF), the IMF now believes that UK economy was massively overheating in the boom. What we had thought was normal growth was, in fact, crazy exuberance. Britain’s economy
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Today’s downgrades from the IMF have overshadowed the Tory conference and pose an awkward question: if George Osborne’s policies were working, wouldn’t they be working by now? Is it time for a Plan B? It’s the biggest issue in British politics right now and we at The Spectator are bringing together two former Chancellors to
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You could tell this was the Boris Johnson show because people were smiling when they queued, smiling as they listened and smiling as they left. The mood in the conference hall had been completely transformed: it was as if this were comedy night, and we were waiting for the Prince of Political Standup. He was
