Many commentators were extremely impressed by the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. And many hoped it represented China showing a new, friendly face to the world. But now details are emerging that all may not have been as it seemed. The latest is that the 9 year old girl who charmed the audience with a
So, the provisional Key Stage 3 results have been released, and much is already being made of the drop in reading standards from last year. This drop is particularly marked among boys, whose performance in level 5 reading has fallen by 3 percent on 2007’s results. However, if you look back further, the fall in standards is even
Iain Martin writes an important piece over at Three Line Whip, in which he reveals that the Cameroons may be turning against Eric Pickles. According to Martin, their beef with the shadow communities secretary is that he took too much of the credit for the Crewe and Nantwich success, and that he’s been “grandstanding” ever since. That
So the latest figures have annual CPI inflation – the Government’s official measure – at 4.4 percent. It’s the highest figure since records began in 1997. And, at 0.6 percent higher than last month’s figure, the biggest monthly change as well. The Government target of 2 percent has been well-and-truly smashed. But despite these grim
In the interests of maintaining a healthy competition between political blogs, Coffee House has entered a team into Iain Dale’s Fantasy Football League. Of course, it will be a sufficient reward to finish above ‘Iain Dale’s Hammers’. But should we win the £100 worth of books and DVDs on offer (and we’re quietly confident…), we’ll use them as
Exactly 80 years ago today: “At the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, Bobby Pearce, a third-generation sculling champion from the Sydney suburb of Double Bay, faced an unexpected challenge in the middle of his quarterfinal race against Victor Saurin of France: a family of ducks passed single-file in front of his boat. Pearce let them pass and
Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no
Ed Balls’ article in today’s Independent is yet more of the same accountability-dodging over the recent Sats scandal. Rather than apologising, he returns to the tired “I share your frustration” mantra, as though that absolves him of any blame. He does, though, let us know what we can hold him accountable for: “So when this newspaper calls for me to be held account,
Western policymakers are finally making their official statements on the crisis in South Ossetia. Our own Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has said he “deplores” the Russian attacks on Georgia. George Bush has called Russia’s actions “disproportionate,” and told Vladimir Putin that “this violence is unacceptable”. Whilst the most ominous warning comes from Dick Cheney, who stated
For much of his time as Chancellor, it’s been hard not to feel sorry for Alistair Darling. He’s been parachuted into what are rocky economic times, and has had to deal with – and often reverse – decisions made during Brown’s Chancellorship. The recent stamp duty fiasco seems different though. It was embarrassing enough that
I’ve just got around to watching some of Gordon Brown’s appearance at the Edinburgh Book Festival yesterday (you can see footage here). It wasn’t that bad, actually. If anything, he came across as relaxed, confident and – shock, horror – fairly witty. One can’t help but view it all as a long message to David Miliband. Something
As Morus writes in an excellent post over at Political Betting, the escalation of the conflict in Georgia will cause more than a few headaches for Western policymakers. Most of their worries will centre around the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline – a pipeline which carries oil from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, from where it is shipped out to Western Europe
For those who haven’t leafed through a copy, or read the extracts in the Guardian this week, Polly Toynbee and David Walker’s new book is effectively an extended diatribe against the Unjust Rewards of those who, say, work in the City, or who went to Oxbridge universities. It’s a one-note attack – with scant room for subtleties – and Giles
Fun quote from William Hague in today’s Times: “People want normal politicians and David Miliband is more geeky, more like me… David Cameron could wear a baseball cap, whereas Miliband would find it harder to appear normal. I must have a word with him and give him some advice – don’t try to be normal
When Cameron first set about decontaminating the Conservative brand, the emphasis was on turning the Tories into the party of the environment – the Blue ‘n’ Greens, if you like. But with the decontaminaion near enough over – and after the unmitigated disaster that was the Tories’ last environment report – the emphasis has slowly shifted onto other areas. But now green
We’ve just updated the Spectator summer reading list with some selections from our literary editor, Mark Amory. You can see them – and the rest of the list – here.
If you want some grisly reading for a Friday afternoon, I’d recommend the National Risk Register, released by the Cabinet Office today. It outlines the “range of emergencies that might have a major impact on all, or significant parts of, the UK”. A welcome act of transparency – I’ve always thought it would be a good idea to know what
Nick Clegg can count himself lucky that there’s so much leadership speculation whirling around Gordon Brown – it’s probably deflected attention from his own less-than-stellar performance as Lib Dem leader. How disappointing has it been? Conservative Home’s Poll of Polls has the Lib Dems on 16.6 percent, meaning that, in their words: “Mr Clegg has added just
The ever-readable Daniel Finkelstein wrote an entertaining piece on Comment Central last week, noting the parallels between Richard Nixon and our own beleagured premier, Gordon Brown. And I weighed in with some Brown/Nixon notes of my own. As a footnote to that, I thought I’d flag up that it’s 34 years to the day since Nixon announced
Do take the time to read Michael Gove’s report A Failed Generation: Educational Inequality Under Labour, out today. Many of it findings have peppered his recent articles and speeches (including his speech on Monday, sadly overshadowed by the lads’ mag row). But gathered together as they are here, they amount to the most coherent – and shocking – denunciation of Labour’s record on