The naming and shaming of MPs who are abusing the expenses system is becoming a Sunday ritual. Each week the papers carry a fresh set of revelations; each week public cynicism about our elected representatives becomes more deeply entrenched. This would be bad enough if the MPs involved in these scandals were merely time-serving backbenchers.
As Oscar Wilde quipped of Little Nell’s death, you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. On 24 November, Alistair Darling told the Commons: ‘I, too, am forecasting that output will continue to fall in the UK, for the first two quarters of [2009]. But then, because of decisions taken in
Just to flag up that, because of the Easter weekend, the content from the latest issue of The Spectator has been uploaded to the website a day earlier than usual. You can access all the articles here, but here are some highlights: Rod Liddle says that the Church of England has forgotten its purpose. Fraser
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
Here are some of the posts made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: Matthew d’Ancona marks the rise of the neo-confs. Fraser Nelson reports on Alistair Darling’s less optimistic forecast, and laments Ed Balls’s take on education policy. James Forsyth thinks the Government is taking us for fools, and analyses Gordon Brown’s global temptation. Peter Hoskin
Bloody rude Sir: Michael Portillo (‘The view from Basra’, 28 March) accuses the British army of arrogance and, effectively, of incompetence. He says we’ve been humiliated. This may accord with his new television persona, but it is still disingenuous, apart from being bloody rude. It is his own political class that has been shown up
The Labour government has been spinning aggressively that British troops are withdrawing from Iraq because the job is done. Major General Andy Salmon, the British Commander, has even made the rather dubious claim that Basra is now safer than Manchester. It is true that the progress made in recent months has been remarkable: there have
We at The Spectator would like to say sorry to the Prime Minister. When he declared in October that the world needed a ‘new Bretton Woods’ — a reference to the 1944 conference that established the global financial system — we took him at his word. And when he swore that the G20 summit in
Ahead of tomorrow’s big race, we asked a few Spectator contributors, and friends of Coffee House, for their Grand National tips. Here are their responses: Robin Oakley Champion trainer Paul Nicholls has had 40 runners in the Grand National without winning. He trains the favourite, My Will, but you can also get 22-1 on his
Here are some of the posts made during the past week on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson analyses Gordon Brown’s G20 deal, and gives ten reasons why a Tory government should cut state spending. James Forsyth gives his take on Barack Obama’s gift for the Queen, and reports on David Cameron’s search for a broader shadow cabinet.
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
…here are some of the posts made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson tracks Gordon Brown’s Highway to Hell, and wonders whether Alistair Darling has slipped up over the Dunfermline Building Society. James Forsyth laments the absurd demands of the NUT, and says that governments can recover from rage but not ridicule. Peter Hoskin
No progressive Sir: David Cameron’s article last week (‘It is not enough for Labour to lose this election’) mentioned the post-bureaucratic age ten times. Mr Cameron loves this phrase because it was coined by a progressive — Al Gore’s former speechwriter Andrei Cherney. And as the April date for Mr Cameron’s proposed £5 billion cuts to
A series of selective leaks had suggested that the second edition of the country’s counter-terrorism strategy, released on Tuesday, would see a shift from trying to tackle violent extremism to tackling extremism per se. This would have been a welcome development. Counter-terrorism in Britain has been crippled by a strategic failure to match policy to
Jade Goody was propelled to a very strange form of modern stardom by the reality TV show Big Brother, and even learned of the cancer that finally claimed her life last weekend on the Indian version of that programme. The title of the show was Orwellian. But what the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four could never
Here are some of the posts made over the past week on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson wonders whether we’ve witnessed the beginning of the end, and says that Cameron should learn to love the bankers. James Forsyth tracks the internet success of Daniel Hannan’s attack on Gordon Brown, and says that Brown is hemmed in. Peter Hoskin
Stuck for ideas on what and where to eat over the weekend? Then Scoff! is here to help. Scoff! is a new, food & drink quarterly pullout in the print edition of The Spectator, although all its content – and more – is available at new.spectator.co.uk/scoff. Head over there to find out how to make a
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
…here are some of the posts made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson says that a 45p tax rate is not what’s best for this country, and reveals that that Tories’ current plans would leave national debt 60% higher than it is today. James Forsyth sets out what George Osborne is playing it right
Art for money’s sake Sir: It is hardly surprising that Olivia Cole (‘How to put children off art’, 14 March) found so many schoolchildren in the National Gallery and that they seemed to be learning little about art from their visits. The Gallery, like other public bodies, has a funding agreement with its sponsor department,