Miss Ruth Kelly resisted pressure to resign as the Secretary of State for Education after it was learnt that a minister had approved the employment in a school of a man who had been put on the sex offenders register after being cautioned by police for gaining access to child pornography on the internet. Other
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This week a new expression enters the lexicon of Conservative thought: social justice. According to David Cameron, the Conservative party now offers ‘a forward-looking vision which recognises that social justice will only be delivered by empowering people to fulfil their potential’. The party even now has a ‘social justice poverty group’ led by the former
Our successful railways From Adrian LyonsSir: Your leading article (7 January) suggested that railway operators are a cartel bent on exploiting their customers, but this is grossly unfair. Fares have risen, but an overall increase of 3 per cent above inflation since 1995 hardly constitutes ‘steeply rising prices’. Furthermore, a tremendous range of fares and
Mr Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, called a press conference and said, ‘Over the past 18 months, I’ve been coming to terms with, and seeking to cope with, a drinking problem…. I’ve not had a drink for the past two months and I don’t intend to in the future.’ He invited rivals
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The Prime Minister is right about one thing: ‘The liberty of the law-abiding citizen to be safe from fear comes first.’ It is indeed the first duty of the state to ensure that its citizens can live peacefully and go about their lawful business without fearing that they will be attacked or have their property
The cost of domestic gas and electricity was expected to rise by 15 per cent in the spring, an increase of 50 per cent in three years. Among the New Year’s honours, knighthoods went to Tom Jones, the singer; John Dankworth, the jazz musician; Arnold Wesker, the playwright; and Lord Coe, the Olympics organiser; damehoods
More women MPs, please From Amber RuddSir: Rod Liddle’s article on women candidates in the Conservative party contains an irritating and often repeated inaccuracy. (‘Let’s not forget the weirdos and halfwits’, 17/24 December). He refers to ‘the refusal of women to put themselves forward as potential candidates’. No such refusal has taken place. Women are
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Unlike the jubilant Polly Toynbee, we are not convinced that David Cameron’s recent pronouncements on big business and the redistribution of wealth quite amount to a repudiation of capitalism, nor even, as she puts it, that the Conservative leader has ‘put a stake through Mrs Thatcher’s legacy’. Mr Cameron has yet to announce any firm
Apathy rules Peter Oborne’s article ‘The Triumph of Tradition’ (10 December) is badly mistaken in its electoral analysis. New Labour has never had and cannot rely on the goodwill of over 40 per cent of the electorate. In Blair’s 1997 victory his 13.5 million votes comprised 30.8 per cent of the electorate. This year he
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JANUARY In Iraq Sunni insurgents targeted the politically dominant Shiites; Iranians were accused of supporting Shiite militants. Austria, taking up the EU presidency, accused Britain of being the ‘Sick Man of Europe’. Labour floundered over its Education Bill. FEBRUARY Dr Rowan Williams announced his retirement to a monastery in Anatolia after the greater part of
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The arrival of a prominent new figure in national life is always greeted with a period of experiment among the nation’s political cartoonists. It is not yet clear quite how David Cameron will come to be depicted, though the image that is emerging is of a slightly cherubic fellow with full cheeks and round eyes.
Apathy rules Peter Oborne’s article ‘The Triumph of Tradition’ (10 December) is badly mistaken in its electoral analysis. New Labour has never had and cannot rely on the goodwill of over 40 per cent of the electorate. In Blair’s 1997 victory his 13.5 million votes comprised 30.8 per cent of the electorate. This year he
From our UK edition
JANUARY Mr Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said it was all right to kill burglars ‘honestly and instinctively’. Iraq held elections. Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, the al-Qa’eda leader in Iraq, said, ‘We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy.’ The numbers killed by the deadly wave that devastated the fringes
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Following the example of progressive local authorities, this magazine will not, on this page this year, be celebrating Christmas but an alternative festival of light in which Muslims can share too. It is called the elections for a permanent government in Iraq. As we go to press, the polling booths are being prepared to enable
Mr David Cameron was elected leader of the Conservative party in a ballot of members, beating Mr David Davis by 134,446 votes to 64,398. Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his pre-Budget report astonished investors planning self-invested personal pensions by announcing that they ‘will be prohibited from obtaining tax advantages when investing
Austria and the Jews In Austria it is illegal publicly to deny the Holocaust (‘Let Irving speak’, 3 December). ‘Words are deeds,’ said Sigmund Freud, and in Austria we are aware of this connection. ‘There is no more anti-Semitic nation in Western Europe than Austria’? Neither the report on ‘Manifestations of anti-Semitism in the EU,
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It has become a cliché in recent days to contrast the gloomy jowls of Gordon Brown, performing emergency surgery to his spending plans in the Commons, with the beaming countenance of David Cameron, radiating hope and happiness throughout the nation. To make too much of this contrast is, of course, to underestimate the task that
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, was forced by the presence of protesters to have a cup of tea instead of delivering a speech in Islington on nuclear energy. After his cup of tea he said that energy policy was ‘back on the agenda with a vengeance’ while ‘round the world you can hear the
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Birth of the internet Martin Vander Weyer’s excellent piece (‘The UN and the internet’, 26 November) should also have pointed out that the internet was a US defence project. In the 1960s military analysts saw the potential for a fault-tolerant command-and-control network in the event of all-out nuclear war. In collaboration with major universities (including
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A fortnight ago this magazine praised the Prime Minister for a statesmanlike speech in which he made the case for abolishing agricultural subsidies and dismantling tariff barriers on food from the developing world. We repeat our assertion that if Mr Blair achieves this, it will be a legacy well worthy of honour. Unfortunately, however, he