When Richard Mawrey QC, who presided over the inquiry into electoral fraud in Birmingham, said the tactics used in the episode would ‘disgrace a banana republic’ he was, if anything, understating his case. It was shocking enough that six men, all of whom were subsequently elected councillors, were found to have committed electoral offences so
Mr Howard Flight who, many were surprised to learn, was deputy chairman of the Conservative party, had the whip withdrawn and was told by Mr Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, that he could not stand for Parliament as a Conservative candidate after he addressed a dinner of the Conservative Way Forward association. When discussing savings
To the minds of many reasonable people the punishment meted out to Howard Flight, MP for Arundel and the South Downs, has been of unwarranted severity. No one — not even the genial Mr Flight — denies that his words were ill chosen. But his supporters would say that at heart they reflected nothing more
Private Johnson Beharry, 25, was awarded the Victoria Cross for valour on 1 May 2004 during an incident in Iraq. The government admitted that Camilla Parker Bowles would become Queen if she was married to the Prince of Wales when he became King. Mr Michael Howard, the leader of the Conservative party, said he would
It is an iron rule of politics that the more ecstatic the immediate reviews of a Budget, the more disastrous it is likely to prove for the country over the long term. Last week’s effort by Gordon Brown may yet prove to be in the grand tradition of Denis Healey’s 1975 performance — which was
In a widely leaked tinkering Budget, Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, raised the threshold for stamp duty to be payable on houses from £60,000 to £120,000 and the threshold on inheritance tax from £260,000 to £275,000; slightly increased pensions; deferred petrol duty rises until September; increased excise on cigarettes by 7p a
A Liddle simplistic I read Rod Liddle’s article (‘A question of breeding’, 12 March) with dismay. It appears that my son has autism because I found my husband’s company congenial and we married and had a child. As an explanation for a complex neurological disorder this seems slightly simplistic. In fact it seems only just
When Michael Howard was asked about abortion by Cosmopolitan magazine he gave an entirely reasonable answer: that he himself supported the case for abortion, and was reconciled to the practice — a broad statement of principle that one might expect from the leader of a progressive party with hopes of forming a government. It was
The government was defeated in the House of Lords by 249 to 119 when a Liberal Democrat amendment to the Prevention of Terrorism Bill was passed — to apply the prior sanction of a judge rather than the say-so of a home secretary to all proposed control orders, not merely those that stipulated house arrest.
ADHD is an illness I am the mother of a daughter who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). For the past 23 years I have protected her and defended myself against the sort of opinionated, didactic comments made on this disorder by people such as your writer Leo McKinstry (‘Not ill — just naughty’, 26
The latest crime-fighting proposal from the IRA is so boneheaded, so stunning in its stupidity, so stereotypically moronic, that if it had not come from a bunch of thugs and killers we might be tempted to say that it is almost sweet. The sisters of Robert McCartney, who was murdered in a Belfast bar, are
The government did a good deal of nodding and winking to the opposition over its rushed legislation to provide for house arrest without trial and other controls on anyone suspected of connections with terrorism. Mr Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, conceded that judges should decide if suspects were to be put under house arrest, but
Lay off the Tory tabloids Douglas Hurd advises us to ignore the campaigns of the popular press — and, by implication, the people whose concerns they ably articulate (‘Time to fight back’, 26 February). Hurd has spent his professional patrician lifetime disdaining the opinions of ordinary people. That is why the party he and his
It is unfortunate, though perhaps inevitable, that people who have lived only in conditions of liberty and democracy should have limited interest in the legal provisions that keep societies free. That much is clear from the public’s response to the Prevention of Terrorism Bill. The past week saw one of the gravest parliamentary debates of
Mr Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, attempted to rush through Parliament legislation to put people suspected of terrorism under house arrest without trial. Mr Michael McDowell, the Irish justice minister, said that leaders of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland were also members of the Irish Republican Army’s seven-man Army Council: ‘We’re talking about Martin McGuinness,
Miller’s genius Attention must be paid’ to Arthur Miller (Mark Steyn, ‘Death of a salesman’, 19 February) quite simply because he was the greatest dramatist of our lifetime. Briefly to answer Steyn, it was hardly Miller’s fault that his biographer failed to locate Norwich accurately; and having survived the McCarthy witch-hunt, it seems a little
If you want an answer to the tricky question of whether it is right for the Queen to boycott her son’s wedding, turn to that leading constitutional expert, Max Clifford: ‘Of course she should go. She’s his mum.’ Once the legality of the wedding is established, the love of a mother for her son is
The Labour party made six so-called pledges: ‘Your family better off. Your child achieving more. Your children with the best start. Your family treated better and faster. Your community safer. Your country’s borders protected.’ Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, made a speech at a party conference at Gateshead in which he said his relationship
The war on terror will be concluded, George W. Bush has suggested, when citizens of the free world no longer live in fear. Everyone, that is, except Britons accused of crimes in America. Last week, three former investment bankers with the NatWest, David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby, took the extraordinary step, via a
Mr Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, proposed a points system, measuring desirable skills and suchlike qualities, to determine which immigrants from outside the European Community would be allowed to settle permanently in Britain. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) refused to return a man with alleged al-Qa’eda links to Belmarsh prison, where he had been